Looking for a VM

I'm seriously thinking about installing a VM on my PC so I can check out W7, ReactOS, and maybe a Linux distro or two without having to devote a drive or partition to it. Yeah, I know there's plenty of 'live' Linuxes (Linuxes? Linii? Linui?) on CD, but so what LOL So here's the VMs I'm looking at:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/VirtualBox_d6043.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/VMware_Player_d4891.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Virtual_PC_d4101.html
Are there others? Is one better than the other? If so, why? For some reason, I'm leaning toward VirtualBox, but I don't know why. Maybe it's the name... it's sounds cool LOL Any input is appreciated.
:-D
Thanks

EDIT- I was just at the Microsoft web site, and they have a VHD download (Virtual Hard Drive). I'm still reading up on it.... does anyone have any info on it? Is it something like Alcohol or Daemon Tools? Link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738372.aspx

 

My default OS is Debian Linux so my comments come from that perspective.

I read those same kinda comments and found them to be true... VirtualBox wasn't difficult to set up and it is relatively easy to use. I installed it to run a CAD program in WinXP, both of which run at native speed. VBox (or any VM) needs plenty of ram for Windows... booting to the XP desktop uses 950MB.

 

I run VMWare 1.08, it's also very easy to set up as opposed to 2.0, that one still has me scratching my head. I have Ubuntu on there ATM and ran W7 before that. I gave 768MB and everything works well.

 

Thanks for the input.... I'll be researching all this a bit more in the days to come, and don't be surprised if I post several more VM related threads

 

i use virtualbox in linux and windows, i find it better than microsofts virtual machines - mainly because virtual pc 2004 (on my w2k) and virtual pc 2007 (on my xp) don't support linux,

virtualbox supports them all (linuxie things, solaris and windows),

you also get nearly all the added bonuses with running linux in a vm, i've got a few installed with full compiz running, which i don't think you can really get working from a live cd,

added bonus as well for a vm - copy the .vhd to another partition, then mess as much as you want with the origional, if you break it - just delete it normaly and copy the .vhd back and off you go again,
no need to keep re-installing,

all good, clean, wholesome fun:-D