14 DAY TRIAL // The Redmond Company tweaked the user interface, tunned up the support features and resolved a Pleiades of bugs. And so, Virtual PC 2007 Beta is immediately available via free download from connect.microsoft.com. But you have to sign up here for it first. "Now you have an easy way to try out Windows Vista, even if you are reluctant to replace the OS on one your existing PCs; or if you have already taken the plunge you can spin up a legacy operating system in a virtual machine on your Windows Vista machine," stated Alex Heaton, Windows Vista security engineer.
Virtual PC 2007 delivers support for 32-bit Vista and 64-bit Vista as both the host and guest operating system, but also for Windows XP. Microsoft has revealed that Virtual PC 2007 has been optimized to include support for AMD and Intel virtualization technologies.
Here are the first steps to install Windows Vista in a virtual machine:
- Download VPC 2007 and install it. Start Virtual PC and select New to start the New Virtual Machine Wizard. As you go through the wizard: select Create a virtual machine, specify where you want to store the virtual machine file, select Windows Vista as the operating system, you can keep the default memory, select new virtual hard disk, specify where you want to save the virtual hard disk (you can keep the defaults), and click Finish.
- In the Virtual PC Console, select the virtual machine you just created, and click Start. Now you are basically booting up a PC with no OS installed, and you need to install Windows Vista onto this virtual image.
When prompted by a "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device" message in the Virtual PC window and either insert the Vista DVD or, from the CD menu select Capture ISO image and browse and open the Vista ISO. Just follow the on-screen instructions to finish installing Windows Vista on Windows XP.
Major changes to the Virtual PC 2007 Beta include:
Support for hardware virtualization (Intel and AMD) Support for Windows Vista as a host operating system Support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system Note: No support for Aero Glass though - just Aero Basic Support for 64-bit host operating systems Note: Virtual machines are 32-bit only Improved performance
And a plethora of bugs get fixed. Some notable ones include:
A lot of work to allow Virtual PC to play better with laptop power management Fix for IntelPPM issue (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/10/24/484461.aspx) Virtual PC now supports images that are bigger than 2.2GB ISO
Heaton has warned that Virtual PC 2007 Beta interferes with the full functionality of Vista. As virtualization will vary from feature to feature of the operating system, the Virtual PC 2007 Beta is bound to take its toll on Vista's performance, and therefore the Vista experience in the virtualized environment is not to be taken as a standard. "Also note that while you can try out many of the great new features such as user account control, integrated search, the sidebar etc. virtualization technology is not yet suitable for use with 3D graphics so Aero Glass is not available and save the DirectX 10 gaming to your physical PC," added Heaton.
As Windows Vista can be installed on Virtual PC 2007 Beta running on Windows XP, the alternative is also available, namely you can run Windows XP on Vista.
