Virtual PC...
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Hmmm. I'll be using a similar system. I'm not too worried about performance though - more interested in testing my deployment projects (we've been having a few installation problems on client machines that I'm having trouble replicating here). Thanks for the info. Matt. Drew.
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Hmmm. I'll be using a similar system. I'm not too worried about performance though - more interested in testing my deployment projects (we've been having a few installation problems on client machines that I'm having trouble replicating here). Thanks for the info. Matt. Drew.
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I was thinking of getting Virtual PC to save me some of the hassle of resetting my test machine all the time. A couple of questions though: my test machine has XP Pro on it. If I install Virtual PC, do I need a second XP Pro license to run under Virtual PC or will it use the existing one? How does the validation work? I know I'll need licenses for any other operating systems I want to try. Unfortunately I don't have an MSDN subsciption. Anyone got any tips for me? Thanks, Drew.
Drew Stainton wrote: do I need a second XP Pro license to run under Virtual PC or will it use the existing one? Legally, who knows? It's technically the same machine, after all... but if there's money to be made... Practically, yes. XP won't recognize that it's running on an already-registered machine, and so will need to be activated. Of course, you can probably just do the phone call thing to get the same license registered in the VM. Personally, i use the MSDN copies of whatever OS it is i'm testing, as those usually come with plenty of licenses, and i can't imagine what those would be for if not test machines. Drew Stainton wrote: Anyone got any tips for me? Just one. :) (VirtualPC has some nifty UI features, but still feels sluggish compared to VMWare)
Shog9
I'm not the Jack of Diamonds... I'm not the six of spades. I don't know what you thought; I'm not your astronaut...
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Drew Stainton wrote: do I need a second XP Pro license to run under Virtual PC or will it use the existing one? Legally, who knows? It's technically the same machine, after all... but if there's money to be made... Practically, yes. XP won't recognize that it's running on an already-registered machine, and so will need to be activated. Of course, you can probably just do the phone call thing to get the same license registered in the VM. Personally, i use the MSDN copies of whatever OS it is i'm testing, as those usually come with plenty of licenses, and i can't imagine what those would be for if not test machines. Drew Stainton wrote: Anyone got any tips for me? Just one. :) (VirtualPC has some nifty UI features, but still feels sluggish compared to VMWare)
Shog9
I'm not the Jack of Diamonds... I'm not the six of spades. I don't know what you thought; I'm not your astronaut...
I'm not so sure about this. If your hardware settings are the same for the install (i.e. same network card, video card, etc.), then it would probably accept the same key. The hardware hasn't changed, and I think that Microsoft allows something like 5 hardware changes before requiring a reactivation. It just might work. And as far as the legal mumbo jumbo, they all say running on one computer, but if it's the same computer, then technically you aren't violating any licenses. I'm doing this with VMWare, but sans activation since I have a corporate copy of XP without the activation module. Regards, Brigg Thorp Senior Software Engineer Timex Corporation
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Drew Stainton wrote: do I need a second XP Pro license to run under Virtual PC or will it use the existing one? Legally, who knows? It's technically the same machine, after all... but if there's money to be made... Practically, yes. XP won't recognize that it's running on an already-registered machine, and so will need to be activated. Of course, you can probably just do the phone call thing to get the same license registered in the VM. Personally, i use the MSDN copies of whatever OS it is i'm testing, as those usually come with plenty of licenses, and i can't imagine what those would be for if not test machines. Drew Stainton wrote: Anyone got any tips for me? Just one. :) (VirtualPC has some nifty UI features, but still feels sluggish compared to VMWare)
Shog9
I'm not the Jack of Diamonds... I'm not the six of spades. I don't know what you thought; I'm not your astronaut...
Shog9 wrote: Just one. (VirtualPC has some nifty UI features, but still feels sluggish compared to VMWare) Damn straight! :) Jeremy Falcon
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I'm not so sure about this. If your hardware settings are the same for the install (i.e. same network card, video card, etc.), then it would probably accept the same key. The hardware hasn't changed, and I think that Microsoft allows something like 5 hardware changes before requiring a reactivation. It just might work. And as far as the legal mumbo jumbo, they all say running on one computer, but if it's the same computer, then technically you aren't violating any licenses. I'm doing this with VMWare, but sans activation since I have a corporate copy of XP without the activation module. Regards, Brigg Thorp Senior Software Engineer Timex Corporation
Not quite...VPC virtual machines emulate a fixed set of hardware, and that is very, very unlikely to even come close to matching the real hardware! BTW I've seen the licencing question pop up on the VPC newsgroup and the official line is you need one licence for the host, and one for the guest. That also applies to VMWare I imagine. Of course, MSDN is an ideal solution to licencing issues like this. :) Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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I was thinking of getting Virtual PC to save me some of the hassle of resetting my test machine all the time. A couple of questions though: my test machine has XP Pro on it. If I install Virtual PC, do I need a second XP Pro license to run under Virtual PC or will it use the existing one? How does the validation work? I know I'll need licenses for any other operating systems I want to try. Unfortunately I don't have an MSDN subsciption. Anyone got any tips for me? Thanks, Drew.
Unfortunately you will need a licence for each guest OS. Of course, if you get an MSDN Pro subscription (far cheaper than Universal!) VPC 2004 and the OS licences come with it. The nice thing about VPC is that the disks for guest OS installations are just files (albeit usually quite large ones), so they can be backed up, copied (to create a branched installation for testing) etc. For example, once you have an activated guest install of XP, you could take copies of it and install different service packs or end user configurations on each. This is just ideal for a test environment, particularly when you have to test against multiple target platforms. Good luck, and have fun! Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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Unfortunately you will need a licence for each guest OS. Of course, if you get an MSDN Pro subscription (far cheaper than Universal!) VPC 2004 and the OS licences come with it. The nice thing about VPC is that the disks for guest OS installations are just files (albeit usually quite large ones), so they can be backed up, copied (to create a branched installation for testing) etc. For example, once you have an activated guest install of XP, you could take copies of it and install different service packs or end user configurations on each. This is just ideal for a test environment, particularly when you have to test against multiple target platforms. Good luck, and have fun! Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote: once you have an activated guest install of XP, you could take copies of it and install different service packs or end user configurations on each Ooh. That sounds perfect! I would like to test against XP Home and Pro with and without SP2 since those are my "minimum requirements." I'm thinking I might opt for the MSDN OS Pack along with VPC which looks to be the cheapest route. Thanks for the info. Cheers, Drew.
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I was thinking of getting Virtual PC to save me some of the hassle of resetting my test machine all the time. A couple of questions though: my test machine has XP Pro on it. If I install Virtual PC, do I need a second XP Pro license to run under Virtual PC or will it use the existing one? How does the validation work? I know I'll need licenses for any other operating systems I want to try. Unfortunately I don't have an MSDN subsciption. Anyone got any tips for me? Thanks, Drew.
Anna has a very good tip. This is something that I do so it does not take so long to "reset" the virtual PC. I have a couple of DVDs burn with the virtual hard disk image of the OS after it has been installed, so that each time I reset my tests I can go back to the orignal (post activated) version - It saves a lot of hassle reinstalling the OS each time I want to run a new set of tests.
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i may be wrong, but it seams to me that instaling the "Virtual machine additions" have a bit performance gain :confused: "There is no sin in making an error - we all do, and that's how we learn. Sin lies in letting stand an error, once we discover it, without correcting it."
Roger Wright -
I often have two linux VPC's running on my machine, or XP and Windows Server 2003 at any one time (1.5 Ghz Pentium-M, 1.25G Ram, XP Pro) and there is no performance issue... well, except when there is very heavy disk activity on one of them... the problem there is that is have a slow 4200rpm drive in my laptop. Regards, Brian Dela :-) Now Bloging![^]