Virtual Varia

We've got some great news for you today, guys and gals. Robert McLaws recently made a post on LonghornBlogs asking us to be a little bit more transparent with out plans for Virtual PC. Ask and ye shall receive, Robert :) As of today, Microsoft has...

This isn't exactly on topic for this blog, since up to this point I've really only talked about getting Windows Vista running in a VM, but sometimes it's nice to talk about something else for a change. One of the things that I like most about Virtual...

We've finally released the Microsoft Virtual Machine Additions for Windows Vista Beta 2! You can download the additions here: http://connect.microsoft.com Log into the site, and sign up for the Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Beta if you're not already...

Updated for Hyper-V RTM Before we jump right into this, I thought it would be best if we got a few things straight.  For the remainder of this post, everytime I say "sysprep," I'm referring to running Sysprep with the /generalize switch...

One of the things that a lot of people have asked us about, both inside and outside of Microsoft, is whether or not we're going to support Glass running in a VM. So here's the scoop: the answer is 'sort of'. Here's how it breaks down: Virtual PC...

Just like the topic says, this post is dedicated to getting Vista going under Virtual PC. I've divided it into two sections, just to make it a bit more readable. Getting Vista Installed The first issue that Virtual PC users are likely to run into...

Not a whole lot has changed in the Virtual world when it comes to running Vista. Virtual PC still can't read ISO images over 2.2GB, so you'll still need to mount the image on the host PC, or burn it to a disc and use pass through to get the disc inside...

If anyone has tried syspreping Windows Vista Beta 2 inside a VM, you may have noticed that the VM Additions are still installed but not functional afterwards (this only happens if you use the /generalize switch). This is because of the way that the new...

There haven't really been any changes to the process of installing Vista in a Virtual Machine. As such, I'm just going to include links to the previous posts ( VPC / VS ). Just replace 'December' with 'February' and you should be good to go. One thing...

Looks like Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell are up to their old tricks again, with an awesome new tool called Disk2VHD . From the web site : Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions...

I've got to say, I've been using Vista and Longhorn Server internally for a very long time now - pretty much since Beta 1 was released - and I'm very impressed at how far we've come with the product. There are still some rough edges, but there's time...

Updated for Hyper-V RTM Picture it: Sicily, 1914. You've got a bunch of Servers that you need to install and configure Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V on. You don't feel like messing around with Sysprep. What do you do? Well, since none of these...

Installing Vista under Virtual Server 2005 R2 is significantly easier than installing under VPC or Virtual Server 2005 RTM. There are two main reasons why: Virtual Server 2005 R2 includes the new version of the Additions that work (but are UNSUPPORTED...

The webbernetz are abuzz with news that a new version of Ubuntu has been released today. As such, I figured that I should post instructions on how to get it going under Hyper-V. Now, I know that these steps are pretty complex, so I'll try to use as...

As I mentioned in my previous post , there's still an issue with Vista installing on blank hard drives, including newly created VHDs. If you try to install it on a totally blank (i.e. unpartitioned and unformatted) disk, you'll be told that Windows...

Updated for Hyper-V RTM Thus far we covered the steps necessary to capture a system image with Hyper-V installed, and how to install Windows and Hyper-V at the same time without dealing with system images at all. Let's take a step back and talk about...

I've been watching the comments - both internally and externally - about yesterday's launch of the Hyper-V Beta (yes, I know I'm on vacation, but this is exciting to watch), and I thought I'd list the answers to a few commonly asked questions. Q...

It was my New Years Resolution that I’d do an average of 2 blog posts per week this year. So far, I haven’t been doing a very good job of that, but I think I have a good excuse. I’ve been very busy with preparing to release a new tool, and now, I can...

So, it appears that the RC0 bits for Windows Server 2008 have been posted to the intarwebs .  As I said in a previous post, the CTP release of the "Viridian" virtualization technology is included in this release of Windows Server. Ben Armstrong...

A couple people have left comments saying they get an error message like the following when they try to install Vista in a VM: "The instruction at 0x1fee7a6d referenced memory at 0x02b8bd0f. The required data was not placed into memory because of an...

Starting back in 2006, I wrote a post about how to enable Aero Glass support for Virtual Machines by using Remote Desktop / Terminal Services.  Last August, I wrote another post describing how Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 is able to make Aero...

Back in 2006, I posted an article about how to get Glass running in a VM .  The trick was to use Remote Desktop on a Glass-enabled machine to TS into a VM which is running the same OS.  If the build of the OS on your workstation is different...

Of course you do. And in this episode of the Virtualization Nation Podcast, I’ll show you how. But first, a little background. Earlier today, I posted a description of the new Native VHD integration in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft...

To continue my "here's why" series of posts, I figured I'd talk about something else that a lot of our users have run into - the infamous disappearing mouse when you try to use a Hyper-V guest while TS'd (that's Terminal Services - or Remote...

Do you hate switching back and forth between your PowerPoint slides and a PowerShell window every time you want to demo something? Apparently, so did Capt. Recursion… er… I mean John Robbins of Wintellect.  That’s why he created PowerShellPoint ...