Windows7 pre-built VHD avail. to download?

Has Microsoft made available to download a pre-built VHD of Windows 7?
I'd quite like to download W7 and use it for compatibility testing until
it's officially released. Rather than download an ISO file and do the
full install myself, I wondered if MS had done it for us and let us
download the VHD itself.

d d wrote:

> Has Microsoft made available to download a pre-built VHD of Windows 7?
> I'd quite like to download W7 and use it for compatibility testing until
> it's officially released. Rather than download an ISO file and do the
> full install myself, I wondered if MS had done it for us and let us
> download the VHD itself.

I doubt there will be a pre-built VHD from Microsoft until Windows 7 is
actually released. I don't remember ever seeing BETAware listed as a
VHD download.

VanguardLH wrote:
> d d wrote:
>
>> Has Microsoft made available to download a pre-built VHD of Windows 7?
>> I'd quite like to download W7 and use it for compatibility testing until
>> it's officially released. Rather than download an ISO file and do the
>> full install myself, I wondered if MS had done it for us and let us
>> download the VHD itself.
>
> I doubt there will be a pre-built VHD from Microsoft until Windows 7 is
> actually released. I don't remember ever seeing BETAware listed as a
> VHD download.

I don't see why they wouldn't want to. Probably just nobody thought of
it. It's certainly going to be the quickest way of trying out Windows 7,
which is what they seemed to want by making it publicly available. I
guess it's off to the ISO installer I go then.

Can anyone confirm that I can install Win7 from an ISO onto a regular
VPC 2007 VPC under Win XP Home 32 bit host? I know XP Home isn't
officially supported as a host but it's worked just fine for me.

On Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:51:07 +0200, d d <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com>
wrote:

>VanguardLH wrote:
>> d d wrote:
>>
>>> Has Microsoft made available to download a pre-built VHD of Windows 7?
>>> I'd quite like to download W7 and use it for compatibility testing until
>>> it's officially released. Rather than download an ISO file and do the
>>> full install myself, I wondered if MS had done it for us and let us
>>> download the VHD itself.
>>
>> I doubt there will be a pre-built VHD from Microsoft until Windows 7 is
>> actually released. I don't remember ever seeing BETAware listed as a
>> VHD download.
>
>I don't see why they wouldn't want to. Probably just nobody thought of
>it. It's certainly going to be the quickest way of trying out Windows 7,
>which is what they seemed to want by making it publicly available. I
>guess it's off to the ISO installer I go then.
>
>Can anyone confirm that I can install Win7 from an ISO onto a regular
>VPC 2007 VPC under Win XP Home 32 bit host?

Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
it.

>I know XP Home isn't
>officially supported as a host but it's worked just fine for me.

XP Home (SP2 or SP3) has been officially supported since Feb 2009 the
hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958162
Description of the hotfix rollup package for Virtual PC 2007 Service
Pack 1: February 20, 2009
Improvement 1
The Virtual PC 2007 support matrix is extended to include the
following SKUs:
Windows XP Home with Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3 (SP3)
Windows Vista Home with Service Pack1 (SP1)

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:51:07 +0200, d d <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com>
> wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>> d d wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has Microsoft made available to download a pre-built VHD of Windows 7?
>>>> I'd quite like to download W7 and use it for compatibility testing until
>>>> it's officially released. Rather than download an ISO file and do the
>>>> full install myself, I wondered if MS had done it for us and let us
>>>> download the VHD itself.
>>> I doubt there will be a pre-built VHD from Microsoft until Windows 7 is
>>> actually released. I don't remember ever seeing BETAware listed as a
>>> VHD download.
>> I don't see why they wouldn't want to. Probably just nobody thought of
>> it. It's certainly going to be the quickest way of trying out Windows 7,
>> which is what they seemed to want by making it publicly available. I
>> guess it's off to the ISO installer I go then.
>>
>> Can anyone confirm that I can install Win7 from an ISO onto a regular
>> VPC 2007 VPC under Win XP Home 32 bit host?
>
> Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
> it.

That seems like a massive part of Windows 7 (and Vista) judging by what
it says in wikipedia about it. Do I not get any GUI at all then? Or is
it just not as fancy? I only want to make this VHD to test out any
reported problems rendering web pages in browsers on it (plus to have a
nosey around and see if I'll be tempted to upgrade to Win 7, which I
wasn't at all with Vista).

>
>> I know XP Home isn't
>> officially supported as a host but it's worked just fine for me.
>
> XP Home (SP2 or SP3) has been officially supported since Feb 2009 the
> hotfix
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958162
> Description of the hotfix rollup package for Virtual PC 2007 Service
> Pack 1: February 20, 2009
> Improvement 1
> The Virtual PC 2007 support matrix is extended to include the
> following SKUs:
> Windows XP Home with Service Pack 2 (SP2)
> Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3 (SP3)
> Windows Vista Home with Service Pack1 (SP1)
>

Oh cool. Last time I was here on this forum it was still unsupported
(although it always worked just fine for me anyway).

d d wrote:

> Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
>>
>> Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
>> it.
>
> That seems like a massive part of Windows 7 (and Vista) judging by what
> it says in wikipedia about it. Do I not get any GUI at all then? Or is
> it just not as fancy? I only want to make this VHD to test out any
> reported problems rendering web pages in browsers on it (plus to have a
> nosey around and see if I'll be tempted to upgrade to Win 7, which I
> wasn't at all with Vista).

Um, themes are never a massive part of any OS. It isn't needed to *use*
Vista. That's like saying you can't use your car because it's blue
instead of red. After all, the OS by itself is not the end-all
solution. You want to run *applications* on it and that's what you
should be testing.

If you're testing how your web pages look to someone else, you should
disable the option in IE to use themes. After all, you won't have a
clue as to WHICH theme a reader is using when they view your web site.
Might be Aero. Might be a different theme. Might be the old classic or
basic theme. Might be a 3rd party theme (or a 3rd party utility that
modifies a Windows theme).

The simulated S3 Trio video card in the virtual machine doesn't support
3D graphics, so you lose themes that require 3D support. But wait ...

http://blogs.msdn.com/publicsector/a...l-pc-2007.aspx
(found through a Google search)

Basically you use the VM to run the Vista OS but you do NOT use the
console provided by the VM to see the desktop for that Vista OS.
Instead you remote into your Vista guest. The same might work for
Windows 7.

VanguardLH wrote:
> d d wrote:
>
>> Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
>>> Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
>>> it.
>> That seems like a massive part of Windows 7 (and Vista) judging by what
>> it says in wikipedia about it. Do I not get any GUI at all then? Or is
>> it just not as fancy? I only want to make this VHD to test out any
>> reported problems rendering web pages in browsers on it (plus to have a
>> nosey around and see if I'll be tempted to upgrade to Win 7, which I
>> wasn't at all with Vista).
>
> Um, themes are never a massive part of any OS. It isn't needed to *use*
> Vista. That's like saying you can't use your car because it's blue
> instead of red. After all, the OS by itself is not the end-all
> solution. You want to run *applications* on it and that's what you
> should be testing.
>
> If you're testing how your web pages look to someone else, you should
> disable the option in IE to use themes. After all, you won't have a
> clue as to WHICH theme a reader is using when they view your web site.
> Might be Aero. Might be a different theme. Might be the old classic or
> basic theme. Might be a 3rd party theme (or a 3rd party utility that
> modifies a Windows theme).
>
> The simulated S3 Trio video card in the virtual machine doesn't support
> 3D graphics, so you lose themes that require 3D support. But wait ...
>
> http://blogs.msdn.com/publicsector/a...l-pc-2007.aspx
> (found through a Google search)
>
> Basically you use the VM to run the Vista OS but you do NOT use the
> console provided by the VM to see the desktop for that Vista OS.
> Instead you remote into your Vista guest. The same might work for
> Windows 7.

Well that all sounds perfect then. No worries about themes or 3D, just
the client area of the browser which would be totally unaffected by themes.

Thanks a lot Steve & Van.

On Thu, 6 Aug 2009 04:07:33 -0500, VanguardLH <> wrote:

>d d wrote:
>
>> Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
>>> it.
>>
>> That seems like a massive part of Windows 7 (and Vista) judging by what
>> it says in wikipedia about it. Do I not get any GUI at all then? Or is
>> it just not as fancy? I only want to make this VHD to test out any
>> reported problems rendering web pages in browsers on it (plus to have a
>> nosey around and see if I'll be tempted to upgrade to Win 7, which I
>> wasn't at all with Vista).
>
>Um, themes are never a massive part of any OS. It isn't needed to *use*
>Vista. That's like saying you can't use your car because it's blue
>instead of red. After all, the OS by itself is not the end-all
>solution. You want to run *applications* on it and that's what you
>should be testing.
>
>If you're testing how your web pages look to someone else, you should
>disable the option in IE to use themes. After all, you won't have a
>clue as to WHICH theme a reader is using when they view your web site.
>Might be Aero. Might be a different theme. Might be the old classic or
>basic theme. Might be a 3rd party theme (or a 3rd party utility that
>modifies a Windows theme).
>
>The simulated S3 Trio video card in the virtual machine doesn't support
>3D graphics, so you lose themes that require 3D support. But wait ...
>
>http://blogs.msdn.com/publicsector/a...l-pc-2007.aspx
>(found through a Google search)
>
>Basically you use the VM to run the Vista OS but you do NOT use the
>console provided by the VM to see the desktop for that Vista OS.
>Instead you remote into your Vista guest. The same might work for
>Windows 7.

Yes, it "might" work. I've gotten it to work with VPC2007 and Vista
on some systems, but not all. When it works, it works great, but
sometimes i just doesn't.

Also, Windows VPC uses RDP automatically, to bypass you turn off the
integration components to run a VM ala VPC2007.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
>>Can anyone confirm that I can install Win7 from an ISO onto a regular
>>VPC 2007 VPC under Win XP Home 32 bit host?
>
> Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
> it.

Bonus! :-)
--
..NET: It's About Trust!
http://vfred.mvps.org

Steve Jain [MVP] wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:51:07 +0200, d d <go_on_try_and_sp@m_me.com>
> wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>> d d wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has Microsoft made available to download a pre-built VHD of Windows 7?
>>>> I'd quite like to download W7 and use it for compatibility testing until
>>>> it's officially released. Rather than download an ISO file and do the
>>>> full install myself, I wondered if MS had done it for us and let us
>>>> download the VHD itself.
>>> I doubt there will be a pre-built VHD from Microsoft until Windows 7 is
>>> actually released. I don't remember ever seeing BETAware listed as a
>>> VHD download.
>> I don't see why they wouldn't want to. Probably just nobody thought of
>> it. It's certainly going to be the quickest way of trying out Windows 7,
>> which is what they seemed to want by making it publicly available. I
>> guess it's off to the ISO installer I go then.
>>
>> Can anyone confirm that I can install Win7 from an ISO onto a regular
>> VPC 2007 VPC under Win XP Home 32 bit host?
>
> Yes, you can but you wont' get Aero and all the features that go with
> it.
>
>> I know XP Home isn't
>> officially supported as a host but it's worked just fine for me.
>
> XP Home (SP2 or SP3) has been officially supported since Feb 2009 the
> hotfix
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958162
> Description of the hotfix rollup package for Virtual PC 2007 Service
> Pack 1: February 20, 2009
> Improvement 1
> The Virtual PC 2007 support matrix is extended to include the
> following SKUs:
> Windows XP Home with Service Pack 2 (SP2)
> Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3 (SP3)
> Windows Vista Home with Service Pack1 (SP1)

Tried that patch just now. Got this message:

"The upgrade patch canot be installed by the Windows Installer service
because the program to be upgraded maybe missing, or the upgrade patch
may update a different version of the program. Verify that the program
to be upgraded exists on your computer and that you have the correct
upgrade patch."

Installed Windows 7 anyway. My results:

- Slower than Windows Vista which is a surprise.
- Alpha menus don't blend out sometimes. They just stay there forever.
- Responsiveness is terrible. You sometimes have to mouse the mouse
around because if you don't, the screen doesn't update.

It's basically working, but it's sure not impressing me enough to be
tempted to ugprade my XP host to it. At least I can use it for
compatibility testing and that's all I really needed it for.

Now I'm off to see if I can find VM Additions for Windows 7 to avoid the
mouse getting locked all the time.