Which feature is NOT typically offered by a virtual system?

The correct answer identifies that direct access to the physical hardware is not typically offered by a virtual system.

In a virtual environment, the virtual machine (VM) interacts with virtualized hardware through the hypervisor, which abstracts the underlying physical hardware. This abstraction allows multiple virtual systems to run on a single set of physical resources, maintaining separation (isolation) between them. Direct access to physical hardware would break this model, potentially leading to conflicts between VMs and security risks by exposing them directly to the hardware layer.

The other features listed, such as isolation from other systems, multi-platform application support, and simultaneous operation of multiple systems, are core advantages of virtualization. Isolation ensures that one VM's operations do not affect another, multi-platform support allows different operating systems to run concurrently, and simultaneous operation enables greater utilization of the physical hardware by running multiple VMs at the same time. Thus, recognizing that direct hardware access is not part of the typical functioning of a virtual system highlights the nature of virtualization itself.