BeeJ said:
Let me ask this now since there may be no direct solution.
I have a dead PC with Win XP Pro license sitting in the wings.
I want to create a virtual PC on a Win 7 Pro PC.
I have tried the MS Virtual XP. It looks nice and plays well generally
BUT it crashes when I try to do more intensive stuff.
So I am going to try Virtual Box or ??? and load in a licensed copy of
Win XP Pro. If it flies then I will leave it there to do a lot of work
on the virtual XP Pro. (fast laptop with SSD)
So, any suggestions regarding my intentions?
I also have a MS Universal license for XP Pro so I could use that.
All of them are older SPs so I am trying to simplify.
Also, I am not familiar with slip-streaming or anything other than doing
a CD install and MS Updates. I guess I could then do a clone or
something for ?easy? recovery. Yes, I will probably need recovery often.
In the case of Win Virtual XP I guess you make a copy of the virtual PC.
In the case of VirtualBox with XP Pro installed, I am not sure how to
"backup".
I do have plenty of room on the SSD.
You could:
1) Save the .vhd or .vhdx files, or whatever other kind of container
is used to represent virtual disks. For example, I have a Win2K .vhd I
restore occasionally, when there is a problem with my Win2K VM.
2) On Windows Virtual PC, you should be able to configure it for "undo",
such that each time you start the guest OS (WinXP), all changes since
the last run are lost. That effectively makes the OS "read-only" in
a sense. That's not really all that useful, from a user perspective,
but it is one of the options.
I don't think I've ever had the GUI portion of a virtual PC product crash.
The VM occasionally exits, and there is an error dialog on the screen. For
example, I forgot to turn VT-X back on in the BIOS, after changing the
setting. And one of my virtual machines that was saved out in a running
state, it crashed when I tried to start it. Too late at that point,
to remember I hadn't flipped the VT-X bit back to reflect the setting
that was there when the virtual machine was last running.
VPC2007 was my favorite. Crappy emulation, in terms of the problems
I could have running a selection of guests (having to use 16 bit Xorg
setups in Linux instead of the default 24 bit). Windows worked pretty well,
but some things that could have made real time execution work a bit
better, were missing.
Windows Virtual PC, it's the GUI portion that isn't as good as VPC2007.
The main problems I have with VirtualBox are:
1) Have experienced 100% CPU usage when running a Win2K virtual machine.
Bug seems to have been around for years.
2) Rigid user interface. Virtual disks are tracked by their GUID, and
the simplest of substitutions are met with resistance. To the point
that in some cases, I've had to define a "fresh" guest setup, then
add the files I wanted to have in there in the first place. VPC2007
would allow you to mix and match, like "making a salad in your kitchen".
VirtualBox is like "being in a boot camp in the army".
3) Some of the emulation features are nice, such as having
experimental 3D acceleration. However, if you get too carried
away changing hardware emulation (change the Southbridge emulation),
you could be in for a world of pain doing that. Many times, it's
just better to not "turn too many dials" in there. I remember the
first time I tried to run Windows 8 in there, I got a black screen in
the VM, with absolutely no hint as to what was going on. Hilarious.
I like puzzles like that. I eventually got it running.
Checkpointing (saving) a copy of the .vhd when you're finished
setting it up, is probably the best option. Most of my VMs here
are designed to be thrown away, but ones like the Win2K one, I have
that "good copy" when I need to start over again. That avoids having
to reinstall from scratch.
HTH,
Paul