Testing VMWare Player 1.0.3, VirtualBox, and Virtual PC 2007...
Time between starting from the text-mode (F8) boot screen. 256MB RAM allocated to VM. Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) guest. Host Extensions installed in every case.
Seconds before Login prompt displayed:
Safe Mode w/Networking
- VirtualBox 31 sec
- VMWare Player 1.0.2 38 sec
- VMWare Player 2 beta 53 sec
- Virtual PC 2007
Boot Normally
- VirtualBox 26 sec
- VMWare Player 1.0.2 29 sec
- VMWare Player 2 beta 45 sec
- Virtual PC 2007
Notes:
- VirtualBox Shared Folders crashes the guest. Semi-repeatable if you browse to C:\foo\bar and bar has hundreds of files in it. VMWare Player has no Shared Folders. Pay $200 for Workstation and you get Shared Folders that work. Which is the better option: free broken or $200 working?
- Virtual PC Shared Folders might work. I haven't tested it yet.