May, 2006

A while ago I talked about how to manually migrate a physical computer to a virtual machine . Now - there are a number of automated tools to perform physical to virtual migrations (called 'P2V') - however most of them only support server operating systems...

There are a number of global settings for Virtual PC that are stored in our 'Options.XML' file. You can have a look in this file by running 'notepad %appdata%\Microsoft\Virtual PC\Options.xml' . One interesting option is that we store the details of where...

If you go into the 'Full-Screen Mode' of the Virtual PC Options section (accessible via 'File' --> 'Options' off of the Virtual PC Console) you will see a single checkbox - which is checked by default. When this option is checked, putting a virtual...

As announced last Friday the Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Beta 1 is now available for people to test. One question I have heard asked a lot is: What does hardware virtualization support do for Virtual Server? Before I answer this question I would like...

Virtual PC has a set of build in security options. What this allows you to do is to restrict access to various parts of the application for non-Administrative users*. When all the options are enabled - all that a non-administrative user can do is to launch...

Released in 1988, Battle Chess is probably one of the most notorious computer chess games ever. This game managed to take the purely intellectual game of chess and make it immensely more amusing and appealing to the general populace. How did it do...

The Virtual Server Administrator's guide outlines how to perform a basic unattended installation of Virtual Server. However it does not tell you how to do a customized unattended install (where you only install some of the components). You can do this...

Quest for Glory 1: So you want to be a hero? (from here on in - QFG1) is one of my all time favorite games. This is one of the great Sierra adventure games - where you take the role of a hero in a small town with a number of mysteries. It is up to you...

This is a fantastic game! You get to play the part of a giant monster, run around and destroy buildings, helicopters and anything else. This is a true arcade classic: And it runs perfectly under Virtual PC. For more information checkout: http://en...

John Howard made a post highlighting the fact that you can disable or enable hardware virtualization support under VS 2005 R2 SP1. You may be wondering why you would want to do this - and I have two reasons: For those of you who are actively testing...

Just a small post today to point out that the Virtual PC website has been given a nice update: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx We have also published a new whitepaper on using Virtual PC for development and debugging: ...

Woo hoo! Well - the demo went off perfectly (I was backstage keeping an eye on the hardware). Kudos Jeff for the fantastic job! For those who did not see it - today we demonstrated Windows virtualization running: - 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines...

M1 Tank Platoon was a fascinating game - which provided an interesting mix of tactics and action game play. In this game you are the platoon leader of 4 M1 Abrams tanks - and have to battle through a long series of battles against the enemy. What makes...

Last week I showed you how to use Set and GetConfigValue to change settings under Virtual Server . Today I would like to show you another interesting use for this API. Basically you can use it to extend the virtual machine configuration files to store...

Today I am playing the arcade classic 'OutRun'. There are a number of things that make this game cool. First - It is a straight forward street racing game, nothing complex, just go for it. Second - as the race goes on you have the opportunity to decide...

Check it out: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/may06/05-22Virtualization.mspx Cheers, Ben

You are Snake Logan, a top CIA operative who likes to do things his own way. Metro City has fallen under the attack of hideous mutants and your mission is to fly recon over the city and report back. While circling over the city you are shot down by hostile...

Following up the Windows virtualization demonstration today in Bill Gates' keynote - we also had demonstrations of the upcoming System Center Virtual Machine Manager (codenamed 'Carmine'). This is really cool. Some key features that were demonstrated...

Hi everyone, I just received an email that a new KB had just been published on how to address the issue of time running too fast for Linux virtual machines under Virtual Server 2005 R2 - so if you are seeing this problem - go check it out . Cheers...

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (QFG2) has you playing the role of the hero from the original Quest for Glory. The story goes that after doing in all the baddies in the town of Speilburg you fly off with Abdul to the middle eastern town of Shapier ...

Today I have a very simple script: Set vs = CreateObject("VirtualServer.Application") Wscript.Echo "Available system capacity: " & vs.AvailableSystemCapacity This will report the available system capacity as a percent. Note that this is...

Well - this has been a pretty cool week from a virtualization point of view. We demonstrated the Windows hypervisor for the first time ever, and announced our intended release dates. We also demonstrated System Center Virtual Machine Manager - and announced...

Just a short post today - I recently went searching for some sample scripts for gathering information about the Virtual Server virtual networks - and did not find many - so I thought I would put this simple sample up: Set vs = CreateObject("VirtualServer...

A little while ago I showed you how to gather information about how much traffic a virtual network had experienced in total. However it is also possible to get information about the traffic that has specifically occurred in the last minute. This script...

What is this a picture of? It is what the big WinHEC display looks like from behind. That is right - I am backstage at the moment and we are preparing for the Bill Gates' keynote. Cool stuff coming - so if you are not already planning to watch it ...