Is there a way to install software like VMware player on your HD and run that software without an Operating System?
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See this question: http://serverfault.com/questions/23738/run-virtual-machines-without-a-host – jakub.g Sep 15 '11 at 17:23
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Yes. You will need something called a "bare-metal/hypervisor-based" virtulisation solution. This runs a basic OS with very little overhead which the Virtulisation Software runs on top of.
The three big ones are:
- VMWare ESX(i)
- Microsoft Hyper-V
- Citrix XenServer
Each have their own upsides and downside, ranging from costs to supported OS's and platforms.
The Wikipedia Hypervisor page has the concept in more technical detail.
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Also Xen, which Citrix bases their solution on but which is both Free and free. – CarlF Sep 15 '11 at 19:51
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Technically, it's not a "bare metal" solution you are looking for, but rather a hypervisor that installs without a host partition. For example, all the above solutions allow you to install the hypervisor after you install a host partition. – surfasb Sep 16 '11 at 09:34
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@surfasb, you are correct, of course, but I was trying to keep it simple as possible as virtulisation is a confusing enough concept with it's own terminology as well. – tombull89 Sep 16 '11 at 09:37
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