[AccessD] Using a VM/VPC

True as far as it goes.  it is possible to map a partition on the host machine as a drive on the 
virtual machine, in which case the vm is writing directly to that partition of the host machine.

I do that for my application server.  I needed a very fast drive to act similar to a ram disk, 
blazing read-only in my case.  So I bought a high performance Flash drive, created three partitions 
on it (one for each vm) and then mapped those partitions as drives for the VM.  thus each vm has its 
own physical partition out on the flash drive on the host.  To the VM it looks just like a mapped 
drive.

Since the host can see the drive and its partitions, applications on the host can write to those 
partitions which is a no-no of course.  At least I THINK it is a no-no.  It seems like it would be a 
simple way to pass data between vm and host but AFAICT the VM and host see these partitions 
differently, i.e. neither can see what the other writes, but writes by the host corrupts the 
structure of the vm's drive.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Drew Wutka wrote:
> I use Virtual PC and Virtual Server.  But I think all the Virtual
> 'environments' work on the same general principles.  Your virtual
> machine's hard drive is a file.  So it won't interrupt the host
> environment at all.
> 
> Drew
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters
> Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 11:19 AM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Using a VM/VPC (was: Office 2003 and 2007)
> 
> Hi Arthur,
> 
> I'm going to be doing the same thing soon with Office 2003/2007.
> 
> For each PC, do you need to set up another OS within the partition?  Can
> you
> use the same one?  Does VirtualBox have a method to create the partition
> without having to reformat your existing C Drive?
> 
> Thanks!
> Dan
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
> Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 10:43 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Office 2003 and 2007
> 
> Susan,
> 
> As pointed out by others in this thread, the sure-fire solution is using
> a
> virtual machine. My choice happens to be Sun's VirtualBox, just because
> I
> wanted to do some Ruby On Rails coding.
> 
> Lately I run VirtualBox on both my 64-bit dual Athlon and on my Lenovo
> notebook. Both machines have 3 GB of RAM and it works splendidly. So I
> have
> a VM on both boxes that is dedicated to O2K7 and another dedicated to
> O2K3.
> For my needs, it's the perfect solution.
> 
> Arthur
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