What is the most optimal way to mine? Is it better to mine in a virtual machine or on the desktop?

I'm mining for Bitcoins and Litecoins, and am wondering how I can get the most hashes per second without altering my hardware. If it matters, I am on a laptop. I see a couple of choices, such as:


Mining within a browser
Using a dedicated machine, separate partition, or a virtual machine
Mining using an app on a machine used for other things (your daily computer, used for surfing the web, gaming, etc.)


So far I have tried running GUI Miner while doing other stuff. This doesn't work out well and I end up with only 32khash/s. Which of the above is the most optimal for doing this, or is there an even better choice?



My Laptop Specs  

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System Information
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       Machine name: SAMSUNG
   Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (9200.win8_gdr.130531-1504)
System Manufacturer: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
       System Model: 520U4C/520U4X
               BIOS: P03RAL
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
             Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 7894MB RAM
          Page File: 3598MB used, 5510MB available

---------------
Display Devices
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          Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
       Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
          Chip type: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
           DAC type: Internal
        Device Type: Full Device
         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&amp;DEV_0166&amp;SUBSYS_C682144D&amp;REV_09
     Display Memory: 1664 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 32 MB
      Shared Memory: 1632 MB
       Current Mode: 1366 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
       Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
         Monitor Id: SEC0200
        Native Mode: 1366 x 768(p) (60.072Hz)
Without changing hardware, GPU mining is almost certainly the "best" option. For BitCoin ASIC is the fastest, anything else is a waste of electricity at this point. For LiteCoin GPU is the fastest, and CPUs are around breakeven (electricity usage vs LiteCoin value).

Keep in mind that LiteCoin is inherently about 1000x slower than BitCoin mining. Getting 32kh/s out of a laptop GPU is doing reasonably well (my work laptop does the same). That same GPU can get almost 30Mhps mining BitCoin.