1. What is Virtual PC 2004? What do I need in order to run it?

Virtual PC 2004 is an emulator that allows you to create and run several different virtual machines on one hardware platform. This allows you to run several different sets of operating systems and applications from one physical computer.

What are the licence requirements for operating systems and applications running on Virtual PC?

Simply put, for licence issues, you should consider each virtual machine as having the same requirements as a real physical machine. E.g, if I have a Windows XP Pro computer running 2 Virtual Machines, each with their own copy of XP Pro installed, then I need 3 XP licences.

a. What operating systems are supported?

1.a.1 As a Supported Host platform:

Windows XP Professional.
Windows XP Tablet Edition.
Windows 2000 Professional.

Other similar platforms will no doubt work just fine but are not supported. (e.g. Windows 2000 server will probably work as well as Windows 2000 Pro)

1.a.2. As a supported Guest operating system

Windows XP (all versions).
Windows 2000 Professional.
Windows NT 4.0 Workstation (*SP6a req.)

Windows ME
Windows 98
Windows 95
MS-Dos 6.22 (and, I'm assuming, Windows 3.x as this is just a DOS app anyway!)

OS/2 Warp 4 (*OS/2 Warp 4 OS/2 Fixpack 15, OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 1, and OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 2 req «)

Just about any Operating System that runs on the 32 bit x86 architecture that VPC2004 emulates will probably also work just fine. See comments below about Linux. I can confirm also that the public preview of Longhorn that's available at the time of writing also works (but the install takes an age!). I used VPC to take the screen shots I published here.

1.b. And what are the Hardware Requirements?

• • An x86-based computer with a 400 MHz or faster processor with L2 cache. Faster would be better. Much better. Virtual PC supports the use of AMD Athlon/Duron, Intel Celeron & Intel Pentium II or "better" 32 bit processors. (This is a hard requirement; if your processor's name isn't on the list it won't work. This is of particular importance to Tablet users as a good few of these use the Transmeta processors, so be sure your processor is supported before buying Virtual PC 2004.)
  • Virtual PC also can use AMD Opteron processors, but only with 32-bit host operating systems.
  • VPC 2004 will run on multiprocessor systems but will not take advantage of the second processor for virtual machines. (of course, the host system will probably be running smoother so you'll see an advantage of sorts here, but the ideal VPC power machine would be one very fast processor rather than two moderately fast ones)
  • a CD or DVD Rom Drive. (Note this is untested, but in theory I don't see any reason why you cannot forgo this if you can get access to all your operating system install media as ISO image archives. Of course you still have to install VPC somehow first!)
  • A mouse or equivalent and a keyboard. (Every list of requirements has an entry that makes you say "well Duh!".)
  • SVGA Monitor, 800x600 or better preferred. (For running and working between several virtual machines at once, the higher the better really.)

1.c. Is Clustering Supported?

Sadly, no. And at this time I haven't found a way to trick it into life. Clustering requires a SCSI hard drive for the quorum, and VPC2004 doesn't seem to be able to emulate that. I'm still playing with tricking it but I don't hold a lot of hope.

In the meantime, if you want to practice clustering with virtual machines, may I suggest a copy of VMWare and the rather superb notes on configuring a cluster using VMWare virtual machines by Martin Tuip and available here.

[18/01/04 update] Paul Lynchposted in the forum to mention that there is a Microsoft Kbase article on using a local quorum disk to create a "single node cluster" for testing purposes. This won't help anyone who wants to play with clustering to see how cool it is or test the actual fall-over process itself, but might be a boon for people who know about that and don't need to see it again but who just want to test how something interacts with the various cluster services.

Thanks Paul! The Kbase article is article number 245626

1.d. What Devices does VPC 2004 emulate?

You will need drivers for the following components:

• S3 Trio Video Card.
• Intel / DEC 21140 Network Card.
• Soundblaster 16 ISA PnP Sound Card.
• Intel 440BX Motherboard Chipset.

Regardless of what physical hardware is present in your computer, the devices listed above are the drivers you need to use for your virtual PC session. Forcing your virtual machine OS to accept an install of drivers for the physical hardware in your computer will not work and may cause your virtual machine to crash!

1.e. Will my item of hardware run on Virtual PC 2004?

Virtual PC emulates a specifc set of hardware as I mention above. This means that the basic hardware you see in a virtual PC remains the same no matter what the host machine has available.

This means that certain devices just won't work. For example:

USB & Firewire:

Virtual PC does not support USB or Firewire directly, therefore it cannot "see" devices that your host computer has plugged in.

• Virtual PC can use a USB Mouse and keyboard, but it will only see a basic PS/2 mouse and keyboard. "Extended" keyboard and mouse functions will probably not work.
• Virtual PC can use external hard disks but it will not see them as external hard disks.
• Once the host computer has mounted the external drive, virtual PC can use it in the same way it uses standard hard drives on the host.
• As Virtual hard drive files take up a lot of space, external hard drives make an ideal place to store .VHD files from. With USB2 and Firewire you can also run .VHD files that are stored on the external drive without problems.
• Scanners, cameras, etc will not work with Virtual PC 2004.

Dongles:

Some programs require the use of a Dongle in order to function correctly. These are unlikely to work as they usually require a tight level of integration between the hardware Dongle and the software it is protecting. Running Virtual PC obviously adds an extra layer of abstraction which usually trips these devices up..

SoundCards and Video Cards

There is no way that you can change the sound card or video card that virtual PC uses, so unfortunately, programs running on a virtual PC are unable to use any special features of your computer's video or sound cards.

Top