Virtual PC 2007

Virtual PC 2007, and it's older sibling Virtual PC 2004, are both available for free download from Microsoft.com. They are both extremely cool and valuable tools. Both tools allow for the creation of "Virtual Machines" which are emulated machines that appear to be just another Windows program running, but actually are true working machines, that almost make you think you bought another physical machine. Virtual PC is very similar to VMWare, VirtualBox, Bochs, and may other pieces of software that do the same, except Virtual PC is now for the most part Windows only, while it used to be Mac also. If you are not using Windows, perhaps VirtualBox or Bochs may serve you better in your testing.

There are terms you will see repeatedly over and over when it comes to virtual machines. The two main ones are "Host" and "Guest" OS. The host OS is just whatever your physical machine is running or in other words, the OS that is running Virtual PC. The guest OS or OSes of course are then the OSes you install in Virtual PC. There may be other terms one hears when it comes to Virtual PC, but these definatly are the two main ones that one basically has to know.

The following is a very simple but to the point howto to install Virtual PC 2007/2004 on your machine and then install a guest OS. Even though the screenshots are 2007, there is no noticable difference, and the same howto will work in both versions. Most people will decide to use the 2007 version because it's newer, updated, and 2004 is really only necessarily on perhaps and older machine that is running Windows 98 or something to that nature.

1. First download Virtual PC (also, please read the system requirments for either).
Virtual PC 2007
Virtual PC 2004

2. Run the installer

• In the first dialog, just click next.
• Then read then accept the license agreement, then next again
• Then if you wish enter a username and/or organization or just accept the default, either way hit next.
• Click Install to begin the installation
• After install completes, click Finish.

3. Open up Virtual PC via the Start Menu.

• If you are using XP or Vista, it will be Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Virtual PC.
• If you are using an older OS or just the classic start menu, it will be Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Virtual PC.

4. A "Welcome to the New Virtual Machine Wizard" should appear, but if not, go to File -> New Virtual Machine Wizard in the Virtual PC Console.

• In this wizard, hit next.
• Keep "Create a virtual machine" or the first option selected and hit next.
• Then give your machine a name. If you just type in a name like "Windows 98" it will store all files in the default location of My Documents -> My Virtual Machines. If you do not want this you can click the Browse button and name it and save it in any location you care to. Either way, put a name in and click next.
• In the Operating Systems drop-down list, select what operating system you are wishing to install. If it is not listed, choose Other. For Linux/UNIX it would be Other. Next to the drop-down it will show you what defaults it will create, though by clicking Next you will see how you can change those defaults.
• You can either use the amount of RAM it suggests or give your machine more RAM. Don't go insane with giving the guest OS RAM because it takes that chuck you select away from your real machine and each guest OS takes it's own chuck of RAM in case you run more than one at a time. It's best to stay with the default here, but either way click next.
  
• Select "A new virtual hard disk" then click Next.
• Again as before, you can just go with the default, rename it at the end to give the hard drive a different name, or click the Browse button to save it in another location. By default it will go to My Documents -> My Virtual Machines, but you may want to store them in another location. Either way, when done, click Next.
• Finally click Finish.

5. Your new machine should now show in Virtual PC Console, in which you can select it and go to settings and do whatever you want. You can add another hard drive, disable the CD/DVD ROM, add multiple network cards, etc. What we mainly care about here is network. If you are just testing out a desktop OS, you can just leave it one network card, but in case you have a machine with both Wireless and Wired cards, make sure you have select the card you want the machine to use for Internet, if you want it to be treated as an another machine on your network. The other two options are explained here:

• Local Only - The network card inside the guest OS will only see other guest OSes, if there are any.
• Shared networking (NAT), will use NAT or Network Address Translation to create a private network between the guest OS and host OS, and will allow for such things as Internet access on the guest OS, but doing server things like port forwarding or using other physical machines on your network to access the guest OS will fail. In other words, outbound functions but inbound is disfunctional. This option is perfect to just allow outbound Internet access to the guest OS but there is no reason to have an other machine access it, inbound.

6. Now comes the part of installing the guest OS. After you get the settings the way you want, click OK.

• Decide what way you want to install the OS, from a real CD/DVD, from an ISO of a CD/DVD, a real floppy (if you have a floppy drive, since many new PCs do not), or just the image of a floppy. Either way the steps are essentially the same.
• Select the machine in Virtual PC Console and click the Start button (the one on Virtual PC Console, not your Windows Start Menu Button).
• Immediately when the Virtual PC beings to boot, either select the CD or Floppy menu. Then if it's a real CD/DVD or floppy, choose "Use Physical Drive" but if it's an ISO or image, select Capture Floppy or CD/DVD image and browse for and select the image.
• Then the media you select should boot up and then you just install the OS just as if you were using an actual physical machine. If it did not boot up and you see "Argon Boot Agent" and "Client MAC Address" on the screen, you simply missed the time to mount the image or capture the real media. To fix this, simply go to Action -> Reset, and in the dialog click Reset. Then this problem should be fixed.

Tip: When using Virtual PC, your mouse and/or keyboard will be "captured" or they will appear to be stuck inside the virtual machine or guest OS and you can not use them for the host OS anymore. You simply need to release them by hitting the "Host Key" or the Right Alt Key. The Left Alt Key will not work.

Tip: VirtualPC does not support 24-bit video which is normally what UNIX/Linux's X servers try to enable. So if you wish to have UNIX/Linux with a GUI, you may be required to manually edit your X server config file to enable 16-bit color, the common solution to this problem. If you really want a GUI for your Linux guest OS, I recommend VirtualBox from Sun, because this program does support 24-bit color and I have used it with great sucess with Fedora, Solaris, etc.

I hope that you have learned how to properly use Virtual PC thanks to my howto. I also hope that you will be able to use Virtual PC to help you in your study of computers or in other needs, just as it helps me all the time for testing out various OSes and doing other miscellonus testing.