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Best way to virtualise existing windows PC's

I manage a few legacy systems, one XP one W2K, they both have proprietary databases that are no longer supported but are still used. We have no reasonable way of reinstalling the database on another machine and for speed and hardware reliability I would like to run these as virtual machines on a server. What is the best way to do this. Cheaper would be better as there is not much budget.

Thanks in advance!

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Joseph Daly

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netmenderva

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coolsport00

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ryder0707

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durge

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Fantastic guys it looks like you all have good suggestions. I am going to trial this on a normal PC using the vmware converter and server2, thanks ryder for the specific tips on cloning a DB machine. What product would offer the "cold boot" option?

ryder0707

It is VMware Converter Enterprise BootCD, as i mentioned earlier, it is for enterprise licensed customer & can be downloaded from vmware if you've purchased the license

durge

ASKER

Thanks I think this is plenty for me to get on with!