Why add virtualization to your next project? How about a protected sandbox environment, easily recoverable systems, and preconfigured demonstration and training machines for a start?  

    It's time again to open up your developer's toolbox and make room for the new must-have tool, Virtual Machines.

 Enter Virtual Machines! Virtualization technology has come a long way in the past few years, and hardware is now fast enough to make a virtual machine feasible for interactive development. Virtualization software, such as Microsoft Virtual PC or VMWare Workstation, allows you to run another complete operating system—a virtual machine (VM)—in your current operating system. Although virtual machines have been gaining popularity on the server side recently, their growth on the client side has been limited—especially in a development environment.

Playing in the Sandbox
    During most development projects, you add and remove new third-party libraries and software as the project and requirements progress. Unfortunately, constant installing and uninstalling of applications can quickly damage the Microsoft Windows registry. Just one bad installer can really mess things up. Setting up your development environment in a guest machine (the operating system running in a virtual machine) gives you a system that you can easily recover if damaged. It also gives you peace of mind that no matter what goes wrong, you can still use the expensive new software that you just activated on your laptop. 

This article presents some interesting uses of virtual machines, gives you some recommendations for getting the most from VM development, and shows why every developer should have a VM on his or her utility belt.