Virtual PC 2007

Hey all,

I was thinking about building a new rig for my MCSE labs utilizing MS VPC. Anyone have any experience doing this? I'd like to be able to create an environment with multiple DC's, domains, sites, etc.

How well would that work with 4 gigs of ram and gobs of HDD space? Would all the functionality be there?

Thanks

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tonydotigr

Yes, you should be fine. I typically just run 1 DC and 1 Client and don't have any problems running all my normal applications (email, antivirus, etc.)

My PC is a 2.4GHz Core 2 w/ 2GB of RAM and lots of space.

Mishra

Virtual PC actually runs quite well and runs on pretty crappy equipment. It is perfect for throwing on your desktop to do a simulated environment.

I suggest to our application development department to use virtual PC and they are pretty happy with it.

sthomas

benbuiltpc wrote:

Hey all,

I was thinking about building a new rig for my MCSE labs utilizing MS VPC. Anyone have any experience doing this? I'd like to be able to create an environment with multiple DC's, domains, sites, etc.

How well would that work with 4 gigs of ram and gobs of HDD space? Would all the functionality be there?

Thanks

You should be more than fine with 4GB of RAM as long as a have a decent processor which with that much memory you probably do anyway. Just make sure you install the virtual machine additions even since you have a lot of memory.

druid318

I have used the Virtual PC program at school and at home. It is great for study once you learn how to use it. Some of the people at the school had a harder time with it than other though.

Nishesh.Prasad

hey ..... i have used the Virtual Pc 2007 a few days back and i MUST say it is a very handy piece of software to simulate a Lab on a Standalone PC.
The interface is quite easy to install and use as most of them are from Microsoft.

All you gotta do is first Install the App. Next, you create a virtual machine. This vm will have a virtual hdd, which is basically a mount point on an existing partition on your Computer.
You actual partition will not show any differrence in size when you allocate the space to the virtual hdd, until u load an Os. You have the option to mount an iso image or use your 'physical' Rom drive with the PC.
So, i configure it to use the physical drive, insert the windows 2003 server cd and reset / restart the vm console, set the virtual Bios to boot from cd.
>> next - the entire process is EXACTLY the same as it would be on an actual computer. Now, the Os will pickup the default network settings if you configure it that way. Which means the IP address and the Subnet along with the Dns is pickup up from your NIC, if it is ON or has a live connection, could as well be your home broadband.

So you have the server. you do the same for a new client with xp, and there you have your FIRST Domain !!

Webmaster

I've used Virtual PC for quite some time and 'was' quite happy with it, until I found out it doesn't run on my Windows Vista Home Premium (you need Enterprise, Business or Ultimate to run Virtual PC 2007) so I switched back to VMware. The free VMware server pretty much does and works the same as Virtual PC (it's the other way around actually since VMware was first, but what else is new with MS...) so you might want to check that one out too/instead.

cacharo

How does licensing work for this? Do you only need the appropriate disks to load the OSs on them , or do you need a valid, unused, license key. I have just started researching this but cannot find an answer.

Thanks

RobinM

You need a valid license for the OS just as if you were installing it on any computer.

The Microsoft Press books come with an 180 day (or similiar) evaluation version which is what most people use. I think there is also a download evaluation available from the Microsoft website - not positive.

For 2003 server I did get away with using a key that we use for another live server at work until my books arrived but I guess this is technicially unlicensed.

Virtual Server however is free.

cacharo

Thanks,

Would be nice to build a larger test network with multiple servers/clients. But without volume license keys that is difficult.

ladiesman217

one thing u should consider... you cant use mixed ram (different clock speed) with virtual pc..its very sensitive and i got a blue screen stop error when i attempted to install xp.

spree610

I've used Virtual PC, Virtual Server and VMWare. in all I would have to say if you are building a dedicated box, VMware is the way to go. Its better than both Virtual PC/Server and it is free. PLUS you can download pre-configured VHDs for it (virtual hard disks). VMware runs of of unix/linux platforms best (but can run on windows XP/server) and makes the best utilization of your resources because of that.

As far as hardware goes I would also recommend 4GB of RAM so you can make sure you have enough to dedicate.

spree610

cacharo wrote:

Thanks,

Would be nice to build a larger test network with multiple servers/clients. But without volume license keys that is difficult.

actually microsoft changed the licensing. you can load multiple virtual servers using a single key now. I think its 8 for Server 2003 Enterprise and unlimited for Server 2003 Datacenter. The specifics are in the doc.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/9/68964284-864d-4a6d-aed9-f2c1f8f23e14/virtualization_brief.doc

cacharo

Spree,

Thanks for the link! That is the first bit of info I was able to see on the subject. It certainly clears things up a bit. Have you done this? Does anything happen when you activate 2 of the same license keys? I am nervous to do so for some reason. Also the license type I have is MSDNAA through school I did not see anything specifically referencing that type of key.

sprkymrk

spree610 wrote:

PLUS you can download pre-configured VHDs for it (virtual hard disks).

You can for Virtual Server 2005 too.
But I agree - VMWare seems better. VPC 2007 is very good too, though.

cacharo

I am sure I can find the answer on my own, but are the VHDs imaged with a OS of choice?

spree610

cacharo wrote:

I am sure I can find the answer on my own, but are the VHDs imaged with a OS of choice?

pretty much. with the VMWare VHDs though you can also get ones witn certain pre-installed apps like SQL or Exchange. its a bit nicer to play around with than the microsoft ones.

spree610

cacharo wrote:

Spree,

Thanks for the link! That is the first bit of info I was able to see on the subject. It certainly clears things up a bit. Have you done this? Does anything happen when you activate 2 of the same license keys? I am nervous to do so for some reason. Also the license type I have is MSDNAA through school I did not see anything specifically referencing that type of key.

to answer your question what you would do is load up a host server with server 2003 then you would load the additional virtual servers on that server with the same key.

cacharo

Spree, thanks for all of your clarification regarding this. I really appreciate it.

And all other commenters also.