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-- Ben Armstrong, Virtualization Program Manager

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Disabling Integrated Mode in Windows Virtual PC

Earlier this week I talked about integrated mode in Windows Virtual PC.  And there I mentioned that there are times that you may want to disable integrated mode.  You can do this on a running virtual machine by using the tools menu:

int2

You can also permanently disable integrated mode by disabling integration features under the virtual machine settings:

int3

But what if you need to disable integrated mode while a virtual machine is booting?  Normally when a virtual machine with integration components installed is booting on Windows Virtual PC you will see the following display:

int1

But what if you need to boot into safe mode?  Or are trying to reinstall the operating system? 

Well, you can do this by hitting “SHIFT + ESC” on this dialog.  You will then get access to the virtual machine session with integration features disabled.  This can be very handy at times.

Cheers,
Ben

Published Friday, June 19, 2009 4:50 PM by Virtual PC Guy

Comments

# re: Disabling Integrated Mode in Windows Virtual PC

Thanks for this article, it gave me the information needed to back out the hole I dug myself into.

There is an additional reason for disabling integrated mode, there may not be a login for the VM, but once integrated mode is enabled there doesn't appear to be a way to get into the VM without logging in. Knowing how to turn off integrated mode solved the problem.

I support some clients with VB6 projects, different versions of Crystal reports and other third party dlls. When I went to Vista as my primary OS I found that VPC was a great way to sandbox each client's project code and dlls without cluttering my current OS and projects with antiquated tools. Now that I've installed Win 7 and WVPC I'm finding it more cumbersome than I'd like to bring the old VPC images into WVPC than I'd like, but I'm getting there.

Thanks for the articles and tips, I'll be back

Steve

Saturday, June 20, 2009 2:37 PM by Steve S

# re: Disabling Integrated Mode in Windows Virtual PC

Thanks for the Shitt+Esc tip. I have always wanted to find out this without actually disabling IFs in the VM settings.

Monday, June 22, 2009 5:29 AM by Ravi

# re: Disabling Integrated Mode in Windows Virtual PC

It was bad enough that Microsoft neglected to include 64Bit support but turning Virtual PC into a platform for backwards compatability to XP means that I can no longer use it for Product evaluation and learning. Turning off Integrated mode is essential if you are running a virtual DC and then working with the virtual machine without the ability to drag and drop or cut and paste between the host and the vm means that it is now un-usable for me.

Thanks microsoft

Thursday, July 02, 2009 3:25 AM by Frank
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