It's really hard to describe, without foaming at the mouth, how bad the UI is for Microsoft Virtual Server. I try to avoid it like the plague, but every once in a while I'm forced to use it.

The product just has 'clueless' written all over it. (As in they don't get it.) Just look at the name of the product: "Virtual Server 2005 R2". Uh yeah, okay guys. Sure you don't want to append a build number to that somewhere? And unless I'm totally MISSING something, this product was released to production last year - you know, 2006.

But compared to even the very SPARSE UI provided by VMware Server (another free product), the UI for Virtual Server is just an absolute joke. For starters, it's a LAME web page UI... which is just dumb when you're constantly working with file paths on the server - as you're required to 'type' in full blown paths to files/.isos and other resources in text boxes. Lame. Not to mention, IE7's security is just pathetic when combined with the Virtual Server UI - to the point where IE patently refuses to remember my credentials (even when I check the little check-box) - meaning that I have to type in my username/password no less than 2 times just to fire up a VPC and then connect to one of my consoles. That's about the LAMEST admin UI ever created. 

Then, of course, there's the fact that there's no way for me to specify the location for my .vmc files or .vhd files when I create a new VPC. Sure, I can change the DEFAULT directory for where ALL of my new VPCs will be created, but that's it.

Granted, having a web UI is a cool option - VMware Server provides one, and it's nothing to write home about either (as it's missing some core functionality) - though it doesn't drive me stark-raving batty working with it. And if it did, I'd just drop to the full-blown Admin Console which is drop-dead simple to use.

(There's also the problem with performance of the underlying service too. On my 4 proc server Virtual Server somehow manages to really thrash all 4 processors when running a single VM that only has 1 assigned processor. And I really hate how VPC/VS gobble up memory for VPCs statically. VMware's ability to dynamically grab memory as needed is SUCH a better option/offering...)

Happily Virtual PC 2007 (gee, not Virtual PC 2004 RC 5 ???) was recently released - as that takes away some of the pain.  But hopefully the top secret Virtualization stuff in Longhorn will make it so I can shut up about how bad the current UI for Serviced Virtualization is... cuz it's pretty crappy compared to the competition.