Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:22:32 GMT

MS have done too bad by 1.locking VPC 7 to Windows 7. 2. Requiring processor virtualization for XP Mode.

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:32:56 GMT

3. VPC 2007 doesn't run on Windows 7. The very purpose of VPC is compatibility but systems can't use it because they're incompatible/don't have processor virtualization. And VPC 7 doesn't even have all VPC 2007 features. VPC 2007 itself was very barebones. VMware workstation 7 will come and offer XP Mode like integration on all OSes and without processor virtualization, then no one will use Windows VPC 7.

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Joshua Flanagan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:38:44 GMT

I notice in your screenshots of the Setting screen, you don't have an LPT1. Neither do I. I read your previous post about this and confirmed that my parallel port on my host machine is on port 378. I'm running XP mode on Windows 7 RC 64bit. Are parallel ports no longer supported at all on the new Virtual PC?

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Tom — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:56:26 GMT

Possible workaround -- use a parallel-to-USB adapter, then use USB passthrough to expose the USB device directly to the virtual machine. I've found even the $10 adapters that are sold from Hong Kong on eBay to work quite well.

As for anonymous, your expectations clearly revolve around feature-for-feature parity. When your expectations are so much at odds with the goals of the design team, then complaining about it isn't likely to do you much good. I suggest that you simply purchase VMWare Workstation ($189, last I checked), since it meets all your needs.

Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Ray Huddleston — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:58:08 GMT

I am currently running Windows XP SP3 on my laptop. I need to install virtual PC on my laptop so I can run older programming software. What version of Virtual PC do I need & were do I start?

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Matthew — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:43:38 GMT

What tool should I use to clone one virtual hard disk into another (bigger, both vhd files are fixed-size) under VPC 2004/2007? Most linux-based tools report "Kernel Panic -- not syncing: attempted to kill idle task" on startup (Clonezilla, SystemRescueCD) or crash with "An unrecoverable processor error has been encountered." from VPC (gparted). I've tested also Clone Maxx (locks (?) at 0%) and HDClone (it managed to make copy but virtual machine didn't want to boot from copy). Currently I'm checking g4u, but I don't expect success.

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Raman — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:00:16 GMT

Once a VHD is mounted it works fine as a regular hard drive. But after a reboot Windows 7 the VHD is unmounted automatically. How to persist VHD mounts? Is this is bug? It does the same on Windows Server 2008 R2 as well. Thanks.

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Virtual PC Guy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:10:25 GMT

Joshua Flanagan -

Windows Virtual PC does not support parallel ports. As Tom mentions, you will have to use a USB adapter if you want this functionality.

Ray Huddleston -

Use Virtual PC 2007 SP1.

Matthew -

I usually use ImageX from the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) or else I use Acronis.

Raman -

This is operating as expected for Windows 7, though we have heard from users who want this to be persistent.

Cheers,

Ben

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Raman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:07:01 GMT

Thanks Ben. What about Windows Server 2008 R2?

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Wayne Taylor — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:15:32 GMT

Why Why Why

Doesn't Windows Virtual PC support 64 bit :-( How long is it going to take..... I don't want to run windows server 2008 for Virtual PCs and get 64bit ..... come on were all moving to a 64 bit world this just seems really dump to me. :-(

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Virtual PC Guy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:05:28 GMT

Raman -

What are you asking exactly?

Wayne Taylor -

Windows Virtual PC is focused on application compatibility. As such features like seamless applications and USB support were a higher priority than 64-bit virtual machines.

Cheers,

Ben

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Raman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:25:17 GMT

Windows Server 2008 R2 also works the same way as Windows 7 - VHD unmounts when restarted. Is this how it was planned or is there a reg key that will persist the mount? When VHD is supported as boot drives, mounting and persisting should just be a matter of settings or keys in the registry, correct? Will the RTM have this persistence, if not, a patch later?

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Matthew — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:42:57 GMT

Thank you for your answer, Ben. May I ask which Acronis' tool you use?

re: Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC

Jeff — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:41:07 GMT

I am currently trying to attach a vhd that was created with Virtual PC 2007, to a VM I created with Windows VPC. When I go to start it I get an error that says "'VM_NAME' was unable to write to one of its virtual hard disk." I have tried multiple things including having it be the only disk attached, having it as a secondary drive with a differnt boot, etc, and it always came up with the same error. Remove this vhd from the equation and the VM does work. I was also able to successfuly mount the vhd from Disk Manager and browse it. Is this a compatibility issue? Or is this a one off issue with my vhd?