Microsoft Virtual PC

[jwmorrice]

Hey, this looks like a fun programme. I could fool around with my old copy of OS/2.

jwm

Microsoft Virtual PC

By JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update

The review:

Microsoft Virtual PC, Microsoft Corp. $190 (street)
The Good: A breeze to install and simple to use, Virtual PC offers multiple-operating-system flexibility that one could only dream about in the past.
The Bad: I wish one didn't have to buy two copies of Windows XP to run on the same hard disk on the same machine.
The Verdict: The perfect solution for a problem you never knew existed.

REVIEW:

Virtual PC was designed for developers and tech-support people in mind, so it was not released with Microsoft's usual promotional flourishes. Too bad; I can see incredible possibilities for hobbyists and even advanced amateurs with this product.

Application developers can use Virtual PC to load a series of different operating systems — say, anything from DOS through Windows XP — and run the beta program on each without having to buy a bunch of machines each loaded with a different OS, or one machine with many partitions. And a tech-support person can ask a caller which OS is being run, and switch to it with a couple of keystrokes.

The concept behind the product is very interesting. There is a main operating system installation or "host" system, and then you load another "guest" operating system. The guest system resides on a virtual machine, which runs in a protected-memory space on a virtual hard disk that (unlike partitioned drives) is completely flexible in size: Load a program and the disk expands to contain it.

Using the program is an almost brainless activity. Run the Virtual PC wizard, which asks the kind of OS you're loading and how much RAM you want to dedicate for it (you're not committing yourself to much here; it but can be changed very easily), and then start slamming in some of your almost-forgotten operating systems. If you have an application that no longer works on newer Windows versions, just load the version of Windows it does like.

Virtual PC creates an XML file that contains the environment for the guest operating system, and it does so with almost no visible degradation in system performance — provided you have asked for adequate RAM. It prompts you for everything from DOS through Windows NT and XP, and even includes all versions of OS/2 Warp, that wonderful old IBM warhorse. There is also one other option called "other," which is the closest Microsoft can bring itself to utter the word "Linux."

Being a contrarian, I immediately loaded SuSE Linux — the last version before it was taken over by Novell — which installed as though it was being put into a new machine. The only thing I could see that went wrong is that SuSE claims to have failed in recognizing the Marvel Yukon Gigabit Ethernet device on my motherboard. But it's working anyway. What fun.

Virtual PC creates two files, a small one and a really big one, which actually contains the operating system. These two, kept together, are all one needs for a system to work. And this brings out one extraordinary concept.

If you back up the two guest files, you can totally mangle the guest operating system (say, trying your hand at editing the system registry) and simply erase it. Then copy the backup file into the Virtual PC folder of guest systems and you're up and running again. You can do this indefinitely.

This allows you to maintain a reasonably pristine host operating system for writing e-mail and whatever, creating spreadsheets and running the family accounts, while saving the frivolous or dangerous stuff for the guest system.

What's more, Virtual PC handles all the dirty stuff for you — there is almost no need to fiddle with Internet connections, for instance, because the interface does all that for you.

To be continued in the next posting.

 

[jwmorrice]

Microsoft Virtual PC (continued)

There are some drawbacks, however.

First, the guest systems are all subject to the usual licensing agreements. So if you want to install a guest XP system, you need an extra copy, which means getting a two-seat licence. (I tried installing same system as both host and guest, and it flatly refused.) But once you've installed the second system, there's nothing stopping you from duplicating it on your machine and using multiple copies — it's legal.

Another drawback is that (as you'd expect), you'll need a lot of disk space. The guest XP operating system I installed required about 1.4GB for the raw installation, but ballooned to more than 3.5GB with all the security updates, security packs and product updates. And then you have to double that for the backup copy.

Then again, you tend to forget how little space was required by DOS, or even Windows 3.1, which runs better on my modern setup than you ever saw it run on a 486 PC.

Fortunately, we're entering the era of monster hard drives and RAID arrays, so lots of disk space not impossible to get. It's just expensive.

You need lots of RAM, too. If you're running two versions of Windows XP, for instance, each will need an absolute minimum of 128MB of RAM and preferably twice or even four times that, which means your system is going to hit a hardware brick wall pretty quickly. But my personal reasons for wanting Virtual PC are not in running the different systems simultaneously, so it's not that great an issue for me.

The only problem I ran into was a horror — at least at first sight. When I installed a guest XP system, Virtual PC suggested a virtual disk of 16GB. Well, okay, but I wish it said that this is a flexible figure; it would have been comforting. But then it told me it was going to format my hard disk, and everything on it would be lost!

Would the host system and all the programs and data files on it also disappear?

Nope. You just have to take a deep breath and believe nothing wrong will happen, despite the lack of assurance. And nothing does. A guest OS spends a lot of time formatting the virtual disk, which gives you enough time to chew through all 10 fingernails, but it limits itself to that virtual disk only. When you're through formatting and installing, the host system is right there.

A compression function allows you to compress the virtual disk to its absolute minimum size, but that size will of course change as you install other programs on it. So an installation of Windows 98 takes up a lot less than 1GB, but goes just over that with Office 98 installed as well.

If you think about Microsoft Virtual PC for more than 30 seconds, a whole new work of fun and serious possibility opens up in front of you. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a killer app for Microsoft — if they decided to promote it beyond the developer community.

 

[aptenodytes]

Everything old is new again.
VM