Before explaining how to start a virtual system on system start-up, I want to explain what services are, I'll continue with explaining the commands (for Linux), and then explain why you want a virtual system to start on the system start-up.

Download the QEMU program (from http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~qemu-win/) and install it into a directory on Windows. I use C:\QEMU.

The ability to manage a vmware instance from the command line can be critical when the GUI or webpage won't work. In this case the following two commands helped me on Windows XP:

C:\> cd "c:\Program Files\VMware\Vmware Server"
C:\Program Files\VMware\Vmware Server> vmrun.exe -h "https://localhost:8333/sdk" -P 8333 -T server -u TimB -p PASSWORD stop "[standard] Ubuntu8/Ubuntu.vmx"

Now that I have explained virtualization, the question remains of why would anyone use it?

Everywhere you turn, IT professionals are talking about virtualization as the next big wave in technology. People banter around the terms Virtualization, Virtual PC, VMware, and others. But while IT people debate virtualizing computers, many people don't understand the concept, or why it's even needed.