Post by thread:[TECH] Using Microsoft Virtual PC

Has anyone tried installing Windows 98 on the Microsoft Virtual PC? I just read a letter in EPE where some guy recommended it, and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to access an ISO image I created from a Windows 98 CD. I click on CD->Capture ISO, select the file, and... nothing happens. D: is the RAM drive, and E: says "Invalid drive specification". I tried a few other letters, without success. Online help doesn't say anything I don't already know. Ideas? Vitaliy

> I click on CD->Capture ISO, select the file, and... nothing happens. D: is > the RAM drive, and E: says "Invalid drive specification". I tried a few > other letters, without success. Online help doesn't say anything I don't > already know. > What environment are you running theese commands from? did you boot virtual PC off the windows 98 CD iso or what? Does virtual PC let you configure how the CD drive is presented to the guest OS and if so what do you have selected? As a fallback option you could always use another OS in virtual PC to copy the windows 98 install files to a virtual hard drive.

peter green wrote: >> I click on CD->Capture ISO, select the file, and... nothing happens. D: >> is >> the RAM drive, and E: says "Invalid drive specification". I tried a few >> other letters, without success. Online help doesn't say anything I don't >> already know. >> > What environment are you running theese commands from? did you boot > virtual PC off the windows 98 CD iso or what? I had a "Win98 boot CD" which has basically the same files you would get when you create a startup floppy under Win 98. So I created a virtual HD, formatted it, and copied the files over. So now it boots from C: > Does virtual PC let you configure how the CD drive is presented to the > guest OS and if so what do you have selected? This is the weird part. When I used the (genuine) Windows 98 SE CD, and instruct the virtual PC to use the "D:" drive, it does not work. The disk itself is OK, because I can view the files on the "real" machine, and the boot menu comes up fine. So I created an ISO from this Win 98 install CD, and tried to load it in VPC. I don't get any errors, and it looks like it should work, but I have no idea how to access this virtual CD. Does this make sense? > As a fallback option you could always use another OS in virtual PC to > copy the windows 98 install files to a virtual hard drive. Hm, I guess I could try installing Windows 2000. I don't think I have access to a non-OEM Win XP CD. Vitaliy

John Gardner wrote: > Dunno, but I'm running DOS 6.22 under VPC 2007 on XP HE, > despite M$ disavowall of support for DOS under VPC. > > I've got old assemblers, compilers, and device programmers > which run under DOS or W3 - So far everything I've tried works. > > Re-remembering how to configure DOS was the hard part. I also > lucked out in that my 15-year-old DOS install disks still work. > Did you remember to set up a suitable CD rom driver ("oakcdrom.sys" is a good one if your virtual CD drive is IDE ) and mscdex?

From memory, the Win98CD will not install directly, you have to make the floppy disks (on the CD) to boot the PC (or VM). The floppy loads the CD driver and sets up a very basic DOS environment. Good Luck Dave John Gardner wrote: {Quote hidden}> What I'm getting at is, have you tried starting the VM > and then booting W98 from the CD? > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com > Version: 8.0.238 / Virus Database: 270.12.17/2095 - Release Date: 05/04/09 06:00:00 > >

I would not recommend VirtualPC in the first place. Use VmWare or VirtualBox instead. Tamas On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 9:12 PM, Vitaliy <spam_OUTspamTakeThisOuTmaksimov.org> wrote: {Quote hidden}> Has anyone tried installing Windows 98 on the Microsoft Virtual PC? > > I just read a letter in EPE where some guy recommended it, and decided to > give it a try. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to access an ISO > image > I created from a Windows 98 CD. > > I click on CD->Capture ISO, select the file, and... nothing happens. D: is > the RAM drive, and E: says "Invalid drive specification". I tried a few > other letters, without success. Online help doesn't say anything I don't > already know. > > Ideas? > > Vitaliy > > -

> From memory, the Win98CD will not install directly... You may well be right - I have zero experience with 95/98. I ran W3.1 till XP came out. Got interesting the last few years, fencing with the ISPs to stay on the net... > I would not recommend VirtualPC in the first place Likewise, no experience. VPC 2007 worked right out of the box for me - Started the VM, put DOS 6.22 Disk 1 in A:\ and hit enter. Twenty minutes later I was running DOS... The only thinking involved was speculating that if it'd run W3 it would probably run DOS unless inhibited from doing so. Jack

Dave Wheeler wrote: > John Gardner wrote: >> What I'm getting at is, have you tried starting the VM >> and then booting W98 from the CD? >> > From memory, the Win98CD will not install directly, you have to make > the floppy disks (on the CD) to boot the PC (or VM). The floppy loads > the CD driver and sets up a very basic DOS environment. I tried this. Except that instead of a floppy, I used a bootable CD. Vitaliy

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:32 PM, Vitaliy <.....spamKILLspam@spam@maksimov.org> wrote: > Tamas Rudnai wrote: >>I would not recommend VirtualPC in the first place. Use VmWare or >>VirtualBox instead. > > Why? One of the reason I do not like Virtual PC is that it does not support USB. The other is that it does not work under Linux but that may not be a problem for you. -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Vitaliy <spamKILLspammaksimov.org> wrote: >> From memory, the Win98CD will not install directly, you have to make >> the floppy disks (on the CD) to boot the PC (or VM). The floppy loads >> the CD driver and sets up a very basic DOS environment. > > I tried this. Except that instead of a floppy, I used a bootable CD. I vaguely remember I got Windows 98 working under Virtual PC but I may have confused it with 2000 or Vmware Player. I am sure Windows 2000 works under Virtual PC. Later I decided that Virtual PC is not good enough for me since it does not support USB which I want to try out. -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 2:10 PM, Vitaliy <spamspam_OUTmaksimov.org> wrote: >> One of the reason I do not like Virtual PC is that it does not support >> USB. > > Really? I did not know that. Look at the comments here. It is a big minus for me. But it may be ok for some other people. http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/02/20/running-virtual-pc-2007-on-windows-vista.aspx -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 6:32 AM, Vitaliy <@spam@spamKILLspammaksimov.org> wrote: > >I would not recommend VirtualPC in the first place. Use VmWare or > >VirtualBox > > instead. > > Why? VmWare is the pioneer on the virtualization, and still they do a great job. The workstation version is very easy to use, supports snapshots with branches, cloning, supports virtually all OS available today -- even old ones. And as others said supports USB. It also has a free VmWare player version and also a free server version. The player is good for 'playing' the virtual machines (running it) but you cannot create new ones. The server version is a bit more sophisticated and therefore bit more difficult to configure but is great. VirtualBox was originally developed by a German company, but now Sun Microsystems maintains it -- Sun has a very good reputation on virtualisation (Java VM). VirtualBox also supports snapshots and cloning (altough not branching). It has many features that VmWare does not, like 'Seemless Mode' which is basically makes the virtual OS' desktop meting into the host desktop so all application running on the virtual machine looks like was running on the host. Also it has a remote destop access so the server virtualisation is also possible with the desktop version. Supports USB and most OS you may want to play with (DOS, Win3.1, Win95/98, WinNT/2K/XP/Vista, OS2, Linuxes/Unixes). Both of them supports shared folders and the VT technology supported by modern CPUs. With VirtualPC you have very few features like this, they do not really support Linux (even if you can install it there is no guest additions), and overall the performance is way less than VmWare or VirtualBox. BTW I found that VirtualBox is the fastest, so even at my workplace I am looking to replace VmWare to it. At home I have the VirtualBox on Linux host and WinXP+MPLAB+PICkit2 works great. Tamas -- http://www.mcuhobby.com

On Tue, 5 May 2009 09:35:03 +0100, "Tamas Rudnai" <snipped Tamas' good comments on VirtualBox and VMWare for brevity> I believe that Parallels also should make the "short list" for anyone looking into these technologies. I think, but would have to check their site for sure, that they've moved away from Mac-only support and now have PC versions. They actually pioneered the "seamless" mode you mentioned of VirtualBox, but call it "Coherence" instead. VirtualBox for FREE, is hard to beat, though. Nate -- Nate Duehr KILLspamnateKILLspamnatetech.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Tamas Rudnai <RemoveMEtamas.rudnaiTakeThisOuTgmail.com> wrote: > Both of them supports shared folders and the VT technology supported by > modern CPUs. With VirtualPC you have very few features like this, they do > not really support Linux (even if you can install it there is no guest > additions), and overall the performance is way less than VmWare or > VirtualBox. BTW I found that VirtualBox is the fastest, so even at my > workplace I am looking to replace VmWare to it. At home I have the > VirtualBox on Linux host and WinXP+MPLAB+PICkit2 works great. On the other hand, VirtualBox has terrible support for BSDs. I have VirtualBox installed under Windows Vista and Ubuntu. I could not install FreeBSD/NetBSD with my desktop PC but installation under VirtualBox is also not working. I do not want to run common guests like Windows and Linux as I have already both OS running and I prefer to use dual boot. Actually qemu is better in this aspect. http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes VMware is said to be better in OS supports. -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:15 PM, cdb <TakeThisOuTcolinEraseMEspam_OUTbtech-online.co.uk> wrote: > :: And as others said supports USB > > The latest beta version (which MS have forgotten to link to a download > server) is supposed to include USB support - according to the W7 XP > mode virtual server blurb. > At last. Actually is there any virtualization that supports Bluetooth? Tamas -- http://www.mcuhobby.com

Tamas wrote: >> :: And as others said supports USB >At last. Actually is there any virtualization that supports Bluetooth? >Tamas I don't know if this is what you are asking but over the weekend I plugged a bluetooth dongle into my Suse 9 VM - running Vmware 6. WinXP sp2 (running natively) has issues and won't see the dongle without drivers and tweaking, Suse detected it straight away, and I was able to send files both ways to my Nokia cellphone. The Obex mode worked, as well as browse - unlike XP without Nokia PC Suite.

:: At last Bad news is, you need a processor that uses Intel/AMD virtualization technology and have it enabled. That's my desktop excluded then! :: is there any virtualization that supports Bluetooth? They don't list it in the features. Colin -- cdb, RemoveMEcolinTakeThisOuTbtech-online.co.uk on 6/05/2009 Web presence: http://www.btech-online.co.uk Hosted by: http://www.1and1.co.uk/?k_id=7988359

On Wed, 2009-05-06 at 05:43 +1000, cdb wrote: > > :: At last > > Bad news is, you need a processor that uses Intel/AMD virtualization > technology and have it enabled. That's my desktop excluded then! > > > > :: is there any virtualization that supports Bluetooth? > > They don't list it in the features. I haven't tried it, but since bluetooth is usually just a USB adapter away I'd bet that VMWare would support bluetooth without issue, after all, it's just another USB device, VMware doesn't need to know what it's doing. Conceivably you may have to keep the adapter exclusive to the guest OS. TTYL

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 3:58 AM, Herbert Graf <hkgrafEraseME.....gmail.com> wrote: > I haven't tried it, but since bluetooth is usually just a USB adapter > away I'd bet that VMWare would support bluetooth without issue, after > all, it's just another USB device, VMware doesn't need to know what it's > doing. Conceivably you may have to keep the adapter exclusive to the > guest OS. Many USB device works. Many others do not work under VMware or Virtualbox or Qemu with a Linux host. I will think it is similar for other host. There was a long discussion in the Linux usb mailing list and now the topic started again. USB pass through is not easy at all. http://marc.info/?t=124134477900001&r=1&w=2 -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Bob Ammerman <EraseMErammermanverizon.net> wrote: >>> :: At last >>> >>> Bad news is, you need a processor that uses Intel/AMD virtualization >>> technology and have it enabled. That's my desktop excluded then! > > This is *not* true for Virtual PC 2007. You do *not* need Intel/AMD > virtualization for this product. > > Is this comment referring to the beta of the new version of Virtual PC? > Yes. It is referring to the beta of the new version of Virtual PC which is said to start to support USB. www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/features/default.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2009/04/27/windows-virtual-pc-is-coming.aspx -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Herbert Graf <RemoveMEhkgrafEraseMEEraseMEgmail.com> wrote: > I haven't tried it, but since bluetooth is usually just a USB adapter > away I'd bet that VMWare would support bluetooth without issue, after > all, it's just another USB device, VMware doesn't need to know what it's > doing. Conceivably you may have to keep the adapter exclusive to the > guest OS. > You are right, I missed the point -- my one is still hangs on the USB even though it is embedded one. I also had a problem with the access rights on the usbfs which prevented to pick up the bluetooth device by the virtual machine. Thanks, Tamas -- http://www.mcuhobby.com

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Tamas Rudnai <RemoveMEtamas.rudnaispam_OUTKILLspamgmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Herbert Graf <RemoveMEhkgrafTakeThisOuTspamgmail.com> wrote: > >> I haven't tried it, but since bluetooth is usually just a USB adapter >> away I'd bet that VMWare would support bluetooth without issue, after >> all, it's just another USB device, VMware doesn't need to know what it's >> doing. Conceivably you may have to keep the adapter exclusive to the >> guest OS. >> > > You are right, I missed the point -- my one is still hangs on the USB even > though it is embedded one. I also had a problem with the access rights on > the usbfs which prevented to pick up the bluetooth device by the virtual > machine. The later version of VMware is said to solve that problem. Last time you need to mount usbfs to use Vmware. Now the Linux USB developers want to actually deprecate this option. By default Ubuntu does not mount it. But the whole USB passthrough is a risky business. Long discussion here: http://marc.info/?t=124134477900001&r=1&w=2 -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com

Tamas Rudnai wrote: > VirtualBox also supports snapshots and cloning > (altough not branching). It has many features that VmWare does not, like > 'Seemless Mode' which is basically makes the virtual OS' desktop meting into > the host desktop so all application running on the virtual machine looks > like was running on the host. Starting from VMware version 6.5 there is the 'Unity' mode that works in a similar manner. > Also it has a remote destop access so the > server virtualisation is also possible with the desktop version. In VMware you can access the guest O/S using a VNC client. And, of course if is a windows, with a remote desktop client...

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:38 PM, Nicola Perotto <EraseMEnicolaspamspamBeGonenicolaperotto.it>wrote: > > > > > Also it has a remote destop access so the > > server virtualisation is also possible with the desktop version. > In VMware you can access the guest O/S using a VNC client. And, of > course if is a windows, with a remote desktop client... > The VirtualBox remote desktop is a bit different. It is provided natively by VirtualBox so you can connect with rdesktop while the VM is still starting up or loading the OS. This also means you can also get to the real console if the VM is not running a GUI. John

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 2:34 AM, John La Rooy <RemoveMEpiclist.jlrKILLspamlarooy.com>wrote: > > > Also it has a remote destop access so the > > > server virtualisation is also possible with the desktop version. > > In VMware you can access the guest O/S using a VNC client. And, of > > course if is a windows, with a remote desktop client... > > > > The VirtualBox remote desktop is a bit different. It is provided natively > by > VirtualBox > so you can connect with rdesktop while the VM is still starting up or > loading the OS. > > This also means you can also get to the real console if the VM is not > running a GUI. I am not familiar with the VmWare Workstation 6, but on the website it says: "Enable remote users to connect to virtual machines from VNC clients with built-in VNC support" http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/new.html http://www.petri.co.il/images/new-vmware-6-features-02.jpg As this blog says: "Plus there's just something cool about watching a machine boot via a VNC window... that's right, since the VNC viewer is connecting to vmware-vmx.exe on the host rather than a VNC server in the guest, you get a proper console connection like an iLO on a HP server." http://n00dlestheindelible.blogspot.com/2007/01/vmware-workstation-60-totally-awesome.html Thanks Tamas -- http://www.mcuhobby.com

John La Rooy wrote: > VirtualBox > so you can connect with rdesktop while the VM is still starting up or > loading the OS. > > This also means you can also get to the real console if the VM is not > running a GUI. > > John > > The VirtualBox remote desktop is a bit different. It is provided > natively by The "vncserver" is provided natively, of course! And it works also for a DOS VM.