I think I can say this in all sincerity and without hyperbole: Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 has changed my life. Maybe I’m a little late jumping on the virtualization bandwagon, but now that I have, I’m grinning with Kool-Aid stained lips. Sure, I’ve known that the technology has been out there for a while, but for some reason I just didn’t realize how cool it would be. For me it is kind of like TiVo in the fact that it sounds really neat before you check it out, but once you’ve used it you just can’t possibly live without it.

Before I get into my thoughts and share a few tips I’ve picked up over the past few weeks, I’ll give a quick overview of the technology for those who aren’t up to speed. The idea behind virtualization is that you can use your existing computer to work as two or more computers at the same time. It’s a lot like remote desktop, but instead of viewing another computer in a window, you’re viewing a virtual computer in a window. This virtual machine has a separate operating system and installed software, but can share devices like DVD ROM drives and internet connections with the host operating system.

As you can probably guess, virtualization lends itself particularly well to software testing, where it’s often important to have access to different operating systems and browsers. With a few clicks of a mouse you can load a virtual Windows XP desktop, test your web based software on IE6, and then go right back to your Vista/IE7 desktop. If you screw up the virtual operating system you can just replace it with a backed up copy.

So, now that I have you convinced that you need virtualization, I’ll walk you through the relatively simple process of getting everything set up and configured. First of all, dig around in your bios and see if there is a configuration option for turning on virtual machine optimizations. I have a relatively new Dell laptop, and for some reason the Intel virtualization optimizations were turned off by default.

Then download and install a copy of Virtual PC from Microsoft’s website. Sure, there’s other (and arguably better) virtualization software out there, but this is free!

So, once the software is installed create a new virtual machine. During this process you’ll be asked to define a new virtual hard disk. This is the single file that is used to store all of the virtual files for the virtual machine. Be careful with the size you choose for the disk; it’s a little confusing and I messed up the first time through. The number you choose will allow the virtual disk to grow to that size. It will not take up the space unless you actually use that much inside the virtual machine. Unfortunately, you can’t increase this later, so be careful to not choose a value that is too low. If you have extra disk space, I’d recommend going with 8 gigabytes. I’d also recomend bumping the memory up to at least 256MB or 512MB if you have a lot of memory.

Now you need to install the operating system. Put the windows install CD in the drive and fire up your virtual machine. It’s kind of strange seeing the familiar windows install screens from a desktop window, and this was my first “oh, cool” moment. Another thing I tripped over during the install was that my mouse would become stuck in the virtual machine window. To send control back to the host desktop, just hit the right Alt button.

The next step is to install the virtual machine additions inside your newly installed virtual operating system. These can be accessed from the “Action” menu and allow you to drag and drop files from the host desktop, fixes the mouse locking annoyance, and allows you to share files. This would also be a good time to download the latest OS updates from windows update and install any other software you’re going to be using.

Now that you have your virtual machine image just the way you want it, we’ll back it up. The first step is to run a disk defragmentation inside of the virtual machine. Then run the precompactor utility inside of the virtual machine. You can access this by going to the CD menu, choosing Capture ISO Image, and browsing to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso. Finally, perform the actual Virtual Disk Compression on the host machine via the virtual disk wizard (accessible under File in the console). You now have a .vhd file that is ready for backup. That way, if you screw up your virtual machine you can just replace one file and you’re back on your feet.

Please let me know in the comments if my notes were helpful or if I should change anything.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 2:40 am and is filed under Development, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.