Computer Forum

**pjb007** · 10-11-2007, 07:09 AM

I am thinking about installing Microsoft Virtual PC.

I just wondered what Operating Systems people ran on their Virtual PCs and what they thought of the software in general.

**KML9870** · 10-17-2007, 05:58 PM

Everything from DOS to Win XP. It is extremely helpful when I have people calling me for help. I have a few VPC's set up - one just like my sister's machine, one just like this friend's, one just like this client's...etc. It's a lot easier to give them support over the phone when I can re-create what they are experiencing in front of me.

**CSS4Life** · 10-17-2007, 07:38 PM

We've used it at college to experiment with dual booting, without messing their PCs up. It's fairly good - we installed Linux and XP together in one Virtual PC.

I'm also using a Mac Virtualisation software to install and experiment with Linux on my own Macbook - it really helps. I was only reading today in PC Advisor, a computer magazine, that it's a good idea when testing out new software - if you get infected with a virus, or the computer crashes in virtualisation, then it's no big deal. On the other hand, it would be a big deal if it happened on the native OS.

For this reason alone, it's a good idea, and MS Virtual PC isn't a bad virtualisation machine itself. I say go for it

**Sandman420** · 10-18-2007, 12:02 PM

Never heard of MS Virtual PC, but I use VMWare and love it. ATM I am running Ubuntu 7.04 64bit and use VMWare to run windows xp (when I want to use IE or photoshop). Probably going to reinstall again, once I figure out whats a better distro for me than Ubuntu. I primarily use virtualization to run a windows environment. If I get Malware on my xp installation, no problem - just restore snapshot. You can setup a virtual machine to mimick your webserver and test changes before rolling them out to the live server. Not sure about the MS virtualization, but VMWare rocks and is pretty user-friendly. You are probably going to want a lot of RAM and a multi-core CPU for any virtualization software.

**iJason** · 12-07-2007, 08:48 PM

I have found all Microsoft OS's are fair game in Microsoft Virtual PC. Extremely useful for tech support, and also for browser compatibility testing for web developers.