VirtualBox can even take snapshots of the virtual drive within the application, freeing you from any hassle of backing up virtual storage files yourself.

That file can easily be backed up, archived, encrypted and stored on the cloud, copied hundreds of times, or deleted. The cool thing about all this virtual storage stuff is that the entire Windows application–files, applications, the works–are contained in one file. It’s a bit like The Matrix: The OS has no idea that the computer it’s running on isn’t a physical one. The virtual storage looks like a normal hard drive to the OS running in the virtual machine, and unless you explicitly provide access to folders outside the VM, the rest of the system is inaccessible to the VM. With few exceptions, most virtual machines use files that serve as virtual storage devices for the VM. This is like putting Windows in its own sandbox with its own limited set of toys that it can break at will without making all the other kids cry. By virtualizing the OS, you separate the OS from the hardware itself and create a kind of barrier that your host operating system (Linux, in this case) can manage from the outside. Why isolating Windows is a good ideaįrom a security standpoint, too, running Windows in a virtual machine can be much safer than running Windows on its own drive or partition, as you normally would. These files can be easily copied or backed up. vdi files, win.vdi and win64-stg.vdi contain my C: and F: drives, respectively.

Best windows for virtual machine