220 provides a portal to a specified vm 260 the user may interact with a guest os and guest applications executing within the specified vm 260 via vm panel 220 for example the user may connect to the guest os resulting in a frame buffer for the guest os being displayed within vm panel 220 the user may transmit gui events such as mouse movements and key presses to the guest os which should then react appropriately to the gui events in this way the user is able to interact with the specified vm as shown list panel 230 displays a list of hosts 240 and individual vms 260 organized into folders within hosts 240 i individual vms 260 are configured to nominally reside within a specified host 240 although migration of vms 260 between hosts 240 may also be implemented without departing the scope of the present invention it should be recognized that each of hosts 240 displayed in gui 200 corresponds to one of host systems 140 of fig1 a set of favorites 232 is associated with certain designated vms 260 within list panel 230 each vm 260 may be designated as a favorite by the user after being designated as a favorite the corresponding vm may be listed with an accompanying icon such as a heart icon to signify that it is a favorite as further described below a favorite designation provides one attribute for searching and listing vms 260 a user may remove a favorite designation from a particular vm 260 by clicking on the corresponding favorite attribute icon the user may add a favorite designation to a particular vm 260 by clicking in a region that corresponds to the region otherwise occupied by a favorite attribute icon to assist the user in easily locating.