Looking for virtual desktop

[Xaius]

I remember reading in the past about a kind of virtual desktop that opens up a window, which contains a desktop, on top of your normal desktop. Now I'm not referring to the kind of VD like you get in Linux where you click a button at the bottom to switch to a clean desktop. I'm referring to a window popping up, which contains a desktop separate from your normal desktop. In this "virtual" desktop, you can surf the web without having to worry about spyware, because it would only be installed on your virtual desktop and have no access to your normal desktop or system files, and as soon as you close the virtual desktop, any changes would go away. So any malware that got installed on the VD would simply disappear. But I can't find any freeware programs like that. Does anyone know of any I can download? Thanks :)

[ua549]

Get VirtualPC from Microsoft. It is free.

[ksuohio]

VMWare also makes a similar product.

[ua549]

VMware Workstation is not free and the Server version is not supported on non-server operating systems. I couldn't get Server to run 5 minutes on Vista without crashing. On a server OS it works quite well.

[Strogian]

You are also supposed to buy an extra license for any virtual machine you run, if it's windows anyway.

[cat5e]

I use Microsoft VPC + Windows2000.

It is small fast and compatible.

VPC is free. For Windows 2000 you need lic. which can be found for little money.

Another alternative is to get the free VMware Player with Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop
run it on Windows, and use it for surfing.

You have to use it as is since you cannot add anything to the free VMware Player.

Microsoft VPC, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en

Ubuntu Machine, http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1232

P.S. Microsft makes available a lot of trial VHDs.

VHD is the file that constitute the Virtual Computer.

You install Microsoft VPC on your computer, and you can download the VHD files of your choice and associate them with the VPC.

It means that on a single computer you can many OS and many trial version of Microsoft top applications for few months.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738372.aspx

Getting rid of any of this is as easy as deleting a file.

[Xaius]

Thanks for the info :) Unfortunately, it seems that I need to purchase another copy of Windows for the VirtualPC, as the Toshiba recovery disks don't work.

[ua549]

Even if the Toshiba recovery disk worked, you still need to have a license and activate the product.

For surfing the web install an open source operating system such as PC-BSD, Ubuntu, or other desktop oriented *nix. Not all OS's will work with VirtualPC, but they are free to try. I have had FreeBSD working in VirtualPC.

Another option though not as convenient is to boot a *nix OS that is self contained on a CD when you want to surf.