Virtual PC Noob, Please Help

[HarryAxeWound]

Hi guys, long time LTT YT subscriber, first time coming here.

 

Long story short. I need Windows 7 to run a DAW and plugins that have compatibility issues on my win 10 machine. I know next to nothing about how virtual machines work though (i assume I could use one to run a DAW comfortably? 6600k and 16gb RAM)

Dumb questions:

After installing windows 7 on a virtual machine, does it have internet access/does it update etc?
What sort of RAM allocation can i get away with if I wouldnt be using the core OS much at the same time?
Should I just dual boot and stop wasting your time?
Other dumb questions to inevitably follow

Thanks guys

[Tylerebowers]

change the compatibility for the plugins to win 7 or run the windows troubleshooter

[HarryAxeWound]

Just now, Tyleredbowers said:

change the compatibility for the plugins to win 7 or run the windows troubleshooter

Hi. Unfortunately that doesnt work

[Tylerebowers]

then get virtualbox it is free

 

 

[Benergy]

4 minutes ago, HarryAxeWound said:

Hi guys, long time LTT YT subscriber, first time coming here.

 

Long story short. I need Windows 7 to run a DAW and plugins that have compatibility issues on my win 10 machine. I know next to nothing about how virtual machines work though (i assume I could use one to run a DAW comfortably? 6600k and 16gb RAM)

Dumb questions:

After installing windows 7 on a virtual machine, does it have internet access/does it update etc?
What sort of RAM allocation can i get away with if I wouldnt be using the core OS much at the same time?
Should I just dual boot and stop wasting your time?
Other dumb questions to inevitably follow

Thanks guys

Welcome to the forums!

 

You can set it up to share internet connection with the host machine.

You can use the same amount of RAM you'd use in a physical machine, 4GB should be ok depending on what you're doing..

Dual boot will do the same thing and is less annoying to configure, though consider it an opportunity to learn about VMs

[Tylerebowers]

do you have skype it might be easier to walk you through setting up win 7

[HarryAxeWound]

1 minute ago, Benergy said:

Welcome to the forums!

 

You can set it up to share internet connection with the host machine.

You can use the same amount of RAM you'd use in a physical machine, 4GB should be ok.

Dual boot will do the same thing and is less annoying to configure, though consider it an opportunity to learn about VMs

Thanks buddy!

VM's is definitely something I want to learn more about. 

[Sunshine1868]

@GoodBytes please move this to Servers/Virtualization 

[HarryAxeWound]

2 minutes ago, Tyleredbowers said:

do you have skype it might be easier to walk you through setting up win 7

Thats very kind. Im sure I can set it up, its more the inner workings Im concerned about. 

[Bazadar]

1 minute ago, HarryAxeWound said:

Thanks buddy!

VM's is definitely something I want to learn more about. 

VM's are handy, I've been playing around with them now for awhile to get use Linux

[Sunshine1868]

Virtual machines are very easy... I have not played with VirtualBox, but I am currently running a Win7 VM in ESXi that has 2 virtual cores and 4GB RAM and it runs just fine. Just be sure to configure hardware access to your graphics card/sound card if you need.

[HarryAxeWound]

Just now, Sunshine1868 said:

Virtual machines are very easy... I have not played with VirtualBox, but I am currently running a Win7 VM in ESXi that has 2 virtual cores and 4GB RAM and it runs just fine. Just be sure to configure hardware access to your graphics card/sound card if you need.

When you say " Just be sure to configure hardware access to your graphics card/sound card if you need", is that something done from the VM settings, or is it a case of just installing drivers normally in the VM os? I would need to install my audio interface for instance

[Sunshine1868]

It will be done within the Hypervisor/Virtualization platform you're working form (I assume virtual box has this functionality). Basically, the Hypervisor is presenting the VM's OS with virtual hardware... so if you tell the hypervisor what hardware to show, it will show it

 

remember "x-gamers, 1 pc"? each VM is presented with the appropriate graphics card by the hypervisor

[Bazadar]

Done by the VM software before you tell it to boot up.

[Benergy]

4 minutes ago, HarryAxeWound said:

When you say " Just be sure to configure hardware access to your graphics card/sound card if you need", is that something done from the VM settings, or is it a case of just installing drivers normally in the VM os? I would need to install my audio interface for instance

When you're setting up the VM in whatever particular piece of software, you can allocate physical hardware to the VM rather than the host OS (e.g. the VM would have one physical GPU completely allocated to it).

 

This would be configured in the same place where you're allocating your RAM for example.

[HarryAxeWound]

1 minute ago, Sunshine1868 said:

It will be done within the Hypervisor/Virtualization platform you're working form (I assume virtual box has this functionality). Basically, the Hypervisor is presenting the VM's OS with virtual hardware... so if you tell the hypervisor what hardware to show, it will show it

 

remember "x-gamers, 1 pc"? each VM is presented with the appropriate graphics card by the hypervisor

Ok I think I understand. So the driver is being funneled from core os? Or am I a total moron?

[Sunshine1868]

The driver is presented by the hypervisor. I imagine VirtualBox has an option saying "Install Virtual Tools" or something along those lines; that is the suite of drivers that allow everything to play nicely. In theory, if the expansion card is being presented directly to the VM, you could just install the drivers in the VM as if it was a real computer

[HarryAxeWound]

My head is hurting already.....

If I were to just buy a new SSD and install windows 7 on that, how do I choose between the two OSes when I turn on the machine? BIOS everytime?

[Benergy]

12 minutes ago, HarryAxeWound said:

My head is hurting already.....

If I were to just buy a new SSD and install windows 7 on that, how do I choose between the two OSes when I turn on the machine? BIOS everytime?

To have a choice without entering the BIOS, you'd want to install a custom bootloader.

If you're going this path, I'd strongly recommend you use the GRUB bootloader, which can easily be installed from an Ubuntu live CD.

This provides you with a menu on boot, on which you can select the OS you want to start up.

http://www.howopensource.com/2012/05/reinstall-recover-grub-from-ubuntu-12-04-live-cd-usb/

 

[HarryAxeWound]

5 minutes ago, Benergy said:

To have a choice without entering the BIOS, you'd want to install a custom bootloader.

If you're going this path, I'd strongly recommend you use the GRUB bootloader, which can easily be installed from an Ubuntu live CD.

This provides you with a menu on boot, on which you can select the OS you want to start up.

http://www.howopensource.com/2012/05/reinstall-recover-grub-from-ubuntu-12-04-live-cd-usb/

 

Thank you so much for your advice, and to everyone else. 
From the brief googling Ive just done, it seems Windows 10 has its own bootloader? Would that automatically kick in if I were to install win 7 on another ssd?

[Benergy]

6 minutes ago, HarryAxeWound said:

Thank you so much for your advice, and to everyone else. 
From the brief googling Ive just done, it seems Windows 10 has its own bootloader? Would that automatically kick in if I were to install win 7 on another ssd?

It might, it's a bit temperamental in my experience. There's this thing called a Master Boot Record (MBR) on that hard drive, which is basically a little part of the hard drive set aside to hold a list of where to find all the OS' on this entire machine. When you boot this hard drive, it lets you select from this list before booting anything else (if there's only 1 OS, it automatically boots it).

 

When you install an OS on another drive in the machine, if you want that OS to show up in the original MBR, it needs to add it's address to that list on THE OTHER hard drive, rather than it's own. This allows you to boot both OS' from the other drive, whereas if this didn't work and it set up it's own MBR, you'd have to manually boot the new drive in the BIOS to access the new OS.