VMware Workstation Player

I use and like both: VMware Player (now better with its new editing possibility) AND Virtualbox with its many languages, very well commented configuration and quicker installation.

Both of them can be used for free, although both are very mature products. With both of them you can run and edit virtual machines with a very good stability.

On first run it forces the user to give their email address for promoting emails...
...so it's unfair, and more importantly, unpleasant.

[Edited by Venom88, December 07]

Comparing to VirtualBox, VMWare has 3D driver, but worse IO capabilities. So VMWare has much faster UI, but messing up a lot with excessive IO activity. It also doesn't have scaling, making it less usable on high DPI displays.

QEMU (manager) is the only solution against EGPFault in Win87EM.dll with newer Intel-CPUs

QEMU Manager is the very good Windows GUI for QEMU. In difference to VirtualBox or VMware Player you can emulate several CPUs, which is necessary for old 16bit applications with EGPFault in Win87EM.dll with newer Intel-CPUs (from 2013 and later) in all other virtual machines except QEMU.

So only with QEMU (not with VMware or VirtualBox or Windows XP Mode) you can use and compile Delphi 1.6 programs, when you have a newer Host-CPU from Intel. Without QEMU you must buy another computer with an AMD-CPU, because VirtualBox or VMware Player cannot emulate various CPUs, as QEMU can.

Details see:

• https://communities.vmware.com/message/2599248#2599248
• https://communities.vmware.com/people/jmattson/blog/2012/03
• https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=59741&start=30
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10511506/old-16-bit-application-causing-gpf-in-win87em-dll-intermittently
• https://www.administrator.de/frage/egpfault-win87em-dll-neuen-intel-cpus-allen-vmware-player-versionen-305694.html

VMWare Player has been replaced by Player Pro, the original isn't available anymore.

[Edited by aaronfranke, October 28] The other guy is right, there is also a free version, they decided to split the product.

I first installed Microsoft Virtual PC, but it didn't work on my computer.. Then I tried VirtualBox - and had the same problem.. VMware Player just worked first time - nice! A "like" from me!

VMware Player requires 3.5 times more space on the hard disk than Sun VirtualBox:
VMware Player 361 MB, Sun VirtualBox only 102 MB, see http://screencast.com/t/YjY0ODdkNW .
The download-file for Windows XP-Mode requires 464 MB, but there is a complete Windows XP -vhd-file included. Virtual PC for Windows 7 XP Mode requires only 9.87 MB, and so can offer the smallest solution for a Virtual Windows XP on Windows 7.
The download-File for VMLite Workstation requires 65 MB .

So if you want to run a virtual Windows XP on a Windows 7 Host with low space demand, the best solutions are:

1. Virtual PC for Windows 7 XP Mode

2. VMLite Workstation

3. Sun VirtualBox

4. VMware Player