Virtual machines provide an easy way to manage separate machines inside your PC, and here are five reasons why you should use them.
A virtual machine (VM) is an image that uses your system’s resources, including processor cores, memory, and storage, to run an operating system without affecting the host machine. VMs are as old as regular PCs, dating back to the 1960s when developers at IBM sought to improve resource utilization with the help of virtualization. Since then, virtual machines have seen a huge growth in popularity among startup users and developers.
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Virtual machines were my first introduction to the world of Linux and other operating systems when I was a Windows believer. Although I have now installed dual boot Windows 11 and Linux on my computer, I will continue to use VMs for various reasons.
1 Try new behaviors…
Do you want to try a new OS but don’t want to destroy the system you are currently using? Well, you can configure a VM to use a new machine within minutes, if not seconds. Currently, it can take hours to install a new installation of the same OS on a host machine if you don’t know how to install two and do multiple boots.
Even putting aside the time taken to install a new OS, it is really difficult to install multiple boot locations on your PC. Another disadvantage of installing multiple operating systems is that you have to restart your system every time you want to change the OS. Compare this with the ability to run multiple systems at the same time on V,M and it is difficult to ignore the simple.
2 … And break without risk
Installing an OS is one thing, but what about playing around with one? There are many ways to hack an OS, and if you’re not careful enough, it’s possible to damage it beyond repair. Since the VM runs in a remote location, you won’t have to worry about accidentally damaging the virtual machine while you’re inside. In addition, hypervisors like VirtualBox and Hyper-V (the software that runs the VM) allow you to test your favorite OS without permanently damaging it, thanks to a feature called snapshot. This is like a snapshot backup that creates a history of your VM at a specific point in time – like a video game console. You can use icons to make continuous changes.
So, even if you crash the VM, you can install the old snapshot and continue from where you left off. Of course, you shouldn’t use it as a backup, but it can be a quick way to restore your system if you don’t mind the extra disk space that holds multiple images.
3 Use long-term software and hardware
There are many outdated software and games that may not run on your system due to incompatibility with your current drivers and OS. This problem is especially true for older devices and peripherals that haven’t seen updated drivers in years.
VMs are a simple and effective way to start older applications. You can also use it for use in legacy hardware as long as you have enough working ports that are compatible with the peripherals.
4 Run potentially malicious programs
Let’s say you’ve downloaded software from a dubious website but you don’t want to install it on your main PC. While a combination of Windows Defender, Malwarebytes, and common sense is enough to keep your system virus-free, you can’t be too careful when it comes to your system’s security. VMs come in handy by allowing you to run potentially malicious software without compromising your PC’s security.
Of course, you can’t just blindly install any software you find online. There are many viruses out there that can infect your computer if you are not careful. One of the safest ways to turn your VM into a malware testing environment is to disable the network adapter and disable all file sharing services on the serial and USB ports to prevent malware from escaping the VM.
5 High flexibility and fault tolerance
VMs also have the added advantage of not being tied to a single PC. As long as you have the same hypervisor installed on two or more machines, you can easily create parallel VMs on your computers. You can also use snapshots to share the changes you make to a VM with all of your machines so you can restart your work as you move between host machines.
Combine this with all the data recovery facilities provided by the snapshots, and virtual machines can be used to create and store backups of important files. Instead, you can create a VM version of your host machine and store all your data by sending an image of it to your preferred hypervisor.
Can a virtual machine replace dual boot?
With their ease of deployment, high power tolerance, and high data recovery, virtual machines are an excellent way to gain knowledge and new production processes. That being said, VMs and hypervisors have their limitations, which is a significant drop in performance for most hardware. You also need a beefy PC with a good processor and other hardware if you want to run multiple machines at the same time. Therefore, virtual machines will not replace two-dimensional and multi-dimensional systems anytime soon.
But for casual users who want a better way to use an old software or try an unknown Linux distro, creating a virtual machine is the most straightforward and easy-to-use option.
Categories: Reviews
Source: thptvinhthang.edu.vn
