[thelist] Multiple IEs

[MRC]

Liorean,

> What's best to do here? Use real-life partitions for each system or using
> virtual drives?

    I use virtual drives, which I think are the most appropriate for most
situations. The primary benefits:

* Ease of setup
* They expand as required (up to the maximum allotted size), saving you from
committing potentially massive amounts of hard drive storage.
* When you're done with them, you just delete them

> Should drives be set as persistent, undoable or nonpersistent?

    I recommend starting with them as undoable, which gives you the most
flexibility. Once you've got your basic setup the way you want it, power off
the VM and commit the changes. Then, in your next session, if you make a
change that blows up, or that you decide you don't want, you can discard the
changes.
    Another benefit: very quick shutdown. Assuming that you are using these
VMs for checking pages in a particular browser, you probably won't need to
persist session changes that consist primarily of an expanded browser cache.
If so, you can simply exit the VM without powering it down -- akin to
flipping off your PC's power switch while your desktop is still showing --
without any ill effects so long as you discard the changes.
    If, on the other hand, you find yourself reliably committing your
changes following a VM session, you might want to switch the VM to
"Persistent" mode to save yourself the extra time and trouble of manually
committing them each time.

> How should I set up networking to share my connection (and shared folders)
> between the VMs (I've not been able to figure this one out yet...)?

    Not being a network guru, I find this the most confusing part.
Typically, though, I prefer the flexibility of a bridged network setup,
assuming a physical network already exists. If you don't have a physical
network, I think host-only is your only option. But others will likely have
more to offer you on this question.

James Aylard