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Virtual Desktops For Home Use

Source: microsoft.public.virtualpc
Sent: 04/18/2009
From: (email address - cut out)
Message:

At work, we have thin clients that access virtual desktops on a
central server. I was reading about the product (XenDesktop) and it
is really an enterprise product rather then a home product.

Is there something really simple and basic that I could use at home to
create a virtual environment.

We have 5 computers at home, it would be nice to have 4 virtual PCs
and one "central server" that could host the desktops. I'm looking
for something really simple and straightforward that doesn't have a
big learning curve.

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Related Messages

Re: Virtual Desktops For Home Use

Sent: 04/19/2009
From: Charlie Tame <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

Bill Grant wrote:
There are pros and cons.

For business where most exchanges are text / data then terminal services
works fine, but if the server is down for maintenance / updates etc they
are all down. No Separate CDs to play music, keep personal backup on Etc.

You won't like the speed if two users try to play games, most won't work
well, and the graphics will be limited to what the dumb terminal can do.
In other words there may be "Gotchas" that don't come into the picture
at work but may do at home.

There's not really anything simple to set up, although you could make a
pretty "Secure" system that way. Unfortunately there are many possible
errors and without some knowledge that advantage is gone also.

Also, and I don't understand Microsoft's business licensing or "Volume"
licensing very well at all, but technically I think you need a license
for every "Seat".

To be honest you already have the hardware, I don't see a cost saving,
especially as the easiest setup might be to buy Small Business Server or
something - it's kind pre configured.

If you want to be able to share things then you can try "Remote Desktop"
or maybe easier a product like TightVNC but Remote Desktop can't be used
with "Home editions" of XP or Vista on the target machine. TightVNC,
WinVNC and others can.

Don't misunderstand, it's not a "Bad" idea, I've played with both, but
with the cost of PCs at rock bottom from Newegg / Geeks.com etc you
don't gain anything. For example if you have a older Win XP Home machine
then by all means set up your Vista machine to accept incoming RDP
connections and test things out, but I think you will see what I mean.

Show quoted text

>
>
> <(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
> news:(email address - cut out)...
>> At work, we have thin clients that access virtual desktops on a
>> central server. I was reading about the product (XenDesktop) and it
>> is really an enterprise product rather then a home product.
>>
>> Is there something really simple and basic that I could use at home to
>> create a virtual environment.
>>
>> We have 5 computers at home, it would be nice to have 4 virtual PCs
>> and one "central server" that could host the desktops. I'm looking
>> for something really simple and straightforward that doesn't have a
>> big learning curve.
>
> Virtual PC will not do this for you. I do not know of any software
> product which will give you virtual desktop or virtual apps using a
> client OS as the "server". With a server OS you could run Terminal
> Services or some other app and use your workstations as dumb terminals.
> I don't know of any that are cheap or simple to use.
>
>
>

Re: Virtual Desktops For Home Use

Sent: 04/19/2009
From: Charlie Tame <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

David Wilkinson wrote:

Well I think the idea was to have a "Server" with dumb terminals, I
suppose one could try running 4 virtual machines on one host and then
link each dumb terminal to each virtual machine, however I see some
speed and config problems with this and also some loss of functionality,
even over 4 cheap PCs.

I know Debian or Ubuntu will support a couple of XP / Vista VMs very
reliably using Sun's VirtualBox VM, but the free MS VM only like
Microsoft guests or so it seems from experience so yes - not intended
for production sounds about right. Even with Sun's system though you
lose functionality.

Show quoted text

> Bill Grant wrote:
>> Virtual PC will not do this for you. I do not know of any software
>> product which will give you virtual desktop or virtual apps using a
>> client OS as the "server". With a server OS you could run Terminal
>> Services or some other app and use your workstations as dumb
>> terminals. I don't know of any that are cheap or simple to use.
>
> Bill:
>
> Maybe I'm not sure what the OP wants, but Virtual Server (and I think
> VMWare Server) will run on an XP or Vista host.
>
> I know using XP as host for Vistual Server is not intended for
> "production", but it works. I am using it to host a virtual WHS, and
> it's working so far (only about a week...).
>

Re: Virtual Desktops For Home Use

Sent: 04/19/2009
From: David Wilkinson <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

Bill Grant wrote:

Bill:

Maybe I'm not sure what the OP wants, but Virtual Server (and I think VMWare
Server) will run on an XP or Vista host.

I know using XP as host for Vistual Server is not intended for "production", but
it works. I am using it to host a virtual WHS, and it's working so far (only
about a week...).

--
David Wilkinson
Visual C++ MVP

Show quoted text

> Virtual PC will not do this for you. I do not know of any software
> product which will give you virtual desktop or virtual apps using a
> client OS as the "server". With a server OS you could run Terminal
> Services or some other app and use your workstations as dumb terminals.
> I don't know of any that are cheap or simple to use.

Re: Virtual Desktops For Home Use

Sent: 04/19/2009
From: David Wilkinson <(email address - cut out)>
Message:

Charlie Tame wrote:

Charlie:

I don't know much about production virtualization, but prior to Hyper-V I'm sure
that Virtual Server was intended for production, just not on a client OS host.
The limited Linux support is a defect of Virtual Server, not of the host OS.

I can log into both the host XP system and the WHS guest via Remote Desktop from
another XP computer on the network.

--
David Wilkinson
Visual C++ MVP

Show quoted text

>> I know using XP as host for Vistual Server is not intended for
>> "production", but it works. I am using it to host a virtual WHS, and
>> it's working so far (only about a week...).
>>
>
> Well I think the idea was to have a "Server" with dumb terminals, I
> suppose one could try running 4 virtual machines on one host and then
> link each dumb terminal to each virtual machine, however I see some
> speed and config problems with this and also some loss of functionality,
> even over 4 cheap PCs.
>
> I know Debian or Ubuntu will support a couple of XP / Vista VMs very
> reliably using Sun's VirtualBox VM, but the free MS VM only like
> Microsoft guests or so it seems from experience so yes - not intended
> for production sounds about right. Even with Sun's system though you
> lose functionality.

Re: Virtual Desktops For Home Use

Sent: 04/19/2009
From: "Bill Grant" <not.available@online>
Message:

<(email address - cut out)> wrote in message
news:(email address - cut out)...

Virtual PC will not do this for you. I do not know of any software
product which will give you virtual desktop or virtual apps using a client
OS as the "server". With a server OS you could run Terminal Services or some
other app and use your workstations as dumb terminals. I don't know of any
that are cheap or simple to use.

Show quoted text

> At work, we have thin clients that access virtual desktops on a
> central server. I was reading about the product (XenDesktop) and it
> is really an enterprise product rather then a home product.
>
> Is there something really simple and basic that I could use at home to
> create a virtual environment.
>
> We have 5 computers at home, it would be nice to have 4 virtual PCs
> and one "central server" that could host the desktops. I'm looking
> for something really simple and straightforward that doesn't have a
> big learning curve.

Post Reply | This is Spam! | Mark as Spam

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