Which version of Windows to put on a VM?

I need to run a Windows VM and I'm trying to decide between 7/8(.1).

The VM would run on very limited netbook/tablet systems, so I'm worry about both performance and storage capacity. Is there any significant difference between Win7/8 in terms of idle load and space required for minimum install? Does 7 or 8 have any compulsory background process that could keep the host CPU from going into sleep frequently?

In case it matters, the host OS could be Windows 8.1 or Linux. I'm interested in running 3D apps in the VM, mostly OpenGL. The apps I need to run have good compatibility with both 7 and 8 so this is not a concern.

 

I hope you have enough RAM on that tablet.

Any reason you can't just run the apps in the host OS as it is?

 

3D apps like CAD don't do well in VMs, due to lag from the input (you go to rotate model, and there's lag, making it very hard to use).

 

Windows 7 is definitely the more VM friendly of the two but any kind of 3D work is going to take a hefty hit in performance. The only 3D solution I find passable is VMWare's DirectX 9.0c support.

 

What kind of hardware exactly would you run the VMs on. I mean, I wouldn't freak out about running one VM on any core i CPUs, but I'd never dare do it on atom processors, even Bay Trail or more recent. Also make sure you have plenty of RAM, I'd assign at minimum 1 GB to your Windows 7 VM, you may even need more and that's not even counting what you need to run the OS installed on the computer.

Also, what Ethrem said and depending on whether you have specific virtualization features on your hardware the amount of resources needed and the performance hit might differ.

 

Thank you for all the replies.

The tablet I plan to use at the moment is gen 2 Surface Pro with 8G/256G.

Gen 2 Surface Pro with i5-4300U and 8G/256G. 8GB should be enough for at least one VM at a time.

I want to use VM because switching between dual booted systems is annoying and more importantly, I want to have isolated systems that I can mess with and recover. Using VMs with snapshots and copies would be convenient for this purpose. If I only need one VM image, the 256G drive should be enough. But with multiple snapshots and copies it becomes a problem.

The OpenGL apps I use are for visualizing simulation or geophysical data. A bit lag won't hurt.

I'm aware that i5-4300U has VT-d. Anything else I should be worried about?

 

Running one VM on your surface pro 2 shouldn't be a problem at all, assign 2 or 3 GB RAM to the VM and you're good to go. Are you planning on using Hyper-V client, VMWare or something else?

 

I don't know. I'm very new to this graphical VM thing and I have no idea what options are there. What would you recommend?

 

As I said earlier, only VMWare Workstation has acceptable 3D performance. I actually checked and it does support OpenGL as well.

 

Another vote for VMWare, also, Hyper-V isn't ideal if you want to pass data between the VM and host. On the other hand, it's included in Windows 8 Pro, so if you just wanted to run some quick and dirty tests, you could go for that then grab a copy of VMWare if what you want to do is doable.

 

Does VMWare Player have 3D support? That would be an option too.

 

From an ordinary user perspective*, VMware Player has everything that VMware Workstation has, except for snapshots.

@Mr.Koala: Your only options are VMware Workstation/Player and VirtualBox, since:

1. Unlike its Server 2012 counterpart, Hyper-V running under Windows 8.x does not support 3D acceleration at all.
2. With the right hardware (a CPU+mobo with VT-d support along with an Nvidia Quadro GPU), Parallels Workstation Extreme would be the fastest option by far thanks to its support for GPU passthrough. Unfortunately, the IGP-only Surface Pro 2 definitely does not constitute the right hardware in this situation.

Therefore, I suggest you simply download the trial for Workstation along with Player and VirtualBox, and test to see which (if any) best suits your needs.

* Other features that Player doesn't have include things like vCloud Air support and the ability to manage an ESXi server, but ordinary users are unlikely to need or care about such functionality.