Cannot install Vista Beta 2 (Virtual PC)

E

Eric

Because of the bad news I heard about Vista, I decided to only install it on
a Virtual PC. I don't have an empty PC I could play with anyway.

Ok, I created a new Virtual Machine with the Wizard and the default
settings.
- First, attaching the iso-image didn't work. Probably Virtual PC only
supports images for CDs and not for DVDs. Ok, I burned a DVD and attached
the DVD device to the Virtual PC.
- Then blue screen in setup (well, actually black background): some cryptic
error code and a message with something like "couldn't create ramdisk" or so
and "because too few memory". Ok, default memory of 128MB for a virtual
machine is obviously too low. I increased memory setting (I think to 256MB)
and tried again.
- I got further and received a colorful background image. But after waiting
for a long time, nothing happened. Then, I tried again to do something in
the VM and - suprise - when moving the mouse pointer, a window appeared. But
only where the mouse has moved over. So some kind of refresh problem. After
wiping over the entire screen I could see a window where I could enter
Installation language, Time format and Keyboard layout.
- After selecting Installation language (only english available), and Time
format (cannot remember what I selected there). The selection for Keyboard
layout was disabled. Ok, so I pressed Next anyway. Then an empty error
message box appeared. And
Installer freezed. Even moving the mouse didn't work anymore. Ok, I
increased memory to 512MB and tried again.
- This time I got further. I could select the three comboboxes now and got
to a screen where I could enter the Product Key. I entered it and deselected
the checkbox for auto-activation. After clicking on Next, I received an
error message saying that "Setup failed to open the Windows image file".
This is the only time I got so far.
- The next time (in the VM setting I have undo disks enabled and never saved
anything, so every time a clean retry) I booted and receive a bluescreen
(actually black background) displaying some error message. Before I can read
it, the system reboots again. This repeats always. I cannot get beyond this
point now.
- Report an Issue says it needs the two files setupact.log and setuperr.log
in the directory $WINDOWS~BT\sources\panther\, but I don't know how I should
get them from the VM.

Side information: I downloaded the image from MSDN and it should be ok. When
burning the DVD, I made a verify, so the disk should be ok too.

Questions: Anybody had similar problems and ideas about how to circumvent
them?

Eric
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top