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Virtual PC & Virtual Server Tips

	What Devices Does Virtual PC 2004 Emulate?
	Change The Default Path For Storing Virtual PC Images And Configurations
	Using Virtual PC with Multiple Users on the Same Host System
	Change the MAC Address of a Virtual Machine
	Installing Novell NetWare 5.1
	Installing Novell NetWare 6.5
	'Access Denied' Error When you try to Open the Administrative Web Site for Virtual Server
	Virtual PC Home Page
	What Works and What Doesn't in Microsoft Virtual PC 2004
	Virtual PC and Virtual Server Downloads
	Tutorial: Installing and Configuring Virtual PC (Part 1)
	Tutorial: Installing and Configuring Virtual PC (Part 2)
	Interview: Running Virtual PC and Virtual Machines
	Virtual Machine Links
	Computer Tips Index

What Devices Does Virtual PC 2004 Emulate?

The Guest OS needs drivers that support the following components:

• S3 Trio Video Card.
• Intel / DEC 21140 Network Card.
  (Listed in NetWare as: DC21X4.LAN Digital EB140A 10/100 Mbps PCI Networking Card)
• Soundblaster 16 ISA PnP Sound Card.
• Intel 440BX Motherboard Chipset.

Regardless of what physical hardware is present in your computer, the devices listed above are the drivers you need to use for your virtual PC session. Forcing your virtual machine OS to accept an install of drivers for the physical hardware in your computer will not work and may cause your virtual machine to crash.

Change The Default Path For Storing Virtual PC Images And Configurations

By default, the configuration files (.vmc) and hard drive images (.vhd) for each Virtual PC you create is stored in the "My Documents\My Virtual Machines\" directory.

To change the default path for storing Virtual PC images and configurations:

1. Shutdown any guests operating systems.
2. Exit Virtual PC 2004.
3. Add the following Environment variable to your machine "MYVIRTUALMACHINES" (without the quotes) and set the value to the path you want to use. e.g. C:\Virtual Machines
4. The next time you start Virtual PC and create a new guest operating system, it will use the new location you have specified.

To add the environment variable to your computer

1. Exit from Virtual PC
2. System Properties (Right click on My Computer then choose Properties)
3. Advanced tab
4. Environment Variables button
5. Under System variables: New button
6. Variable name: MYVIRTUALMACHINES
7. Variable value: C:\Virtual Machines
8. Ok button
9. Ok button

See: The My Virtual Machines folder and virtual machine performance issues

Using Virtual PC with Multiple Users on the Same Host System

Virtual PC stores all settings and configuration data on a per-user basis by default. This means that User A will have a different configuration than User B when using the same computer.

(I'm researching how to configure Virtual PC to share it's settings with all users on the same host computer. I'll post what I find here.)

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004

Using the -defaultuser command line parameter from VPC v5.0

e.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual PC.exe" -defaultuser

Yields the following error:

Error - Virtual PC
An error occurred while processing the command line options.
The specified command is invalid.

If you know how to get the -defaultuser command line parameter to work, please contact me to let me know.

Change the MAC Address of a Virtual Machine

Edit the .vmc file to remove the MAC address.

Find the following line:

<ethernet_card_address type="bytes">0003FFxxxxxx</ethernet_card_address>

Remove the number so the line appears as follows:

<ethernet_card_address type="bytes"></ethernet_card_address>

After you remove the number, and save the file, Virtual PC will create a new MAC address the next time you start the virtual machine.

Installing Novell NetWare 5.1 Support Pack 7

NetWare 5.1 Support Pack 7 Overlay CD with 128-bit encryption installs without needing modification to the DX21X4 LAN drivers or the Pentium 4 fix that were needed by Novell NetWare 5.1 (Support Pack 1).

Installing directly from the .iso worked fine. (Capture ISO image)

Installing Novell NetWare 5.1 (Support Pack 1)

Issues:

• The driver for the Intel / DEC 21140 Network Card (DX21X4 LAN) that comes with NetWare 5.1 SP1 needs to be modified to work with Virtual PC 2004.
• Installing NetWare 5.1 on Pentium 4 hardware will cause the install to hang when SYMCJIT.NLM is loaded during the GUI portion of the installation.
  Usually with the following errors:

java: Page fault occurred while executing class com.novell.application.install.setup 
Short term memory allocator is out of memory.1 attempts to get more memory failed 
java: Class com.novell.application.install.setup exited with status -5 

Resolution:

• Create a floppy disk with updated DX21X4 LAN driver files and the files for the Pentium 4 Fix.

Installing Novell NetWare server under Virtual PC has detailed instructions for modifying the DC21X4.LDI file to work with Virtual PC.

See How to install NetWare 5.1 on a Pentium IV server - TID10064269 for details on the Pentium 4 Fix.

Steps for Installing NetWare using the updated driver disk

1. Start Virtual PC 2004
2. Insert the NetWare 5.1 CD into the CD-ROM drive.
3. Start the Virtual Machine you want to install NetWare into. This should boot from the CD and start the installation.
4. At the License Agreement screen, insert the network driver floppy disk you created and leave it in until prompted to install the NetWare User License.
5. Accept the License Agreement
6. At the upgrade / new server screen, choose "new server" then press F3 to specify that the response file is A:response.txt. You must use “new server” if the setup had previously failed , the GUI part of the setup will fail since NDS was probably not installed.
7. Continue with the normal installation of NetWare until the screen to configure the network boards.
8. If other drivers are automatically selected during the normal installation of Novell NetWare – they should be removed and these modified drivers should be loaded by selecting "Add an unlisted driver."
9. Continue with the normal installation of NetWare.

Installing Novell NetWare 6.5

The network board in Virtual PC 2004 is not auto-detected during the NetWare 6.5 install.

The DC21X4 (Digital EB140A) driver can be found in c:\nwserver\drivers\unsupdrv\

The license file for the evaluation version is in NW65PROD:\LICENSE\EVAL\90368026.NFK (the second cd)

'Access Denied' Error When you try to Open the Administrative Web Site for Virtual Server

If you have Virtual Server installed on a Windows XP SP2 computer, you may get an 'Access Denied' error when you try to open the Administrative Web site.

The fix is to disable "Simple File Sharing."

1. Open 'My Computer'
2. Open the 'Tools' menu and select 'Folder Options'
3. Change to the 'View' tab
4. Scroll to the bottom of the 'Advanced settings:' box and uncheck 'Use simple file sharing (Recommended)'.
5. Click 'OK' and you should now be able to use the Administrative Web site.

When simple file sharing is enabled, a number of file restrictions are enforced, some of which stop the Virtual Server Administrative Web site from working properly.