Dear Marcel and Russ,
Thank you for responding.
> Just to name the obvious answer to your problem: use linux or OS-X :-p
I know. Unfortunately we have projects that cannot port to linux or OSX coz
they use directX. But running Windows Virtual Machines under Linux or OSX is
definitely a possibility.
> But if you're stuck to using windows (hey, aren't we all), use windows
>2000/XP only, and give each user his own account with limited rights (i.e.
>NOT administrator rights!) and turn off all unnecessary internet services
>(email, internet explorer, MSN messenger and the windows media player).
>That should definitely prevent most corruptions.
I agree that turning off unneeded functionalities will help. In fact, the
machine will not be connected to the net at all.
Most of the time, we see that the problems falls into these few categories:
(1)software that needs administrator rights to install. This bypass the
benefits of limited rights account
(2)Most of the time, the word "corrupted" is use wrongly. What happens is
userA overwrite a.dll version 3 with version 5, then userB finds that his
software that uses a.dll version 3 stop working and call it corrupted or
vice-versa.
There two problems are very difficult so solve with only one OS image.
[snip]
>> (2)Is the timing information accurate. For example, good enough to
measure response time.
> It will be more inaccurate, that's for sure. But how much, dunno.
That is the crunch of the problem: is the inaccuracy introduced significant?
[snip]
> I don't think you can add any hardware from the VM-OS that is on top
(e.g. windows).
Me too.
My worry is the virtualization software cannot virtualize the hardware. See
Microsoft Virtual PC for example, the description back in 2004 says that
virtual machines cannot use USB device that requires its own driver.
Best Regards,
Cinly
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