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Extracting files from the Virtual PC installer

A number of people have asked me how to get the Virtual Machine Additions from Virtual PC 2004, without having to install Virtual PC 2004.  To do this you will need to download the Virtual PC 2004 installer (from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx), unzip it, and run the following command:

msiexec /a "Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 MSDN.msi"

This will ask you to provide a directory in which to store the Virtual PC files.  Once this is completed you can find the Virtual Machine Additions under "\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\VMAdditions.iso" in the directory that you specified.

Note: This will even work on 64 bit host operating systems, where you cannot install Virtual PC 2004 at all.

Cheers,
Ben

Published Monday, January 08, 2007 2:22 PM by Virtual PC Guy

Comments

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:39 AM by tobias

# re: Extracting files from the Virtual PC installer

why would you want to get the vmadditions from VPC 2004? I thought the most desirable vmadditions were those that come with the newest beta of Virtual Server (Vista & Linux support etc.)

What am I missing here?  

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 6:06 PM by Virtual PC Guy

# re: Extracting files from the Virtual PC installer

Hi Tobias -

Yes, if you can use the latest version you should.  However, Virtual PC 2007 does not include additions for DOS, Windows 95 or Windows NT.

Cheers,

Ben

Sunday, January 28, 2007 4:14 PM by M. David Peterson

# re: Extracting files from the Virtual PC installer

Hi Ben,

I have a question in which I believe I probably know the answer to already, but feel its worth asking to clarify, just-in-case.

In regards to the redistribution agreement for Virtual Server, do I understand correctly that extracting the files from the MSI (similar to the process you've pointed out in this post), and then distributing any of the utilities by themselves would violate the terms of this agreement?  In particular, I am interested in the VHDMount utility, though I doubt much it differs from one utility to the next (in terms of whether or not this would be a violation of the redistribution agreement.)

On an unrelated note, yet while I have a thread open, could you point me to any sort of documentation, or a greater understanding as to how I might script together the ability to reroute requests to localhost:port to a particular virtualized_instance:port using the built-in network utilities provided by VPC and/or VServer?  While it would be simple enough to develop a simple localized proxy server to handle this, if it can easily be handled by VPC/VS, then it seems a waste of time to develop a separate utility.

At the moment, I use this same general functionality as part of a self contained download > unzip > double-click batchfile > virtualized instance via QEMU, redirecting various localhost port requests to the virtualized instance (e.g. http://localhost will serve directly from the guest machine), but for what I assume is an obvious reason, QEMU is simply a testing tool (as well as a simple/quick way to get a virtualized instance up and running without the need for pre-existing virtualization software to be installed), not something I plan to implement as a long term solution for the nuXleus project.

Thanks in advance for any help/guidance/direction you can provide, and even more importantly, keep up the great blogging!  *BIG FAN* ;) :D

Sunday, January 28, 2007 4:16 PM by M. David Peterson

# re: Extracting files from the Virtual PC installer

Oops > Forgot to add the link to the post regarding the nuXleus project.  Not that it's all that important to the question at hand, but it will at very least provide some context as to what I am referring to.

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/01/annnuxleus_the_nuxleus_project.html

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