Trying out Microsoft Virtual PC for the First Time

I’ve finally jumped in and given Microsoft’s Virtual PC software a try. I guess I’m obviously a complete beginner though because I didn’t think about or realize that I’d need to have the installation software for the OS to be installed on the new virtual machine. Now I realize that should have been clearly obvious before I started.

I was talking to a friend and he was saying that I could look for a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) image of pre-configured OS options for testing. I found the basic one for Vista to install but it comes in 17+ parts of 95.8MB each! Which is kind of weird because the initial download size was stated to only be 3.9MB. What’s up with that?

So, I know I don’t have the time to start this process now, but maybe it’s something I’ll pursue a little bit later. I really do need to get this other software installed though and begin testing it. I would just install it on my existing laptop, but don’t need to risk that on my production machine that I rely on daily.

What’s everyone else’s experience been with using Microsoft Virtual PC. Oh, and should I be playing around with it or Microsoft Virtual Server?