If you want to try a new operating system, but don’t want to put your computer and data to the risk of being corrupted, virtual machines can come in handy. They are small programs simulating to be a completely independent system with CPU, GPU, memory, HDD, DVD drive and so on and can run another operating system parallel to the one you’re actually using.
There are three major virtual machines out there: VMware Player, Sun VirtualBox and Microsoft VirtualPC. I took a look at all of them and compared their strengths and weaknesses. If you want to read the full review, have a look at the posts below:
In this series, I’m going to focus on comparing different Virtual Machines running Windows and their performance regarding different tasks such as single-threaded CPU-only applications, multi-threaded programs or even games requiring hardware 3D acceleration.
This article will show you when and for what to use VMware Player.
VMware Player is quite similar to Sun Virtual Box. You can also configure almost everything, from CPU count over memory to graphics acceleration. VMware Player can’t assign more cores than the computer actually has to the VM, but features better hardware graphics acceleration and up to 256MB of video memory. This also enables Windows 7 to run Aero and the glass effects smoothly.
I installed Windows 7 64-bit in the VM and compared the performance to my native Windows 7 64-bit. Like in VirtualBox, hardware acceleration is supported, but not required. The installation is even easier than in VirtualBox: Tell VMware Player which OS you plan to install, and it automatically suggests hardware configuration and manages the installation process by clicking the right buttons. After installation, it will install the VMware tools that include 3D driver support and other programs that make using the VM more comfortable.
A nice function that both VirtualBox and VMware Player support is the option to assign devices either to the host OS or the virtual one. This enables the user to connect two mice and keyboards and assign them to host and virtual OS. Now the virtual OS can be moved to a second screen and both users can use the computer simultaneously.
Performance:
Settings:
CPU count: 2
RAM: 1500MB
GPU acceleration: yes, 256MB, DirectX 9
First of all, the Windows 7 System Rating shows that both CPU and GPU performance in the VM are quite good, only the memory is a bit too slow:
To test how strong the VM really is, I ran SuperPI and got these results: It took the VM 0.773 seconds longer to complete the calculation, which equals a performance loss of 3.3%. This is a quite good result, similar to Microsoft Virtual PC, but not as good as VirtualBox.
Since the graphics acceleration really seems to work here, I tried some games to prove it. Older games such asCall of Duty, Couter-Strike 1.6 and Civilization were running nicely, Warcraft 3 had some texturing problems, and quite new games like Call of Duty 5 – World at War didn’t really run (I got around 4 FPS).
All in all, VMware Player is quite good in all fields: CPU performance, GPU performance and ease of use (installation and VMware tools). Moreover, working with it felt smoother than in VirtualBox or Virtual PC, but that may be due to Aero. This means one can work with VMware Player and even play older games. Regarding the possibility to connect keyboard and mouse to the VM and moving it to a second screen basically enables you to create a second, virtual computer that allows another user to work, play or watch movies on the same hardware at the same time.
In this series, I’m going to focus on comparing different Virtual Machines running Windows and their performance regarding different tasks such as single-threaded CPU-only applications, multi-threaded programs or even games requiring hardware 3D acceleration.
This article will show you when and for what to use Sun VirtualBox.
For these tests, I used a quite uncommon configuration: I ran a virtual Windows 7 on my native Windows 7. Most users probably won’t do this, but there is a reason why I chose this OS configuration: Sun VirtualBox allows you to use more CPU cores than you actually have.
The OS installation with Virtual Box is quite easy, just insert your install DVD into the real drive, create a new VM with the hardware configuration you like and tell VirtualBox which OS you’re planning to install. Then allocate your DVD to the VM and start the installation. Worked greatly with Linux, Windows XP and Windows 7 and VirtualBox automatically installed its tools to enable automatic mouse grabbing and this kind of stuff.
In contrast to Microsoft Virtual PC, VirtualBox comes with GPU acceleration, but only allows you to use up to 128MB of video memory. Moreover, the drivers are still beta, so the performance is not as good as you would like it to be.
Performance:
For this test, I didn’t choose settings that any serious user would try, but decided to test the option of using 8 cores.
Settings:
CPU count: 8
RAM: 2048MB
GPU acceleration: yes, 128MB video memory
I searched for a benchmarking program that can use any number of threads and found wPrime. Since it can be scaled to 4 or 8 cores, it was capable of running on both my real quad-core and on the virtual octo-core and still using all the cores.
The virtual octo-core was 0.303 seconds slower, which equals 1.9% performance loss. This is quite surprising when you consider that four of the cores are just simulated and the real OS and processor have to split up the work somehow. These results are even better than the ones I got from Microsoft Virtual PC where the performance loss was about 3.9%.
Hardware graphics acceleration should be there, but don’t expect too much. The drivers are still beta, the video memory is just 128MB and the graphics performance of VMs has never been close to the CPU performance. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the DirectX acceleration to work, neither on Windows 7 64-bit nor on Windows XP 32-bit. That’s a pity because the only VM supporting graphics acceleration is VMware Player then.
All in all, VirtualBox is a really nice tool due to its possiblities of configuration such as using 8 cores, its easy installation and the CPU performance. There is no such feature as direct integration into the host OS as with Virtual PC, but nobody would expect such a feature, and the graphics power isn’t that awesome either, but still better than other VMs supplying just a standard VGA adapter without hardware acceleration or DirectX support.
A newly released pre-alpha version of Opera promises to radically improve the browser’s performance and speed of displaying and loading websites. The official developer website even claims that “[Opera 10.50] is fast, more than 7x faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10“. Since Google Chrome has been the fastest browser on the market so far, followed by Apple’s Safari browser, we may have a new player among the best-performing browser.
I downloaded and tested Opera 10.50 and found out that it actually is much faster than before, but also very unstable. I ran Peacekeeper three times, the first time it went well, the second time it was much slower and the third time it didn’t start the benchmark and showed just a blank page. I had to re-install Opera in order to fix this problem. But please keep in mind that this is a pre-alpha release and not meant for everyday use.
In comparison to Chrome 5.0.307.1, Opera 10.50 lost by 12.8%, which is actually a big improvement compared to Chrome 2.0.170 and Opera 9.64, where Opera lost by 60.2%. Safari, once the fastest browser, scored 28.6% less than Chrome, thus giving up its second place to Opera.
Considering the fact that Opera is still pre-alpha and that the development team will improve it before releasing the final version, one can expect Opera’s Peacekeeper score to increase again, bringing it dangerously close to Chrome.
Yesterday evening, the Closed Beta of Battlefield Bad Company 2 started. I managed to secure a beta key and get the game installer and immediately started testing. First of all, a few screenshots and performance information, but more information and a video will follow! There is a torrent download for Battlefield Bad Company 2 that’s working quite well in contrast to the official EA servers or other mirrors that are really overloaded and keep crashing all the time.
The beta supports multiplayer and includes only the gamemode “Rush” with the map “Port Valdez”. Official sources say:
The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 PC beta will feature Port Valdez, a new vehicle focused map where up to 32 players will compete against each other as either the US or Russian armies in the game’s Rush multiplayer mode. Players will have access to five land and three air vehicles where the Russian side can use everything in their arsenal including Main Battle Tanks as well as the fast-moving Quad Bikes and Mobile Armored AA. The fight will also be packed with plenty of infantry combat fought alongside the waterline towards a great oil industrial landscape in the Alaskan mountains.
Being based on the new Frostbite Engine, the game has quite high system requirements:
Recommended Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943:
Processor: Quadcore
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260
Graphics memory: 512MB
Especially explosions are really nice in this game, thus I created a “flip-book” of pictures (click to enlarge):
If you forgot your your Windows account password, it got hacked or some virus changed it so you’re not able to access your computer any more, you can use the following tutorial to restore and reset the password. This method will also work for Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP and Windows Vista!
WARNING: Please do not use this method for illegal activity such as hacking passwords without the other user’s consent!
Your Windows passwords are stored in the Windows registry. In order to reset them, you need access to this registry without running Windows. Luckily, there is a tool called “Offline NT Password & Registry Editor” which contains a small Linux kernel and drivers for your hard drives. Download the tool from this server or the official website.
Extract the RAR archive. Now you need to create a bootable device in order to run the tool: Using a CD: Just burn the ISO file to any empty CD and proceed. Using a USB memory stick:
Format the memory stick in FAT32 format (rightclick it and choose “Format”) and enable “Quick Format”. WARNING: When formatting, all data in the memory stick will be lost!
Open the ISO file with WinRAR (or any similar program) and extract all files onto the memory stick.
Start the console (Press WINDOWS + R and type cmd, press ENTER), enter the drive letter of your memory stick (e.g. L: ), then enter “SYSLINUX.EXE -ma L:” (replace L: with your drive letter). This will set the boot record for your memory stick, enabling your computer to use it as boot device.
Now plug in the USB memory stick or insert the CD into the drive of the password-locked computer and switch it on.
When the BIOS image is showing up, make sure you enter the “Boot Menu”, usually by pressing F12.
A window should pop up asking you to choose the device to boot from. Select CD or USB HDD.
After a few seconds, this screen will show up. Just press enter to boot normally.
Now a lot of text will appear on your screen while the system is loading drivers for your hardware. Just wait until it comes to a stop and waits for your input. Now the tool is asking on which partition your Windows registry files are located. Usually, this would be the first partition, but since there is a small (100MB) backup drive in Windows 7, you should take the next one, enter the number below and press enter.
Next, it asks for the path to your registry files on the drive. These are usually fine, just press enter to continue. When the files are located, you can choose what to do. Enter 1 and hit return for “Password reset”.
Then you have to select “Edit user data and passwords” by entering 1 again and pressing Enter
Enter your account name from the list and press Enter
On the next screen, enter 1 to “Clear (blank) user password”. You may also select 4 to “Unlock and enable user account” if you have entered the password too often and it is locked. If that’s all you wanted to do, enter ! and press return to quit.
Enter q again to leave the next menu and write the files by typing “y” in Step 4.
Now your password has been reset, just restart your computer normally and you should be able to log in to Windows again!
Today I tested and installed the Technical Preview of the upcoming office suite Microsoft Office 2010. It seems to be version v14.0.4417.1000 (according to the About tab) or Beta 1 (according to the shortcuts created). If you want to try it yourself, you may download it from here (torrent) and select the 32bit or 64bit version. Warning: If you have already installed a 32bit version of Office 2007 or earlier, you won’t be able to install Office 2010 64bit. Uninstall the old Office in this case.
The installation was as smooth as 2007’s, just agree to the license and click “Install now”. After a few minutes, you will be able to enjoy your Office 2010!
At first startup, you will see a screen like this for a few secods. The second startup is already that fast that I wasn’t able to take a screenshot of Word.
For testing purposes, I just created a short document with text copied from Wikipedia to try the new features. At first glance, nothing much seems to have changed. Office 2010 now includes the Aero interface, enabling you to see through the top bar of the window, but since this style of Aero is different from all the others used in Windows 7 or Vista, it looks quite odd and ugly. Ribbon is still there, but the Office-button disappeared and was replaced by a big blue File-button.
The File tab shows information about the document you’re just writing and contains buttons to upgrade, protect or share the document.
The printing window shows a preview of the pages that are going to be printed, but at least in this version, changes to the layout won’t be shown immediately in the preview. So when I select “2 Pages Per Sheet”, the preview will still show only one. I hope the guys at Microsoft are going to change that.
There are a few new features, but I’m not going to write much about them. Just to show an example, there is a feature enabling you to directly paste screenshots of other windows into your word document.
I didn’t test any of the other products included in this Office 2010 release, but looking at the variety of applications (Access, Excel, InfoPath Designer, InfoPath Filler, SharePoint Designer, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Workspace, Visio and Word), there are probably many features to be explored. Check it out yourself!
One day, I received a mail from Microsoft inviting me to host a Windows 7 Launch Party in order to promote the new Windows 7 operating system. I didn’t think much about it and just registered at houseparty.com.
After receiving a mail confirming me to be a Windows 7 Launch Party host, I uploaded some pics and information about the party, invited my friends and waited for the promised “special Windows 7 party package” that was said to contain a complete Windows 7 Ultimate version for the party host. This was actually too good to be true, an Ultimate version for free even before release date? Amazon listed it for 298€ (445US$)…
A few days later shipping of my party package was confirmed:
HOUSE PARTY FULFILLMENT CENTER is shipping you a package via DHL.
DHL strives to provide you with a great experience every time.
The following 1 piece(s) have been sent by Shipping of HOUSE PARTY FULFILLMENT CENTER via DHL Express on October 01, 2009 using Waybill 8788665xxx.
Then I finally received the package and between napkins, puzzles, posters and Windows 7 bags there was my Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition, including both 32bit and 64bit releases and a license key:
Thanks Microsoft for giving me this great operating system for free!
This tutorial will show how to add programs to Startup so they will be launched automatically after a user logged in (like Skype or Anti-Virus programs do).
Using Windows XP, this was really easy: Just drag the application shortcut of your program to Start -> Programs – > Startup. Using Windows 7, Â this folder won’t be shown, but it still exists. Here is how to autostart any program:
Go to your Startup folder. You can access it by typing “shell:startup” into the search bar in your Start Menu:
Now create a shortcut to the application you want to autostart and put it into the Startup folder.
That’s it basically. Now the application you linked to in the Startup folder will start always after YOU logged in. Other computer users have to do the same thing again!
After you put the first shortcut into the Startup folder, it will be shown in the Start Menu, so you can easily remove the shortcuts again or place new ones there.
If you don’t want or can’t use the search, you can also access the folder by going to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and replacing <username> with your actual username. Better enter it directly into your address bar since the AppData folder is hidden and you may not see it.
Today I uploaded the latest version of my MultiInput game “Airship Assault” which resolves most known bugs. It is the first game that uses my MultiInput library in order to support many players playing the same game on onecomputer with multiple mice connected to the computer.
Major changes:
Mouse sensitivity can now be changed ingame
Game Launcher added, checks whether XNA Framework 3.0 and .NET Framework 2.0 are installed before launching the game
Optimized game file package
Music file not needed to play the game, if missing, the game will just launch without music
