Speeding up VPC
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Right-click the Virtual PC icon in the tray, and select Options. In the list, select Performance. Consider selecting 'When Virtual PC is running in the background: Run Virtual PC at maximum speed' rather than 'Give processes on the host operating system priority'. You can also balance the amount of CPU time given to each virtual machine: you probably want 'Allocate more CPU time to the virtual machine in the active window' if you're working interactively, whereas if you were running a number of virtual machines as test clients you'd probably want 'All running virtual machines get equal CPU time'. Here at work I have a virtual machine in which I run IE 7.0 Beta 1 on XP SP2 (which I'm posting this comment from). It has 256MB of the system's 1GB. I assume you've already installed the Virtual Machine Additions? If not, select Action, Install or Update Virtual Machine Additions from the VM's menu bar. Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Wow, thanks Mike. I really appreciate your help. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
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Nish, Try the following things 1) Install Virtual Machine additions 2) Right-click the Virtual PC icon in the tray, and select Options in the performance list, select "Allocate more CPU to the virtual machine in the active window" option. 3) Select "Run Virtual PC at maximum speed" in the 'When Virtual PC is running in the background' option. I use Virtual PC a lot. I have a 2GB laptop and a lot of times I am running a Virtual Machine with 512 MB. I also have an external HDD(7200 rpm with 16 MB cache) and one of my other virtual machine is running from there. Also check for VMWare player which is a free download. If you have a Virtual PC image(VHD/VMC files), you can import that to VMWare player and run them. In that case you don't need to use Virtual PC( just use virtual pc to to complete the OS install and create the image). I use VMWare player at one of my home PC because Virtual PC doesn't run on Windows XP x64 editions. It seems fine. The new Virtual Server 2005 R2 will run on Windows XP x64. Thanks, Madhu
Thanks Madhu. Appreciate your tips. I'll also try VMWare player out. I just wodner why the default setting is to run it as slow as possible. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
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I installed XP on a Virtual PC and then installed VS 2005 as well. I gave the VPC 768 MB Ram (which is the max I can afford as the host PC has only 2 GB). It's a P-4 3.2 MHz with HT enabled. But the VPC performs like a 486 DX2 running on 128 MB RAM. Is this normal? Is there anyway to improve performance? I looked at the VPC task manager and saw a 100% processor usage. But at the same time the host computer shows only about 5-10% CPU usage. To me this looks as if VPC is running under low priority. Why is this so? Is it safe to increase the process priority of the VPC process in the host machine? Any suggestions are hugely appreciated. Thank you. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
One possible issue: If the host OS is Windows XP SP2, VPC 2004 will run with all optimizations disabled. Install VPC 2004 SP1 to fix the problem.
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One possible issue: If the host OS is Windows XP SP2, VPC 2004 will run with all optimizations disabled. Install VPC 2004 SP1 to fix the problem.
Daniel Grunwald wrote:
One possible issue: If the host OS is Windows XP SP2, VPC 2004 will run with all optimizations disabled. Install VPC 2004 SP1 to fix the problem.
Ooooh, thanks. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
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I installed XP on a Virtual PC and then installed VS 2005 as well. I gave the VPC 768 MB Ram (which is the max I can afford as the host PC has only 2 GB). It's a P-4 3.2 MHz with HT enabled. But the VPC performs like a 486 DX2 running on 128 MB RAM. Is this normal? Is there anyway to improve performance? I looked at the VPC task manager and saw a 100% processor usage. But at the same time the host computer shows only about 5-10% CPU usage. To me this looks as if VPC is running under low priority. Why is this so? Is it safe to increase the process priority of the VPC process in the host machine? Any suggestions are hugely appreciated. Thank you. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
VPC SP1 claims to have some performance fixes, if I remember right. Have you tried that? I use vmware for all the operating systems at work, it is good. But I don't think VPC would be bad though, that's what I felt on my colleague's machine sometime back. Vipin
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I installed XP on a Virtual PC and then installed VS 2005 as well. I gave the VPC 768 MB Ram (which is the max I can afford as the host PC has only 2 GB). It's a P-4 3.2 MHz with HT enabled. But the VPC performs like a 486 DX2 running on 128 MB RAM. Is this normal? Is there anyway to improve performance? I looked at the VPC task manager and saw a 100% processor usage. But at the same time the host computer shows only about 5-10% CPU usage. To me this looks as if VPC is running under low priority. Why is this so? Is it safe to increase the process priority of the VPC process in the host machine? Any suggestions are hugely appreciated. Thank you. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
In addition to all the advice other people have offered, Scott Hanselmann suggests[^] making sure your VM's live on a different physical drive to your system drive (even if it's connected via USB).
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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In addition to all the advice other people have offered, Scott Hanselmann suggests[^] making sure your VM's live on a different physical drive to your system drive (even if it's connected via USB).
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Thanks Taka. I guess it helps if you have 2 physical drives :( Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
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Thanks Taka. I guess it helps if you have 2 physical drives :( Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
I guess it helps if you have 2 physical drives
He he :-) I just bought my fourth external USB drive. 460 Mb of disk storage just wasn't cutting it so I got a new 300 Gb one, just for backups.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Thanks Taka. I guess it helps if you have 2 physical drives :( Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
I guess it helps if you have 2 physical drives
He he :-) I just bought my fourth external USB drive. 460 Mb of disk storage just wasn't cutting it so I got a new 300 Gb one, just for backups. VM's actually account for a lot of that space :-)
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Jack Squirrel wrote:
- Using dynamic virtual hard drives instead of fixed drives.
Ah okay, though I don't think I can afford a true partition right now, let alone a full physical drive.
Jack Squirrel wrote:
- Using the Undo feature.
Hmmm, I don't know if I have that enabled. I'll look into this and try and disable it. Thanks for your suggestions, really useful. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
I found the article I used when I was optimizing last fall: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Tuning-Virtual-PC-Performance.html Looks like most of the ideas have been suggested. "My dog worries about the economy. Alpo is up to 99 cents a can. That's almost seven dollars in dog money" - Wacky humour found in a business magazine
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I found the article I used when I was optimizing last fall: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Tuning-Virtual-PC-Performance.html Looks like most of the ideas have been suggested. "My dog worries about the economy. Alpo is up to 99 cents a can. That's almost seven dollars in dog money" - Wacky humour found in a business magazine
Thanks again Jack. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
I guess it helps if you have 2 physical drives
He he :-) I just bought my fourth external USB drive. 460 Mb of disk storage just wasn't cutting it so I got a new 300 Gb one, just for backups.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Taka Muraoka wrote:
I just bought my fourth external USB drive.
Awasu must be selling well then :-) Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
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Taka Muraoka wrote:
I just bought my fourth external USB drive.
Awasu must be selling well then :-) Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
Awasu must be selling well then
Getting better although I won't be retiring anytime soon... :-) Things are cheap here in Bangkok[^]. I just bought 2 Gb of SODIMM memory for about USD $325. The 300Gb drive cost about $160, a case another $20.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
Awasu must be selling well then
Getting better although I won't be retiring anytime soon... :-) Things are cheap here in Bangkok[^]. I just bought 2 Gb of SODIMM memory for about USD $325. The 300Gb drive cost about $160, a case another $20.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison Awasu 2.2 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
You are in Bangkok now? YOur CP profile still say Australia though. And yeah, those prices seem low. Regards, Nish
My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET