November, 2004

When migrating a physical computer to a virtual machine - there are a number of potential problems to be aware of. However, it should be noted that these are the exact same problems that are encountered when migrating a system from one physical computer...

One cool use of Virtual PC is as a 'backup' during a physical computer migration. An example of this would be my wife's computer. Generally speaking - my wife does not let me touch her computer - as I have a tendency to break things. But every now and...

Microsoft BOB lives in infamy.  BOB was a graphical shell that ran on top of Windows 3.11 and Windows 95.  It attempted to replace the traditional desktop environment with a visual representation of a house; where all your programs were objects...

Having heard nothing but good reviews about Windows Media Center 2005 - and being a nerd at heart - I decided to try and build my own Media Center PC this weekend. Once the install CD's were in my hands - I thought - 'I wonder if this would run under...

Next in the Command and Conquer series is Dune 2000. After the success of Command and Conquer, and Red Alert - Westwood decided to go and create a remake of the original Dune 2. This game did not do too well in the market - as at the time that it released...

Continuing on from previous 'migration' posts ( http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2004/11/24.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2004/11/22.aspx ) - once you have your computer converted to a virtual machine - and you have...

One of the skeletons that I keep in my closet is that a long time ago - I was an OS/2 zealot. Soon after using Windows 3.0 - I got to play with my first copy of OS/2. OS/2 2.11. I immediately fell in love with it. It was much more stable than Windows...

Hi All! Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the States (hence the lack of a post from me) which means that today is the 'big sale' day of the year for Americans (something I never knew until I moved here). I usually avoid big sales - but I did grab a coffee...

X-COM: Apocalypse has been one of the trickiest games in the X-COM series to get running under Virtual PC. The run down of the issues that I encountered while setting this up were: 1) X-COM: Apocalypse seems to have a problem installing off of a .ISO...

One feature that people regularly ask for in Virtual PC is the ability to have a virtual machine in a 'saved state' and to then be able to repeatedly restore the virtual machine from that saved state. This is particularly useful for training and demonstration...

From time to time people ask me to identify the best 'light weight' operating system to run under Virtual PC - with the basic requirements of TCP/IP connectivity. The answer is usually not what they expect. If you are solely interested in something that...

I am going to move on from the Command and Conquer series. The reason for this is that I cannot get the remaining games to run under Virtual PC. Command and Conquer - Tiberian Sun - has a copy protected CD that does not seem to work inside of Virtual...

IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange) is an older protocol - originally developed by Novell for Netware networks. A number of DOS games need to have an IPX peer-to-peer network configured in order to support head-to-head gaming. In order to setup a minimal...

One of the cool 'hidden' features of Virtual PC / Virtual Server is the ability to dedicate a physical network to be used only by virtual machines. This can be done simply by going to the 'Control Panel' on the host computer and then going to the 'Network...

You may have been wondering why you would want to setup IPX under Virtual PC.  The simple answer is so that you can play old school DOS network games against your friends.  The not so obvious answer is so that you can play a game of DOOM against...

The final stop in the X-COM series takes a distinct change of pace. X-COM: Interceptor maintained the base building strategy aspects of the previous games - however the turn based strategy sections have been replaced with real time space combat against...

The next game in the X-COM series is 'X-COM: Terror from the deep'. This game is the direct sequel to UFO - Enemy unknown - and uses the same game engine (with a few minor tweaks). The result is that it behaves largely like UFO - Enemy Unknown when run...

Win32s is an extension set for Windows 3.11 that enables you to run specific 32-bit applications under Windows 3.11. If you need to run an application that needs Win32s under Virtual PC - one of the first issues you will encounter is that Win32s v1.3...

During the development of Virtual PC 2004 - our primary focus was to perform a thorough security review of the entire product (After which - I have nothing but respect for the level of commitment that Microsoft now has to shipping secure products). Unfortunately...

About 1.75 years ago Microsoft acquired Connectix's virtual machine technology. At that stage I had been working at Connectix for a year and a half on the Virtual PC for Windows product line. As a long time IT enthusiast - it seemed kind of strange to...