A desktop virtual machine (DVM) is a virtual machine that runs a desktop operating system such as Windows XP or Vista. DVMs run on top of a virtualized infrastructure hosted on one or more servers.
From the perspective of VMware products (ESX and VirtualCenter) there is no distinction or difference between a DVM and a standard virtual machine. The same types of operations that can be performed on a standard virtual machine can be performed on a DVM. Pano Logic uses the term DVM to specifically refer to virtual machines that are being used as virtual desktops.