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For professional use or just out of curiosity, you may need to "test" or even regularly use an operating system other than that which is already installed on your computer. To do this, there is a solution to the "multiboot" (you book a part of your hard disk to install another system). The construction and management of a multiboot not easy, particularly because of the need to completely restart your computer to switch from one system to another, we'll see how to create a "virtual system" (Virtual Machine ) so free and easy that will enable us to install on our test computer (by default a PC running Windows XP SP2) for OS (Operating System) such alternative Linux distribution Ubuntu or Windows Vista (for those who want near-testing versions of Vista before its final release in 2007) ...

There are many software to create your virtual system as, to mention only the most famous, Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware. These programs are very effective, there are also many publications about them as this article (7 pages published on Clubic.com) for those wishing more information on their use. Nonetheless, there is a much simpler solution for creating your virtual machines, you simply use the website Easyvmx.com (en).

The purpose of the site easyvmx.com is to create the files necessary to create your virtual hard disk. The service provided by this site is free.

A fashion "advanced" is available for those who are accustomed to use such tools (this mode allows you to add functionality to your virtual system). This advanced mode is available by following this link: http://www.easyvmx.com/easyvmx.shtml.

To begin, we will content ourselves with the light version (sufficient for most uses) is available at: http://www.easyvmx.com/supersimple.shtml.

Here are step by step the creation of our virtual disk to mount a Linux Ubuntu on our Windows XP SP2 using the latter method:

1. Enter the name of your virtual machine

2. Choose the system you want to install (about 60 proposals by default, but many more systems are compatible)

3. Allocate a certain amount of virtual memory to your system. Default 320 MB which is enough for Linux but it is better to assign the double or triple for an installation of Windows Vista. Of course, do not attribute all of your RAM to your virtual disk if your XP system will not have enough RAM to run your virtual disk (do not over two-thirds of the available memory on your computer).

Note: The RC 2 of Windows Vista requires a minimum of 512 MB to install correctly.

4. Select the size occupied by your virtual partition on your hard drive (It is advisable to keep the size of 4 GB by default but you can assign more or less depending on your needs).

Note: The RC 2 of Windows Vista will demand a minimum of 8.5 GB to install correctly.

5. Click on "create virtual machine" (bottom left)

6. You get a summary page files and created a link for download as a compressed file (. Zip).

7. Click on the link (in our example "-> Linux_Ubuntu.zip <-") to download the compressed file (about 4 kb)

8. Decompress the file with winzip or winrar software in a location on your hard disk has enough space to accommodate the 4GB (default) of your virtual system.

Your virtual hard disk is ready but not yet functional, it must now use software that will allow us to "read" so that we can install Ubuntu over our system.

To do this we use the freeware VMware Player (in) which is very easy to use. You can download it at: http://www.vmware.com/download/player/.

Once this software installed, place the CD operating system that you want to install in your CD-ROM. To download a disk image of Ubuntu Linux installation, you can go to this address eg http://www.ubuntu-fr.org/telechargement.

Note: The versions of Linux distributions or Windows Vista Betas are distributed as CD images in. Iso and it should also be aware that some CD ROMs are not recognized by VMware Player. Also, it is recommended ' use a program like Alcohol 52% (freeware) to "mount" your images to a virtual CD-ROM so you do not have to burn them.

Launch VMware Player and tell him where the files just to decompress.

The installation of your system will start after a few moments. Then your operating system is installed as if you were installing it on a blank hard disk.

You can ask questions or comment on this tutorial in our forums.

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