As Students we don’t often have the financial means to purchase multi-thousand dollar servers and other hardware to test the latest and greatest Operating Systems and Applications, but thankfully Microsoft has come to our aid with Virtual PC 2007! Virtual PC, and Virtualization technology as a whole, offers many benefits to both IT Professionals and Developers. Some of these benefits include:
·Rapid Application testing: Virtual PC allows both Developers and IT Professionals to quickly provision an environment for application testing before rolling the application into production.
·Rapid Provisioning: Virtual PC allows IT Professions to quickly provision a purely virtual environment for testing that emulates their production environment.
·Test Lab creation: Virtual PC allows for the rapid creation of a test labs in a classroom based environment.
·Enhanced Demonstrations: Virtual PC allows for the creation of a demonstration environment that can be “rolled back” to default settings in seconds through the use of a feature known as Undo Disks.
In this article, we will step through the creation of a Windows Vista based Virtual Machine that can be manipulated exactly as a physical machine can. Let’s begin!
Hardware and Software prerequisites
To begin using Virtual PC, a couple obvious prerequisite pieces are required:
1. A Windows based Operating System-The list of Operating Systems supported by Virtual PC includes Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet Edition, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Vista Ultimate.
(Note: Microsoft doesn’t officially support Virtual PC 2007 on Windows Vista Home Premium and therefore cannot guarantee it will function correctly. In my experience, however, Virtual PC will work without any issues when used with Windows Vista Home Premium.)
2. At least 1 GB system RAM: It is important to remember that each running instance of a Virtual Machine will consume a certain amount of system RAM. That said, I recommend at least 1 GB total system RAM to provide a Virtual Machine adequate resources and avoid “Swapping”.
Step 1: Download and install Virtual PC 2007 from the Microsoft Download Center.
Step 2: Launch Virtual PC 2007 and take note of the options presented in the Virtual Machine Console. Please see below for a brief explanation of each:
·New: This option will launch a Wizard to guide you through the process of provisioning a new Virtual Machine.
·Settings: This option allows you to change any setting associated with a particular Virtual Machine.
·Remove: This option will remove the selected instance of a Virtual Machine from the Virtual Machine Console.
(Note: Selecting this option does not remove the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) and associated files from the local machine. You must navigate to the location where you have chosen to store VHD files and manually remove it.)
·Start: This option will start a given instance of a Virtual Machine.
Figure 1.1-Virtual PC Console
Step 3: Point to New in the Virtual PC Console.
Step 4: Read the text presented by the Wizard and select next to continue.
Figure 1.2-Virtual PC Wizard (1)
Step 5: You can now choose from three options. Please see below for a brief explanation of each:
·Create a virtual machine: This option is most commonly used and allows for the creation of a new Virtual Machine complete with its’ own VHD.
·Use default settings to create a virtual machine: This option allows you to create a Virtual Machine from default settings. This Virtual Machine will then function as a Framework of sorts and allows you to swap in any number of preconfigured VHD files. Please see this link for a selection of preconfigured VHD’s.
·Add an existing virtual machine: This option allows you to effectively “Import” an existing Virtual Machine. This option proves useful when migrating existing Virtual Machines between physical machines.
Select one of the options outlined above and click next to continue.
Figure 1.3-Virtual PC Wizard (2)
Step 6: Provide a name for the new Virtual Machine. I would suggest a name that reflects what will be installed into the particular instance like:
·Windows Server 2003
·Windows Server 2008
·Windows Server 2003 R2
·Windows XP
·Windows Vista
Name the new instance whatever you desire and click next to continue.
Figure 1.4-Virtual PC Wizard (4)
Step 7: Here you can select from a list of 9 preconfigured sets of settings to support the installation of a particular Guest Operating System. Choose the Operating System template that either matches or most closely matches the OS you’ll be deploying and select next to continue.
(Note: These settings are only recommended baseline metrics. You can fully customize each setting to suit a particular deployment.)
Figure 1.5-Virtual PC Wizard (5)
Step 8: Here you can choose to move ahead with the recommended amount of system RAM or provide your own amount.
(Note: It is important to remember that the amount of system RAM is measured in Mega Bytes when choosing an allotment. An example would be 1024 MB which is equal to 1 GB.)
Choose either option and click next to continue.
Figure 1.6-Virtual PC Wizard 
Step 9: Here you can choose from two options to options to continue with the installation. Please see below for a brief explanation of each:
·Use an existing Virtual Hard Disk (VHD): This option allows you to use an existing VHD file with this particular instance of a Virtual Machine.
·Create a new Virtual Hard Disk (VHD): This option is most commonly used and creates a new VHD file to be used with this particular instance of a Virtual Machine.
Choose either option and click next to continue.
Figure 1.7-Virtual PC Wizard (7)
Step 10: Here you can set attributes of the new Virtual Hard Disk like Name, Location and Size.
(Note: Again, it is important to note that Hard Drive size is measured by Virtual PC in Mega Bytes. An example would be 1024 MB is equal to 1 GB of space on disk.)
Set each variable to the desired value and click next to continue.
Figure 1.8-Virtual PC Wizard (8)
Step 11: Review the options you have set in the configuration for accuracy and click finish to complete the Virtual Machine provisioning process.
Figure 1.9-Virtual PC Wizard (9)
Figure 1.10-The Virtual Machine Console showing the newly created Virtual Machine.
Post Configuration Tasks
Providing an Installation Source
Virtual PC, just like a physical machine, requires some type of installation point to deploy an Operating System. If you do not provide said installation point, Virtual PC will default to a PXE Boot (Pre-Boot Execution Environment) which is used in Network Deployment scenarios. The forms of installation media supported by Virtual PC include:
·CD/DVD Media
·ISO Images
·PXE Servers
To mount an ISO Image in Virtual PC you will follow these simple steps:
1. Start a particular instance of a VM by pointing to start in the Virtual Machine Console.
2. Point to CD>Capture ISO Image.
3. Navigate to an ISO Image stored on the local machine and select open to continue.
4. Restart the Virtual Machine by navigating to Action>Reset or pressing Right Alt + R on your keyboard.
Figure 2.1-Virtual PC attempting a PXE boot when no Installation Source is defined.
Installing Virtual Machine Additions
Virtual PC includes a set of files called Virtual Machine Additions (Device Drivers, etc) that enable support for things like higher display resolutions, Virtual Machine Isolation and Hardware Acceleration. This package of files can be installed by simply pointing to Action>Install or Upgrade Virtual Machine Additions.
Performing common tasks in a Virtual Environment
One of the biggest “Gotcha’s” facing a new user to Virtual PC is the ability to release the mouse cursor from the Virtual PC window. This is accomplished by simply pressing the Right Alt key on your keyboard. This key is known as the “Host Key” and used for all tasks that required the use of the Alt key such as launching Task Manger.
Conclusion
Virtual PC 2007 is incredibly easy to install and configure and enables Developers and IT Professionals to take action on common tasks in a quicker and more streamlined manner.
