virtual machine

Microsoft has announced that Windows 8 will allow users to create multiple virtual machines on a single computer. It's a feature that's previously only been available on Microsoft's server version of Windows. The tool, which is referred to as ... Microsoft's "Hyper-V," allows users to make virtual copies of PCs -- all within 1 PC (hence, it's "virtualized"). Virtualization, more importantly, addresses major security issues in that it separates the host hardware (your computer) from the operating system (Windows) and the applications which run within Windows. Run 5, 10, 5,000 ... (view more)

In computer science, a virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a machine (computer) that executes programs like a real machine. System Virtual Machine vs Process Virtual Machine A virtual machine was originally defined by Popek and ... Goldberg as "an efficient, isolated duplicate of a real machine". Current use includes virtual machines which have no direct correspondence to any real hardware. Virtual machines are separated into two major categories, based on their use and degree of correspondence to any real machine: a System Virtual Machine and a Process Virtual Machine. A system ... (view more)