I know there are lots of utilities out there capable of creating a high CPU load. You probably know the cpubusy.vbs from your VMware Install and Configure course and you can also download CPU-Burn freely from the internet. But what if you can’t download such a util and still want to be able to create a high CPU load within your virtual machine. Let’s take a look at the good old Windows Calculator. Go to the scientific view and just punch in a large number, the next step is to hit the n! button. Your calculator is running a mathematical function called factorial and it can consume a large number of CPU cycles. When you choose 5 for instance, it’s 5! = 1*2*3*4*5 =120, but when you choose 20, it’s 2,432,902,008,176,640,000. Hit the n! a few times in a row and your virtual machine will be busy for a while.
