Vmware is a great thing !
Just made 2 oses to run at the same time on different monitors.
The best thing that VMware allows me to connect usb hardware to the VM, while hiding that hardware in host os. This enables, for example, to connect a usb mouse to a vm, and it will NOT be seen by host os as a mouse, so it will only control the cursor in a VM and not the host os.
So the idea is to connect a wireless keyboard and mouse to the VM and have a second PC from the same box.
This idea came to my mind after thinking about using my 4-5GB of unused ram (I’ve tried the ramdrive thing, but it doesn’t seem to work well on XP 64bit). So I now have a second virtual pc with:
1. It’s own REAL monitor (I also use a 10m long dvi cable, so the monitor is far from my pc)
2. It’s own LAN IP in my lan (seen by other PCs ! Too bad it’s just 10mbps)
3. A dual core cpu (uses 2 of 4 cores in my cpu)
4. 2GB RAM (I have a total of 6GB ram, so no problem)
5. A 128MB videocard with some accelerated 3d support (haven’t tried to run any more demanding games yet, but MAME emulator (which uses D3D) works)
6. XP PRO 32bit (SP1 for now, because just installed XP)
7. A 15GB hdd (Smallish, but vpc shares network resources, so should be enough)
EDIT: And will have it’s own separate sound device when I finish preparing it. Will be a nice use for my unused sb audigy soundcard which is just collecting dust now.
I use another small utility to jump a fullscreen VM display to the second monitor.
Also, fixed a 19″ monitor I’ve received for free but that’s a different story, will post about it on next update.