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Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 1.0 running on Windows Vista
Microsoft releases the latest edition of Virtual PC

Microsoft has released Virtual PC 2007 1.0 to customers. The program allows Windows users to run multiple operating systems at once from a single physical computer. Users can also easily switch back and forth between operating systems with the click of a mouse.

New features included with the latest release of Microsoft Virtual PC include:

  • 64-bit host operating systems
  • Hardware-assisted virtualization
  • Network-based installation of a guest operating system
  • Running virtual machines on multiple monitors

The following operating systems are officially supported on host machines:

  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Vista Business
  • Windows Vista Enterprise
  • Windows Vista Ultimate
  • Windows XP Professional
  • Windows XP Professional x64
  • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

The following operating systems are officially supported as guests:

  • Windows 98 Second Edition
  • Windows 2000 Professional
  • Windows XP Home, Professional, Tablet PC Edition
  • Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, Ultimate
  • OS/2 Warp Version 4 Fix Pack 15, OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 1, OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 2

There is also unofficial support for MS DOS 6.22, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows NT 4.0 Workstation.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is available as a free download in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. You can view the release notes for the software application here.

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By hellokeith on 2/20/2007 10:48:14 AM , Rating: 2
For those wondering what are the differences between Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005, here is a document (few years old, but still relevant) that Microsoft wrote:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/4/d/14d17...

The basic jist is:
* Virtual Server is more complex, can be administered remotely, and runs on server OS's (though it can be run on XP Professional)
* Virtual PC is more desktop-user friendly, can be run on non-server OS's, and provides sound emulation

Last year, I had Fedora 4 running as a guest OS in Virtual Server on top of XP Pro for a while. I'm interested to see if/how Virtual PC 2007 supports guest Linux OS's.




By Scabies on 2/20/2007 11:15:17 AM , Rating: 2
Does anyone know if the emulated hardware video memory has increased? I know theres no hope of running WoW or GRAW in virtualization, but after buying a 512mb video card, 8-16mb seems so DISMALLY SMALL!


By TomZ on 2/20/2007 2:08:34 PM , Rating: 2
I'm no expert on VPC (only used it a couple weeks), but from what I can tell, there is 8MB allocated video memory. VPC loads a device driver for an S3 Trio32/64, and supports up to 1600x1200x32-bit, which requires just less than 8MB.

Also, VPC doesn't support hardware-accelerated video AFAIK, so I'm not sure why someone would want more RAM than this. But I'm also looking at VPC from a non-gaming perspective, so maybe there are some important uses that I'm not aware of. Would anyone run games on VPC? Seems like it wouldn't be a typical use case.


By Scabies on 2/20/2007 2:23:57 PM , Rating: 2
Hey, if I can emulate/virtualize Win98, all I can think about is Final Fantasy VII PC and Homeworld: Game of the Year Edition :D


By MarkHark on 2/20/2007 6:27:29 PM , Rating: 2
There's a lot of older games, either DOS-based or earlier Windows, which will not run on a w2k or XP environment. All DOS4GW-based games (Doom, Heretic, Warcraft and many others), classic titles like Monkey Island, Civilization, Master of Magic, MechWarriors, just to mention a few.

That was way before 3D graphics became the norm, and at that time they knew how to make GREAT games, instead of relying on beautifully rendered landscapes and the such to try and hide weak storylines and mediocre playability (does it ring a bell?). The graphics might not be not oh-so-good, that's for sure, nevertheless some of those games were VERY addicting, no less than today's best (WoW anyone?). :)))

I surely miss some of that good old stuff, so much that I have at times considered getting an older '95 machine just so I could replay them. Perhaps this VPC software will allow me to install a MSDOS Virtual Machine and run legacy 16-bit games (although I'm not even sure I can get sound from SB16 games on current audio hardware). Anyone has a clue on this?


By Etsp on 2/20/2007 10:25:48 PM , Rating: 2
Virtual PC emulates a Soundblaster 16 card. Which has no driver support in Windows Server 2003, but it does in Windows Vista... Hope that answers your question.
Personally, I really like virtual PC as a great learning environment for different OS's, but I was kinda hoping that SUSE Linux would be officially supported because doesn't Microsoft own them now?


By KHysiek on 2/21/2007 3:56:38 AM , Rating: 2
For old DOS Games use DOSBOX. You can find it on sourceforge.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/
or
http://sourceforge.net/projects/fastdosbox/


By StevoLincolnite on 2/21/2007 9:38:34 AM , Rating: 2
DOSBOX is a good program, BUT it cannot play the early windows 95/98/ME games, For instance I was plagued with Problems running Dungeon Keeper 2 on my XP box and on my Vista Laptop.
Even after apply patch 1.7 and doing every tweak known to man, reinstall of all drivers etc nothing would work for me, So I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 to give it a try, But alas, Even editing the Virtual PC vmf file (I think thats what it is) I could manage to increase the memory size from 8Mb to 16Mb but thats as far as it would go, And 3D acceleration was non-existent.
If Virtual PC 2007 Had 3D acceleration I would probably be Playing System Shock 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, And all those old games I used to play on my old 3DFX voodoo and Voodoo 2 (Using a glide wrapper).

My laptop is a Pentium M 1.6Ghz, 1024Mb of Ram, Radeon 9700pro 64Mb card, And its running vista and Aero, what surprised me, Is that not only did I get virtual PC 2007 To have a Windows ME profile and an XP profile, But both operating systems actually ran Without a hitch! Running XP "Felt" like it was running before I made the move to Vista, in that it was quick and responsive, And Windows ME... I was surprised, no issues arised which is rather strange for that operating system. Not even a crash.


By SuinusLatinus on 2/21/2007 11:27:26 AM , Rating: 2
Homeworld doesn't run on XP?
I have it and I think I've already played it on XP...


By Lifted on 2/20/2007 3:34:01 PM , Rating: 2
Microsoft should be focusing on Virtual Server since they are YEARS behind VMware at this point. Virtual PC 2004 was fine, but Virtual Server is a joke, and by the time it is even comparable to ESX alone, Virtual Center will still make it look like a joke. The only thing it has going for it is price: $0. I guess they'll watch virtualization pass them by, just like they did with the internet.


By TomZ on 2/20/2007 4:08:32 PM , Rating: 2
I'll have to take your word for it that Virtual Server is no good, since I've not used it myself. But I can see how well VPC 2007 works, and if Microsoft can do the same for Virtual Server, and then give it away as a component of the server OS, I would think that will be the end of VMWare, right?

Anyway, I hope both products (and others) exist in this market - competition is good.


By Lifted on 2/20/2007 5:20:32 PM , Rating: 2
Virtual Server is free, for now. Free or not, VMware is so far beyond Microsoft I don't see Microsoft catching up anytime soon. So no, with the amount of VMware services businesses will be deploying (and becoming dependant on) based on VMware's Virtual Infrastructure, VMware will not be going out of business anytime soon.


By Ringold on 2/20/2007 6:51:39 PM , Rating: 2
OT, but I like that; if one can't compete with free, then they just aren't trying, and it reaffirms that belief of mine. Good to see VMware competing with free, and winning. Meanwhile, average users like me can still enjoy lower-quality free stuff for trying to get Privateer to play...


By ncage on 2/20/2007 11:58:54 PM , Rating: 2
This is kind of 1/2 right. First of all you can't compare virtual server 2005 with VPC 2007. Thats like comparing Windows 2000 Advanced Server to Windows XP. They are different revisions of the software. Virtual Server is pretty much VPCs 2004 core with a small number of enhancements like the web interface and x64 binaries. 2007 seems to be Virtual PC 2004 with small number of enhancements but the main thing seems to be an update for Vista. Don't get me wrong it does have some things in there like x64 binaries.

Ok now on to one of the new toughted features which is Hardward assisted virtualization (pacifica(amd)/VT (intel)). I seen a huge research paper written over at VMWares site on how in most cases Hardware virtualization slows things down. Do i trust the paper? Definitly!! We switched from VPC at work to VMWare because of huge performance differences. Let me give you an example. We have this very intensive process that was taking about 2.5 hours to run in VPC. We ran it under VMWare worksation 5.5 and it ran in 1.5 hours. Now if you want a HUGE performance difference then there you go. We bought liscences for all our developers enventhough VPC is free. Most of VPC slow performance seemed to be Hard Disk related but of course since i dont' know what its doing internally im sure its more complicated. VPC does have a huge gap to catch up to vmware but im sure with enough effort (if MS wants to put the funds there) then VPC can catch up. Someone mentioned ESX from vmware which is all great in dandy if you have ESX certified hardware (HP/Dell) but ESX is like its own OS and the hardware support for it sucks but if you have hardware that supports it...its a very good concept because pretty much VMWare does not have to go through Windows/Linux system calls to access the hardware. It has direct access which makes things quicker. I heard microsoft was going to integerate VPC within the kernal of the OS. Maybe this will help VPC out.


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By semo on 2/20/2007 9:36:06 AM , Rating: 2
what hardware do you need to send the video to a monitor and user input to the pc through ethernet?

i think it would be cheaper to have one fast pc with 1 or 2 terminals around your house than have 2 or more cheap pcs.




RE: .
By SurJector on 2/20/2007 10:24:23 AM , Rating: 2
Very little, just use any Linux distribution (www.ubuntu.org for instance) and it has built-in networked desktop. If you have a 1GHz+ CPU with 512MB+ memory, you can serve two users (there are limits on what is possible: office+surfing is possible, video compression in parallel is not). The second client can be really crappy in terms of hardware.
SurJector


RE: .
By TomZ on 2/20/2007 1:59:54 PM , Rating: 2
I think that Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) would do what you are suggesting better than VPC. VPC isn't really designed for remoting, although it is possible to run VPC over RDC, I think that is complicated without any benefit.

If you have your "fast" PC running Vista, AFAIK you can have multiple users log in concurrently with RDC and share the fast computer. I don't think this would work with XP on the fast PC because there can just be one user logged in AFAIK. If you decide to seriously pursue this, I would suggest you research it a bit more to make sure that I am right (notice my AFAIK disclaimers!).


RE: .
By zombiexl on 2/20/2007 6:36:00 PM , Rating: 2
There is at least one product that allows you to run multiple Remote Sessions. I've used http://www.xpunlimited.com/ in the past and it worked well.

The demo is free to use and allows upto 3 conections at a time (3 remote or 2 remote and one local). The full version removes the limit.


RE: .
By TomZ on 2/20/2007 8:26:30 PM , Rating: 2
Thanks for the info - I didn't know such products existed.


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By Suomynona on 2/20/2007 12:19:47 PM , Rating: 2
MS needs to talk internally about what virulization really is. In VMWare (and probably this product) you can boot a physical disk inside a virtual machine. For example:

HD1 -> XP Install
HD2 -> Linux install

You can dual boot to both with no issues.

Boot to linux. Start vmware and boot up your current XP install inside vmware (note: this is not done by installing a new copy of XP but rather using your existing one). Once XP boots up you'll get a message about a hardware change and the need to activate your copy of XP. If you then quit and dual boot back to XP your activation is shot.

Why is this? MS feels that running XP in a virtual machine is equivalent to using two copies of the software.... even if only ONE install of XP is being used on the SAME hardware. Their solution is to have to separate installs of XP in different partitions... one for native and one for a virtual machine.

It seems they are just paving the way for a new classification of a virtual hardware layer to be added to their licensing scheme requiring additional purchases to use the tools they are providing.