Phaewryn

Thanks everyone.

https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/12_0 ? Does it have any limitations that would make it unsuitable for my needs? (running apache in order to test php scripts)

Is anyone specifically running XAMPP and SENDMAIL using any of these VM options? That is my primary testing need currently.

Not according to their website it's not. $249 standard, $149 with a student discount. Where are you finding it for free? You can get a free trial, but most trials come with limitations and are short-lived.

Thanks, everyone. I'll go with VirtualBox.

I am a student in college (not a very good one, thus why I'm here asking for help) and I will eventually be in classes where I will need VMware, but that is at least a couple of years out. Currently, I have no experience using virtual machines, but I'm in some development classes that I believe would be improved if I could host XAMPP locally in order to test my php/perl scripting without having to upload it to the student server (which is time consuming during scripting/debugging), so I've concluded that it would probably be best to set up virtual machine capabilities in order to install XAMPP (on Linux, in a VM). I don't have any experience doing any of this, but I think I can figure it out. What I'm wanting to know is which Virtual Machine software suite is most similar to VMware, but FREE, since I really need to learn VMware, but I can't afford it currently (even with the student discount). I don't want to learn a program that will make learning VMware more difficult due to the need to "unlearn" things that operate completely differently, so I'm trying to get whatever free VM software is the closest to VMware in usability/UI. What would serve my needs best? Virtual Box? Hyper-V? Something else? I'd like to stress that I have zero experience with any of this, and I'm just going by what I could find using google search. Am I over-complicating this? I tend to do that. To be clear: I'd like to be able to run php and perl locally on my PC (Windows 10, 64 bit) so that I do not have to upload my webpages that include server-side scripting to the server to see if they work because it is very time-consuming.

I have two desktop PCs running Windows 10 Pro. I have two monitors which have two inputs, HDMI and VGA. I have my primary PC connected to both monitors, the primary monitor runs HDMI from the PC to HDMI to the monitor (the cable is HDMI both ends), the secondary monitor runs DVI from the PC to HDMI to the monitor (cable is DVI one end and HDMI on the other). Each monitor has an input switch to switch from VGA to HDMI channels (the input button). On the secondary monitor it stays on the HDMI channel all the time, since that is its only job. The primary monitor has the second PC hooked up to it as well, VGA from the PC to VGA on the monitor. I have been using the input switch to switch from the HDMI channel (primary PC) to the VGA channel (the secondary PC) on the primary monitor. It was working great. Then I installed a graphics card (an XFX AMD RX 480), and now when I hit the input button on the primary monitor, it goes to the second PC as expected, but when I hit the input button to switch back to the primary PC, it doesn't detect the signal anymore. I have to either unplug the cable from the graphics card and plug it back in, or hit win+P and select "extend display" to make it comes back (this, however, causes all my desktop icons to be rearranged every single time, so it is very unusable). HOWEVER, this is only when the second PC is ON, when the second PC is OFF, the input button still works fine, I can switch to the VGA channel and back with no problem. I am running DisplayFusion to customize the taskbar on the secondary monitor and add some pop/resize functions to my explorer windows, but I do not use DisplayFusion to manage the monitor setup (I use the built in Windows tool to manage my secondary display). This problem is VERY annoying, as it has made my formerly working set up totally inconvenient to use. When I go into the AMD control panel, it does have a section called Display, and it does offer to manage my monitors, but as far as I can tell I have everything turned off. That being said, something is definitely causing an issue in there, as it worked fine before I had a graphics card in the machine. What can I do to fix this?

There ya go man. It took a long time!

Haha! Does it change seasonally?

I'm really sorry to hear you lost your mom. November seems to be a hard time of year for a lot of people (me too). My sincere condolences to you.

Because YUM.

My thumb hurts now.

All I want for Christmas is Luke naked in my bed.

The majority hate brown people just like they always have every previous year: War. Torture. Stupid Americans. Blundering irresponsibility reigns.

Yeah, all my partners have always hated using my computer because of that trackball. Everyone's different, hands come in all shapes and sizes, and such. If you've been using $10 cheapos, basically any decent Logitech is going to be a luxury experience.