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Thread ID: 7717	2001-02-11 07:23:00	What is Virtual Machine?	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
8597	2001-02-11 07:23:00	What is Virtual Machine? Will I lose out on a lot of good stuff on the Net if I don't install it? Is it a 3D Vector plugin, or something less visible? cheers.	Guest (0)
8598	2001-02-11 23:36:00	Hi Peter, can you give more detail? I might be going down the wrong path here - but if I am, at least people will get a good education :O) A virtual machine often refers to an area in memory that is self-contained. For example - a 16-bit application (such as one designed to run on DOS or Windows 3.1) is usually run in a virtual machine. This allows the 16-bit application to 'think' that it is in a 16-bit environment. It is isolated from the actual 32-bit environment (e.g. Win95/98/NT or 2000) of the operating system. An analogy would be a match box sitting in a shoe box. If you put an ant in the match box and closed it, the ant would only know about the space it can explore (i.e. the match box), it would be oblivious to the shoe box. Often one virtual machine is used to run all 16-bit applications. The draw back of this is that when one of the applications crashes, it takes down all the other 16-bit applications. The alternative - having each 16-bit application run in its own virtual machine - requires mucho memory.	Guest (0)
8599	2001-02-12 05:47:00	Ok, Mucho good answer there, Mark. It is true that I assumed that everyone would know that i was talking about IE5.5. It has the option of installing Virtual Machine, which is about 8.5 megs in size. Is this IE Virtual Machine just the sort that you were talking about? So it makes the machine crash proof, if IE goes down? Do I need to install it? IE does pretty well anyway, I'd say...?	Guest (0)
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