Virtual PC

Virtual PC

(for Windows!)

They say that we don't remember the past correctly; that our nostalgia and longing for the past comes from our biased perception of it. I guess I have to find out.

Recently I faced two big problems. The first occurred cleaning out the dusty closet above the towels where I store all of my beloved, if someone dated, DOS games. The labels were yellowing with age, the dust was making me sneeze, yet I could not bear the thought of tossing these fragments of history away. Unfortunately they just never seem to work right under Windows XP. Some of those Windows 95 games wouldn't work properly either...

The second problem is that I want to play around with Linux and see what all the fuss is about. The problem is, I don't want to screw up the computer -- I know "dual-boot" is safe, maybe; but duel-boot to what? Will it work with my hardware? I would be taking a big risk installing it on my system. If I don't like it, can I get it off again? How best to partition my harddrive?

Virtual PC (VPC) seemed like a good answer -- it will let me run any operating system (OS) I was interested, without wiping out my Windows XP Home. So I searched the web, and found it for $119 -- what is $119 compare to a decade of game memories?

See the "Downloads & Links" section of this article for information on downloading the free 45 day trial version or where to buy Virtual PC.

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What Virtual PC Is and Isn't

Virtual PC creates a brand-new PC on your hard drive; the "virtual" part is because all of the hardware is emulated:

A PC emulation that will run most PC OS's.
It is not an OS itself, you must have "guest" OS's to install.
Video Card: emulates an S3 Trio
Sound Card: emulates a Soundblaster 16
Does not directly connect with any hardware, there is no "pass-through" capability.
Won't connect USB and won't recognize your spiffy new 3D video card.
And won't (this sounds dumb, but is often asked) emulate a Macintosh.
And will (although Microsoft doesn't advertise this) run Linux of many flavors.
And will (although Microsoft won't say so) run on Windows XP Home.

Preparation

Make sure you have a couple of gigabytes free harddrive space; in fact you will benefit from running CD's as ISO images, so having ***lots*** of harddrive space is good (although not necessary). Here's what I have laying around:

DOS 6.22
FreeDOS
Windows 3.1
Fedora Linux
Mandrake Linux
Damn Small Linux (yeah, I know)

And be sure to read the manual, at least a little bit! Virtual PC is surprisingly easy to set up, but does require you learning a couple of things (like using the Right-Alt key to move the mouse focus back out of a virtual machine).

Setup

Setup is a breeze; within 5 minutes you'll be in the basic application.

Tip: When the "New Virtual Machine" wizard starts, you will get the option of creating or adding a virtual machine. If you create a virtual machine, be sure and select the option to use "A new virtual hard disk".

Virtual PC 2004 gives you the option of capturing your CD ROM drive or your Floppy Disk Drive (usually Drive A:). If you don't have a floppy drive (if you are shocked by this, consider: when was the last time you used one?) you are not out of luck, you can use a floppy disk image. A useful little shareware utility winimage can be used to make these images. CD ISO images can be made by some CD burner programs, like Nero from Ahead Software.

For information on how to make an ISO image using Nero, click here. The advantage of using disk images, either from CD or from floppy disk, is that generally they are read quicker than from these physical devices.

Tip: copy files to your virtual machine using CD ISO images if you have software that can make ISO images, and you don't want to, or can't, set up file sharing. I find that it is also useful to store data that is frequently access from a virtual machine as an ISO image.

Boot Disks

Virtual PC will boot from a CD ROM drive with the right operating system install. I've used a Windows 98 CD to install Windows 98 (and the same for Windows 2000). I've also used an ISO image of a CD to install both Fedora and Mandrake Linux.

If you need a boot floppy disk, there is a great site to download them from: www.bootdisk.com.