Virtual PC Guy's Blog

-- Ben Armstrong, Virtualization Program Manager

Talking about core virtualization at Microsoft (Hyper-V, Virtual PC and Virtual Server).
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October 2009 - Posts

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:57 AM

Understanding (and troubleshooting) Auto-Publishing in Windows Virtual PC

One of the cool features of Windows Virtual PC is how applications that are installed into Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines automatically appear in the start menu on the host operating system – and can be launched directly without
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 11 Comments
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:19 AM

Installing Virtual CD Software in a Virtual Machine

Like many Hyper-V users, I have created ISO images of most of my CDs / DVDs (and in the case of my MSDN software – have downloaded in ISO format to begin with).  I then have these images stored on a file server. It is possible to connect a CD ISO
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 7 Comments
Monday, October 26, 2009 9:23 AM

Deploying Windows XP Mode

We have recently published a very handy video / guide / set of scripts to help with anyone who needs to deploy either a standard or customized version of Windows XP mode to a large number of virtual machines. The first thing to look at is the deployment
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 2 Comments
Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:29 AM

Windows Virtual PC / Windows XP Mode RTM now available for general download

Go and get it: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx Cheers, Ben
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 31 Comments
Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:16 AM

Setting up Hyper-V with a UPS

People have asked me how you go about setting up a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) with Hyper-V.  This is much easier than it sounds.  The first thing to understand is that when you shut down the physical computer, the virtual machines will
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 12 Comments
Friday, October 16, 2009 5:26 PM

Hotfix needed to move R2 differencing disk to Windows Server 2008

A virtualization MVP recently bought this to my attention: In Windows Server 2008 R2 there was a minor change to the format of differencing virtual hard disks.  As a result you will need to apply an update to Windows Server 2008 if you want to move
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 0 Comments
Friday, October 16, 2009 11:20 AM

Hyper-V Hotfix for "0x00000101 - CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT" on Nehalem systems

We have just released a new hotfix for Windows Server 2008 R2 that address the issue that users were getting a bluescreen of death on Intel Xeon 5500 series processor-based computers with the following text: 0x00000101 ( parameter1 , 0000000000000000,
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 12 Comments
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 4:09 PM

Why is F12 not working with my virtual machine?!?!

Here is a problem that I hear about at least 2 or 3 times a month: Someone is trying to do a network installation of an operating system using either Hyper-V or Virtual PC, they setup the virtual machine appropriately, but when they try to press “F12”
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 4 Comments
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 10:29 AM

Hyper-V Management + Delegated Administration + SCVMM

A while ago I blogged about how to allow non-administrators to control Hyper-V .  You do this by editing the Hyper-V authorization store.  What I failed to mention at that time was that this method does not work if you are using SCVMM to manage
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 1 Comments
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 2:24 AM

Windows 7 Eval VHD now available for Hyper-V

We have just released a prebuilt Windows 7 evaluation virtual hard disk for use with Hyper-V that you can download from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=606ae07e-b7db-405b-974b-dd61fc41add4 Windows validation is required
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 0 Comments
Monday, October 12, 2009 11:55 PM

Data Protection Manager 2010 Beta available for download

The beta release of System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 is now available for download.  You can read more here: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dataprotectionmanager/en/us/2010beta-overview.aspx And download it from here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9686964
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 0 Comments
Monday, October 12, 2009 8:25 AM

How I Manage Servers in my House

Last week I posted a description about the servers (physical and virtual) that I have configured in my house . Today I would like to spend a moment to talk about how I manage this environment. All of my management is done from my Windows 7 computer. I
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 8 Comments
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 3:28 PM

Disk2vhd v1.0 now available

The SysInternals team just announced the availability of a new tool: Disk2vhd . This is a tool that you run on a running Windows computer to create virtual hard disks copies of the physical disks that are attached.  Under the covers this tool works
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 24 Comments
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 11:34 AM

Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode now on MSDN / TechNet

The RTM builds of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode are now available for people with an MSDN / TechNet subscription.  On MSDN you can sign in and: Go to Subscriber Downloads Select Applications Scroll to the bottom of the list and select Windows
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 22 Comments
Tuesday, October 06, 2009 2:18 PM

Hyper-V in my House

I often chat to people about how I use Hyper-V in my house – so I figured that I should write it down for all to read. At the moment I have a single server in my house. It is a single processor quad-core system (Q6600 processor) with 8GB of memory. This
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 23 Comments
Monday, October 05, 2009 1:08 PM

Microsoft Security Essentials and Virtual PC

For as long as I have been working on Virtual PC – people have been asking me: “Do I need to install Antivirus software inside the virtual machine?” And the answer has always been: “Yes! You need to treat each virtual machine just like it were a separate
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 9 Comments
Thursday, October 01, 2009 12:24 PM

Windows XP Mode / Windows Virtual PC RTM’s

We have just announced that we have signed off on the RTM release of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode.  It should be available on the Microsoft Download Center on October 22nd. Cheers, Ben
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 11 Comments
Thursday, October 01, 2009 1:14 AM

Using Floppy Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Most users of Windows Virtual PC do not need to use floppy disks with their virtual machines, as general usage of floppy disks has become rarer and rarer. Those who do need to use floppy disks – may think that they can no longer do this – as there is
Posted by Virtual PC Guy | 20 Comments
Attachment(s): Floppy Drive Scripts.zip
 
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