Legacy Gaming
Let's not forget the really important stuff. There's a number of Win9x and XP games that I would like to think I could still play in 20 years' time (including the peerless Planescape Torment). It's possible Wine (on Linux) may mature sufficiently that my games will all run flawlessly, but it's nice to have an alternative solution just in case. Of course, this is contingent on Direct3D being handled adequately in the virtual machine interface to the real hardware, although VMWare has already made a start with some limited D3D support for XP.
Here's a digression (to which I'm entitled because it's my first ever post to the Reg :-). Win9x currently works OK within a virtual machine because there are Win9x drivers for the virtual graphics card (and other hardware). What happens if VMWare (for example) "upgrade" their virtual graphics card to a later generation for which no Win9x drivers are available, for a version of VM Server in 3 years' time? Or am I being stupid?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
