Vistablogged

Windows Vista has been out for quite a long time and a lot of issues have been found and a lot of fixes have come and more are on the way through SP1. A lot of people are making a move to the Vista platform from their Windows XP systems. However, there are many more who cannot move from Windows XP yet even if they could choose to. Most of such people need Windows XP due to work constraints.

This article describes the simple steps to install Windows Vista “within” your Windows XP environment using the freely available Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

Initial Notes:

• Free up some hard disk space where you will keep the Virtual Hard Drive of you Virtual Machine (see below). I recommend at least 10 GB.
• This will work better if you have 1GB RAM to spare (which means you have about 2GB RAM). However, it is quite alright to even have 1 GB RAM, as the minimum requirement for Vista is only 512 MB.

Step 1: Get your setups ready.

• Download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.
• Get hold of a setup for Windows Vista. It can either be an ISO file or a CD/DVD.

Step 2: Install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and run the program.

• Run the setup for Virtual PC that you downloaded in Step 1 and finish installing the software.
• Run the Virtual PC program. When this program is run for the first time, it automatically launches the “New Virtual Machine Wizard”. Even if it doesn’t, this wizard can be accessed from the File menu.

Step 3: Create a New Virtual Machine using the Wizard

Click Next to Proceed.

Select the first option “Create a virtual machine” and click next.

Choose a name for your Virtual Machine and optionally a location where the virtual machine file will be saved and click next.

Choose which operating system you want to install; in our case, Windows Vista and click next.

If you have more than 1GB of RAM on your machine, then I suggest you choose the second option which lets you define how much RAM to allocate; click next.

On this screen, choose “A new virtual hard disk” option and click next. Basically we will be creating a Virtual Hard Drive for storing our virtual installation of Windows Vista.

On this screen, we define our Hard Disk size and Location. Set this location to wherever you freed up space in the initial steps. And also set the size that you want to allocate and click next.

Finish the process. Now you have a Virtual Machine setup and ready to boot.

Step 4: Run the Virtual Machine and Install Vista

From the Virtual PC Console, select the Vista Ultimate item and click Start. This launches the virtual machine. However, right now your virtual machine doesn’t have an operating system. So we need to install it. If you have a DVD for Windows Vista then your Virtual Machine should automatically boot from it and the Windows Vista installed will start. However, if you have Windows Vista ISO instead of a DVD you have to perform an extra step. On the menu of your Virtual Machine, there is a CD menu. Click on that and select the “Capture ISO Image…” menu item. This then will allow you to choose your ISO from your file system and will load it. However, you will need to reboot your VM. Simply go back to the Virtual PC Console, and Stop the Virtual Machine and Start it again. You machine will now boot using the ISO and will launch the Windows Vista setup.

Follow the guided setup and complete installation of Windows Vista. Note: You should turn off Windows Search Service (or other indexing services such as Google Desktop, etc.) while you are doing this. This really helps in speeding up the installation time.

Step 5: Installing Virtual Machine Additions.

Virtual Machine Additions allow you to enhance the usability experience of your Virtual Machine. It gets rid of little annoyances such as pressing the “Right Alt” button to exit out of the Virtual Machine to go to your Host OS. It allows for sharing of files between the virtual machine and the Host OS. There are many more benefits that can be explored. To install the Virtual Machine Additions, simply go into your Virtual Machine window and from the “Action” menu select the menu option that says “Install or Update Virtual Machine Additions”. Alternatively, you can simply press “Right Alt + I” when in the Virtual Machine window. Simply follow instruction from here on. Note: you need to be logged in as an administrator in your virtual machine to install Additions.

That’s it! You are done. Enjoy using your Windows Vista.

Performance Tip:

If you have a dual core processor, then go to Task Manager and find the process “Virtual PC.exe”. Right click it and choose “Set Affinity” from the menu.

From the screen that follows, deselect one of the CPUs. This limits the Virtual PC to using only one CPU; while this may slow down your Virtual PC a trifle, it really boosts performance of your Host OS as it has one full CPU available for its programs.

Networking Tip:

• Click on the Edit Menu of your Virtual Machine and select Settings. This allows you to setup the various parameters that apply to your Virtual Machine.
• Go to Networking and choose the “Shared Networking (NAT)” for your Networking Adapter. This allows you to share your host OS’s internet connection on your Virtual Machine.

Drawbacks:

• The major one from my point of view is that you cannot run Aero. The Virtual Machine cannot access your Video Graphics card and only runs an emulated Video Card which has very little capabilities.
• The Virtual Machine will always be a little slower and limited than the real thing.

Well, you can now start playing around with your new Windows Vista setup.