I wanted to point out that the new version of VMware's Player virtualization software adds one huge feature that the previous version didn't: the ability to create VMs. The old Player was only able to playback VMs that had been made in some other software like VMware's Workstation, Server, or Fusion, or made in open virtual format in another app like VirtualBox. Now Player can be used to create your VMs much like Workstation once did. This includes full Unity Mode support which is a really neat feature of VMware's desktop products.

Anyway it's free, you just register for a key and download it from www.vmware.com, so go ahead and try it. They're marketing it as "better than Windows XP Mode", the VirtualPC instance of XP that you can get with certain flavors of Window 7, but this one works with more than just those specific versions of Windows 7 and you can run almost any other OS inside Player.

Player is also available for Linux 8)

Make sure to check to see if your hardware is supported with VMware desktop products like this before installing. I don't think Intel VT or AMD-V are required for VMware but it isn't going to hurt. Speaking from experience memory is more important than CPU cores for virtualization. I'd also recommend storing your VMs on a drive that doesn't have your pagefile or OS on it just to avoid the disk thrashing that may take place running an entire encapsulated OS on a drive. Also if you have Logitech peripherals and encounter a BSOD loop after installing Player let me know as there's a registry tweak you need to perform after installing and before you restart your system (set a Restore point prior to installing and jump back to it with Windows Restore if you get stuck in that BSOD loop).

Enjoy the world of virtualization