[Todd Gruel]

Thanks so much for your thorough and thoughtful responses.

I’m going through the installation process now for VirtualBox and I’m being asked about adding a virtual hard disk. I’m imagining that I’ll need to install one of these, right? Since I don’t know what my needs are, is it best to choose a more generic virtual hard drive type that might be compatible with other virtualisation software: Virtual Hard Disk or Virtual Machine Disk? What is the difference?

Also, I noticed that I have the VMware Player, too. How does this differ from VirtualBox or the other virtualisation programs? Can the dragging and dropping of files and folders that you’ve described within VMware also be done within VirtualBox?

Lastly, I’ve downloaded the trail of Beyond Compare. It’s expensive! But if I understand correctly, any of these virtualisation programs will be compatible with Mac backup programs, right? Since I’m not using BootCamp, will I be able to use Carbon Copy Cloner, for example, to bar up my virtual drive?

[Todd Gruel]

Thanks, John!

I can write; but my computer knowledge is still limited. ?

No, I’m still in the research phase. I like the price of free, as long as VirtualBox is easy to use. I just downloaded a “build”, although I’m not sure how it works? Will try it out soon…

If that doesn’t work as needed, I’ll try out something else. Ultimately, I just need something simple. (I’m also running Catalina. So the program needs to work with my Mac OS.)

I’m planning on using XP or Vista.

Okay, technical clarification. Is the folder sharing and hybridization of files the same for all the virtualisation programs? Can I get away with avoiding formatting a partition as ExFat with all three options? If I can save the projects in a Mac-compatible format then it would be easier to back up, for sure!

Also, do you only get that prompt about whether you want USB drives to register as Mac or Windows drives the first time they’re plugged in (making this an important one-time decision) or does this happen every time the drives are plugged in? Can they register as both Mac and Windows drives simultaneously?

Thanks! It’s always good to talk to teachers. 😉

[Todd Gruel]

Thanks for your feedback!

A few clarifying questions. What do you mean about virtualization software allowing you to share folders on a Mac drive? I was thinking that folders had to be separated according to OS formatting, ExFat for Windows and Mac OS Journaled for Mac, etc.

Using a USB drive would probably be best, I think. By map onto a virtualization, do you mean that Windows files can be saved onto a Mac drive directly when using some virtualization software? Is that safe?

I haven’t picked a program yet. Maybe Parallels? I just need something compatible with very old Windows OSes. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[Todd Gruel]

Thanks for the feedback.

To be precise, I’m most concerned about backing up my project files that I’ll be working with. As they will exist in a Windows OS as ExFat files, data backup is not available by any Mac backup programs that I know of. Does the process of virtualisation make backing up ExFat easier somehow? Or do the same principles apply here?