My laundry list..
- Tedious setting up each VM/Account.
- Lack of responsiveness in the host computer while running numerous accounts.
- Memory issues in x86
Its really the second problem that irritates me the most. I've been limited to 2-3 VMs running in the background when actively at my computer, and only 2 max if I want to play a game. This is slightly unacceptable.
Enter, Sandboxie. A windows sandbox utility similar to Solaris Zones, or FreeBSD jail. In short, it allows you to run a program inside it's own environment in such a way that it cannot interact in a meaninful way with the rest of the operating system. In TF2 terms.. you can run multiple copys of Steam and TF2 without the overhead of a Virtual Machine.
If you've worked with sandboxing, vms or anything similar this should come easily to you. Just think of a sandbox as a virtual machine and you're golden.
Quick setup guide:
- Copy/Paste your steam folder. You'll need all the TF2 GFCs and relevant files. (One copy per account you want to run at a time. If you want to run 3 at a time, you'll need copies.
- Create a new sandbox in Sandboxie, name it easy to find. Make one per account for bookkeeping purposes (idle1, idle2, idle3, etc for example)
- Go into the sandbox settings, Resource Access -> File Access -> Direct Access and add the Steam folder you just copied over. Like this...
- Right click the sandbox, run program windows explorer.
- Navigate to the Steam folder you just copied and run Steam.exe
- Allow steam to update.
- Add proprieties for idling in the game settings.
- Launch TF2.
Pretty simple no?
Sandboxie can be useful for other things as well, including web browsing, and running suspect programs/games without needing a VM. (VMs are still safer in this regard)
