Hopefully, I am posting this in the correct forum, if not I do apologize. My job is to provide technical support for a variety of software packages. Most of the software that we provide support for will run on Windows XP, and a few have been certified to work with Windows 7. As we are approaching the time when finding a laptop PC that runs Windows XP more and more difficult, we have been looking further into virtualization. At this point, I have been tasked with gathering the necessary information to present a list of needs in order to begin moving forward. Below are several initial questions that I have come up with to get started.
1. What software is required to create the virtual machines? Can one person have the software to create the VMs and others just use a VM Player/Viewer to work on them?
2. What are the licensing requirements for Windows operating systems as it relates to virtual machines? Do we need a unique license of Windows XP, for example, for each virtual machine that we would create? The reason for this question is that there are some software packages that we support that cannot be installed on the same OS at the same time. We would like to be able to make multiple copies of a Windows XP VM and install different software pacakages on each one as needed. As a follow up to this question, is there a limitation on the number of copies that can be made?
3. What are the rules for sharing VMs across multiple PCs? For instance, can I make a copy of a particular VM and share it with a co-worker for their use?
4. Are there any suggestions for hardware upgrades on the primary PC running the VMs? For example, should a new laptop PC be upgrade to have more RAM than normal to accommodate running a VM on top of the base OS?
I may have more questions arise as I get further into this process and do appreciate everyone's patience. My company wants to ensure that we are doing everything correctly and cost effectively.
Thank you all in advance for your assistance.
