Using SD for beta testing

[lokki]

Right - sorry I wasn't clear.

I know SD isn't a virtual environment; I was wondering if there is something that will let me launch the partition as a virtual environment. Basically, launching another install of MacOS within a window.

But I think that might not be a good test environment, now that I look at it, even it were possible...

Ok. Off to set up.

[dnanian]

Not that I know of, no.

[sjk]

If you want to run a truly virtualized OS X (client) environment on OS X I think Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac is currently the only option. I don't know the details; my only experience is with VMware Fusion hosting Windows XP.

[dnanian]

I'm pretty sure Fusion can do it, too, but I don't think you can point it at something like a Sandbox and expect a positive outcome. I think it'll only virtualize server, too.

[sjk]

I was implying Fusion only supports OS X Server as a guest OS, according to its spec sheet. Parallels, on the other hands, explicitly mentions supporting Server and "Client".

Like you said, it's not clear how either would be successfully integrated with an SD! Sandbox. I just thought virtualization products like Fusion and Parallels eventually had to come up in this discussion.

[lokki]

I'm currently running Parallels for Vista Home Premium (also on Bootcamp), which works pretty well for Win apps. I suppose I'd just use the same thing to install OSX, perhaps under Bootcamp, as well.

Whatever. I'm going to stick with SD for the time being.

After I ran the setup using the settings described, I came up with all the apps installed on Tester, where previously it only had the basic OS stuff. What I'm really after is distinct environments at this point. Should I simply let Tester be overwritten and try again using Shared User?

Sorry for my confusion.

[lokki]

Ok, I feel like a moron. I searched the forum for 'delete Sandbox', and the most likely thread never got followed up... but it's from 2006.

I think at this point, since it looks like SD did shared users AND apps, that I'm going to leave it as-is. I believe this is how it was intended, anyway. Given that, my strategy is to manually update before installing new builds.

Any comments on that?

btw - thanks for the input and help! I really appreciate it