I am wondering if anyone knows if it is possible and if so how to create a vitual machine BIOS.
I mean a virtual BIOS so that I can teach people how to mess around and alter BIOS settings in a safe and easy environment without having to reset a CMOS everytime they have finished.
As far as I know it doesen't. What you could do is copy the interface of a BIOS and put it into a program that generates different CPUs and simulates the silicon lottery. Can be tricky and complicated but would serve your needs pretty well.
There used to be virtual BIOSes (not sure what the plural is here) but I'm not sure if it's still a thing. Here's an example http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/4432-gigabyte-virtual-bios.html I haven't heard of any for more modern boards.
I found these two websites that "emulate" a bios:
http://www.grs-software.de/sims/bios/phoenix/pages/
http://service.lenovo.partner-management.com/et.cfm?eid=1437
but TBH they both suck.
btw, you can create acl's to vmware and have people play around their bios (not much over there - but still)
they would require vmware vsphere client. This would give them power to turn it off / reboot also... anyway up to you what kind of permissions you give them...
Actually that is very helpfull thank you!
qemu should be able to do this, just need a bios file. it can do efi as well, though it might be harder to locate the needed files
great, i'll take a look, thanks