Using Virtual PC for computer migration
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 then it comes time to perform a major upgrade (such as I have just done over the past weekend). The problem with this is that my wife is in to genealogy - and uses a whole bunch of custom applications that I know nothing about - and that she would be very upset about if I did not migrate them successfully. The solution? Use Virtual PC!
What I do is:
- Setup the new computer with Windows, virtual PC, and as many of her applications that I know about
- Take the hard disk out of her old computer and attach it to the new computer
- Boot up the new computer
- Go into the Disk Management tool under Windows (Control Panel --> Administrative tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management)
- Select to remove the disk letter from the hard disk from the old computer
- Start Virtual PC
- Use the Virtual Hard Disk wizard to create a linked virtual hard disk pointing to the hard disk from the old computer
- Then use the Virtual Hard Disk wizard to convert the linked virtual hard disk to a dynamic virtual hard disk
- Wait a long time (usually 2 to 3 hours)
- Any anti-virus software should be disabled for this step - otherwise it will take a lot longer
- Create a new virtual machine that points to the new virtual hard disk
- Boot up the virtual machine and confirm that everything works
- There are a few things that can cause this to fail - and I will discuss them in further depth in coming posts
- Install the Virtual Machine Additions and shutdown the virtual machine
- Shutdown the new computer and remove the old disk
Once this is done - I can begin migrating data and application information from the virtual machine to the physical computer over the network. But the best thing is that I can tell my wife that if a program doesn't work during the day - she should launch the virtual machine and use it there for now. Then when I get home from work - she can tell me about it and I can fix it then.
Also - this allows me to harvest her old computer for parts much more quickly :-)
Cheers,
Ben
