I discovered a neat little feature of running Windows XP in Virtualbox.
When running outside a virtual machine, my Windows XP crashed and had to be reinstalled enough times that the registration key became almost useless. It would work during installation, but after one reboot--maybe two--it would lock me out and say my registration key was expired. I could get it reactivated, but only by calling Microsoft, talking to their creepy voice-activated computers, and then talking to someone whom I could barely hear and whose accent was hard to understand.
Apparently, that doesn't happen in Virtualbox Windows XP. I've restarted it repeatedly without being locked out. It still gives me the "30 days for product activation" notice, but if it locks me out in thirty days, I won't mind much. Installing XP on a VM was much faster than installing it outside one.

Cool trick...

I had a laptop crushed in an accident, and they wouldn't let me put XPMCE from it onto a home build. I found a VLK on the net, and it works just fine. Take THAT Bill!

Updates might be a problem, UNLESS, you have MS Server software, THROUGH which you can distribute updates to your own networked machines, including (ahem) 'special' editions (for which MS already got your cash).

The only Windows updates I'd care about are so-called security updates, and I'm not even sure it matters, because can a virtual machine get a virus anyway?

Virtual machines can get viruses. As long as the virtual system does run, these viruses can also do what they are programmed for (spamming, etc). Obviously the viruses can do harm only within the virtual system, so the hosting system is rather safe, unless the hosting file system is accessible to the virtual system via networking.

Debian

I sometimes load a virus or trojan in a virtual machine just to see what it tries to do.

I have a virtual machine that is non-persistent, which means that any changes made to it while it runs do not survive a restart. I isolate it from any network, fire it up, infect it, and see what happens.

This can be very educational.

I'd be too paranoid to try that. What if some brilliant hacker wrote a virus that undid the VM's isolation?

How charming--a mentally ill computer nerd.

Somebody here tried to tell me they were not worried about using their Windows XP in a virtual machine under Linux host, "I'll take a snapshot when it's first installed and just revert to the snapshot when the 3o days are up" he said. I...thinking I'm smart....said, "Product activation goes by hardware clock if not NTP, it knows when 30 days have past even in a virtual machine".

One thing I've said many times in the past, "Don't knock it till you've tried it". That's been nagging at me, so I installed Vista as a virtual machine the other day and took a snapshot.
I'm using Vmware, I'm pretty sure Microsoft would have sued Vmware by now if it were possible. But it's only fair I should test this.

You don't have to reactivate a real XP reinstall. See here:
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/wind...twinxp0829.htm

Your right brian, and I'm sure most people who reinstalled Windows (which happens allot), already knew that.
But WPA in XP at least, looks at ten different hardware items such as processor serial number, ethernet mac address, mobo, etc. If three items change, you have to call and beg telling them you revamped your box. You may be required to buy a new key.
When you install XP using your OEM XP CD in Vmware in any OS type host on the same box, you have way more than tree <---(french pronunciation) out of the ten hardware changes as they are now virtual hardware.
I'm currently in Win XP host looking at hardware from device manager in both Vista and XP, big difference.
Remember...a VM built on one computer can be run on many others with different hardware configurations. And there's the import feature also.

By rights, I should just bite my tongue for now. I haven't seen a set of keys show up in the task bar in Vista yet.

Even on a VM, why would anyone use Vista? I hope it's only because one has new software that demands Vista. I've never used it, and won't, but the fact that MS is working on the next Windows suggests that Vista is a piece of junk. Unlike XP, which admittedly worked decently and gave me little reason to hate it other than its being from MS.

Well:

The first obvious reason after reading your post, I installed Vista because I'm not narrow minded like many in these forums tend to imply they are.

Also, I won't give you the satisfaction of thinking you have an influential impact on other peeps decisions based on your biased comments.

The last laptop I bought came with it pre-installed, I sold it, as was the intention, but kept a copy of the OS because Microsoft encourages me to install it as I've got tons of idle hard drive space like most people today, and I can try it out for free for 120 days and decide on my own whether I want to have a permanent copy or not.

Between my desktop and laptop, I have three Windows XP Pro installations, five Linux installations, three Mac OS X, two Linux VMs and now one Windows VM. And I still have idle hard drive space...and I use them all, each has it's pros & cons. Many are for testing and development purposes.
Not everybody is like you, hanging around in forums making biased comments, some of us use operating systems to earn a higher standard of living.
Now there's a sign of sheer brilliance. You know so much about it without experience. Are you telling us you're clairvoyant?

Heh... copy protection fails yet again... I love how ridiculously easy it is to break almost all copy protection (even accidentally, as posted above). All it does is screw the paying consumer who expects the stuff to work well, or just annoy the hell out of them. It does nothing to anyone who really wants it for free.

</rant>