VMware Fusion

Again, there are a few niggles with the Converter - in the Apple world, you can't convert an existing OS X Mac to a Mac VM. The other issue is that any VM files are a closed book to the OS that hosts them, so there's no disinfecting a virused PC image by running an OS X antivirus scanner over the files with the VM unloaded, for example. But these are all minor operational difficulties when you consider the immense flexibility this provides. It gives you the freedom to use the cuddly OS X interface when you want or need to, while keeping a corporate standard rollout inside a VM, or have Windows 98 and two copies of 2000 snapshotted before and after an install of a poorly written database running side-by-side - along with the SQL server that responds to their requests. That, and all running on a Mac laptop which, incidentally, no-one will accuse of infecting their PC network.

Author: Steve Cassidy