Have you considered running another operating system on your computer? You don't need to ditch Windows in order to test the latest version (Vista) or a Linux-based operating system. The alternative is to install the use of a virtual manager and then host an operating system on top of your existing OS. For instance, a virtual environment will enable you to test Vista without needing to upgrade from XP. If you have mission-critical business software, you could test this within the virtual environment, before you run with a company-wide installation.

VMware Player 2.0.1 is the latest version of the virtual operating system management tool. It's just a playback environment, so you can't create your own virtual environment, you'll need to get someone to do this for you. However, you can download various pre-configured virtual environments from the VMware website, to get you started.

20 Sep 2007