Hello and Welcome to Part 2 of your lab setup, if you followed the first post in this series, we had just finished installing Virtual Box. I know you’re anxious to create your first Virtual Machine, However there is a very important step we need to do first. We need to determine the current hardware that we have installed on our computer.
The most important thing to understand is that Virtual Machines, will ‘share’ your computers hardware. They can’t magically make your physical computer(referred to as the host) faster, have more memory(RAM), or a bigger hard-drive. Instead your host will have to share this hardware with the Virtual Machine(s) installed. The three main things you need to know about your Host’s hardware are:
- The number of cores and speed of your CPU(Processor)
- The amount of installed RAM(Memory)
- The amount of free space on your HDD(Hard-Drive)
.Now there are many other ways to get all this information, and most would have you looking in a few different spots. However, you can find all this information in one place, also as a bonus this technique works on Windows 7, 8 and 10!
First hold down the windows
key on your keyboard and press R, you’ll see the “run box” 
in this box type msinfo32 and press Enter:
You should see a screen like the one below:
On this screen you get can get the first two items on our list, the Processor(CPU) information and also the Memory(RAM) information, In our example the CPU(Processor) speed is 3311 MHZ(3.31GHz), and has 6 cores, it is possible that yours says something like “QUAD” core which would mean you have 4 cores in your processor. What is the speed and number of cores on your Host? Write this down.
We can also see the installed Physical Memory(RAM) in our example we have 24.0 GB of memory(RAM) Installed. What is the speed and number of cores on your Host? Write this down.
Now to get the last piece of information, in the left hand side of the window you just opened, click the “+” sign next to “components” to expand, then click the “+” next to “storage” to expand, now click on “drives” Your screen should look like below:
In our example we have two Hard-Drives(HDD’s) installed in this computer. The first one is the C: Drive which has 34.39GB Free and the second one is the D: Drive which has 134.84 GB Free. You may only have one Hard-drive installed, the most common is the “C:” drive, how much free space does yours have? Write this down.
*Note if you see a drive that starts with A: and the the volume name says something like “system reserved” you don’t need that information.
Now we have the information we need to start building our virtual machine: The information for our example is below.
- The number of cores and speed of your CPU(Processor)
- 3311 MHZ(3.31GHz), and this computer has 6 cores
- The amount of installed RAM(Memory)
- 24.0 GB of memory(RAM) Installed
- The amount of free space on your HDD(Hard-Drive)
- C: Drive has 34.39GB Free, and the D: Drive has 134.84 GB Free
Now that we have the information we need, We will be able to start building our virtual machine, check back for the next post “Creating your first Virtual Machine!”
