Next release of Virtual PC

Hi, Could anyone point me to information on the MS product roadmap for VPC
and VPC server. I'd be interested to understand when the next releases are
due, and what enhancements are planned.

I need to make a decision before then end of Jan on whether to standardise
on VPC or VMWare...

Many thanks.

 

Microsoft doesn't usually comment or post information on unreleased
products.
Steve Jain, Virtual PC for Windows MVP
Website: http://www.essjae.com
"This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use."

 

So, no information on USB support, increasing max memory, snapshots, etc etc
? Kinda makes investing in a product strategy rather difficult doesn't it ?

Of course, an IT manager in a large company with 100's of potential
purchases would be provided with a roadmap and a comittment to a delivery
schedule. However, anyone who only needs 10's of licences don't get any
useful information or assistance.

 

You should decide based on the fact of the technology:

1)
VMware does NOT emulate the CPU nor the graphics card, so it is FASTER.
VMware supports Linux very well.

Vmware Workstation is little,
the server versions are much more powerful.

2)
VirtualPC is crippled ( just 16 GB filespace !), from today's point of view,
good for testing and test-installations ,
good for cheating software vendors who want to "activate hardware" =
well the hardware they activate ist a totally virtual hardware
and for abusing 30-days-evaluation version by forever use

Virtual Server ( the right name for "VPC server" ) is full blown
"consolidation" instrument - no 16 GB filespace limit.

VPC and VirtualServer don´t support Linux, officially.

3)
Alternatively, if you have just Linux, think of IBM and its P-Series:
They offer "virtualisation" on a firmware/bios level.

I visited special free sales roadshows for all 3 products, btw .

4)
If you talk about USB emulation, you dont´talk about server
applications, right ? But for a TCO driven project ? What kind of USB
devices are you focussing on ? USB 2.0 harddisks ?

Remember, for EACH image of a virtual PC, you need your OWN WinXP
license ! Do you have such free budget for a rising number of WinXP
licenses ?

Remember Vmware is available for Linux AND for Windows !

So don´t compare apples with peaches, but think about what you need.

Sincerely
Rolf

 

man, i won't post anymore on this thread of this subject (to avoid a
flame war), but you are correct that vmware is faster, for that has been
my experience as well (i have ran VPC & vmware for years, with most of
my work being with *nix running), but i find that since VPC emulates
everything, that Linux's that are not *officially* supported run much
better on VPC, and many times will not run in a GUI environment at all,
in vmware.. basically, if you're only going to run the non-windows OS's
that vmware supports, it's faster, but otherwise not. the other issue
that i like about the competitor's product (vmware) is that it runs on
linux.. but again, i won't say anymore on this subject.

-matson

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Hi Rolf,

Just to correct two points that you have made:

VMware does emulate a video card - it is simply one that does not exist.
Also - Virtual PC is not limited to 16GB - that is just the default
size that we offer.
--
Cheers,
Benjamin Armstrong
===============================
Virtual machine Program Manager

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
You assume all risk for your use.

 

VMware does NOT emulate the CPU

Neither does VPC for Windows.

It does on my installation of vmware. (as does VPC.)

Some distributions, yes, and that's why I have vmware installed too.

That's not a true, you can create large disks for VPC, though I think there
is a bios limit somewhere in the 100+GB somewhere. Just use the virtual
disk wizard to create a large disk before you create your vm.

And the IBM i-series (now i5) and the really big machines too, all support
virtualization.

 

Neither VPC nor VMWare emulate the CPU, so I'm not really sure what
you're getting at here.

The Fedora Core 2 server I'm running (for experimentation, mainly) works
fine under VPC.

True of both VPC and VS.

You can create a hard drive of virtually any size you want, 16GB just
happens to be the default.

huh? You could do the same on real hardware if you wanted, or with VMWare.

This is true of VMWare too. What's your point?

And Microsoft Word isn't available for Linux, but is available for
Windows. What's your point?

 

So should you - what you seemed to be comparing it on was the basis of
serious misconceptions.

 

AFAIK: Wrong.
I was told on official free "Microsoft [email protected]" events in Germany, a
sales event for "Microsoft Partners", about this limit.
It was an official MS announcment.

VirtualServer is different, there is no such limit.

I think its quiet positive that even if the maximum filesize is 16 GB,
the emulator starts with a 1..3 GB file, so that not 16 GB are reserved
from starting the emulation.

Sincerely
Rolf

 

Hello !

VPC emulates the CPU, AFAIK: Its a Pentium-III.
VMware does NOT emulate the CPU: On an Athlon XP, you get an Athlon CPU,
on a Pentium-IV, you get a Pentium-IV CPU.

Remember that VPC was an original MacOS / MacOS-X only product,
so they needed the CPU emulation.

Remember today's CPUs have an product identification,
some even a unique identification.

The point is that if everything including the CPU and the MAC address of
the virtual network card, is virtualized,
you can move an image from ONE computer to the other,
without problems with activation keys.

Remember that today many products are "protected" by activation keys
which are generated by the hardware.

if you change the motherboard, you need another activation key.
if you move a file image of a virtualPC to another PC, you don´t want to
have to need a new activation key which depends on the new HOST computer
!!! Hey you are running AN EMULATOR !!!

Microsoft tells different even at offical Microsoft [email protected] events.

I don´t see any switch to change the 16 GB limit of drive C: ( I did not
reach it so far, but as I was told, I expect that it is a real barrier ).

Of course you may have network file systems.

But as you know, anybody LIKES to install EVERYTHING to C:\program files
or even to
C:\Winnt
:-(

You don´t need another HOST license.

And remember that both WinXP home and W2k-pro, WinXp-Pro are crippled,
concerning the number of network connections ( 10 connections at the
same time ).

So to run a virtual PC with Windows2003server WITHOUT this network
limit, you must either run Linux or another Win2003Server as host. Means
twice the price in case of a Windows host.

Just VMware allows you to CHOOSE to buy either TWO Win2003 licenses or
just ONE.

And of course, in many cases, its no good choice to run virtualPCs to
save money but you enlarge the license costs. So virtualisation is not
really always the best choice ( but better to run the software on LESS
but BIGGER servers ).

The license cost, see above.

Sincerely
Rolf

 

AFAIK: Wrong.

Then they were wrong, it's easy to create a larger vhd in VPC. (up to 130GB)

- Bob Comer

 

Please tell me howto, or refer me to other WWW pages or forum discussions !

120 GB is enough. of course.

Sincerely
Rolf

 

VPC emulates the CPU, AFAIK: Its a Pentium-III.

No, sorry.

Same with VPC.

Virtual PC for Mac and Virtual PC for Windows are two separate products --
there's no need to emulate the CPU in VPC for Windows because it's already
available to run natively.

Same with vmware.

Of course it doesn't change, you have to change the size when you create it
if you want it to be bigger than 16G, that's the default and once the image
is created, that's what it stays. (it doesn't allocate all 16G to begin
with)

- Bob Comer

 

Please tell me howto, or refer me to other WWW pages or forum discussions

Open up the Virtual PC Console, the go to the "File" menu, left click
"Virtual Disk Wizard" on the first panel, just click "Next", then click
"Create a new virtual disk", then "Next", then "A virtual hard disk", then
"Next", then give it a name and path, then "Next", then choose "Dynamic" if
you want it to expand to your size, or "Fixed" if you want to allocate it
all at once, then "Next", then key in the size you want and hit "Next" and
"Finish".

You then have to go into the settings of a Virtual Machine and attach the
newly created vhd.

- Bob Comer

 

Well since Ben is part of the group at Microsoft that is responsible for
programming and maintaning VPC 2004 and Virtual Server 2005, I think that
you can take his word for it, when he claims that 16Gb is not the limit

If not just start the Virtual Disk Wizard from the VPC console and try
entering a number higher than 16 Gb when creating a new virtual hard disk.
As you can see, it'll accept up to 130557 Mb assuming that you have enough
free space on your hard drive.

Martin Moustgaard

 

Since Robert has corrected most of your errors, I'll just address one:

This is not true. It's correct that XP has a limit of 10 concurrent network
connection, but this limit doesn't in any way affect the guest
installations. So you can do a Windows 2003 server guest installation on a
Windows XP host system without being crippled by the 10 connection limit.
Trust me,- I've done this many times during internal testing in my company.

So off course you can spare the XP license by choosing VMWare and Linux as
host but you don't need a Windows 2003 server acting as a host unless you
plan to use Virtual Server 2005 in a production enviroment instead of
Virtual PC 2004, but that's a different discussion.

Dont forget that the price for VMWare's product is about 60$ higher that
what Microsoft's charging for VPC 2004. This does not cover an XP license
for the host system but it narrows the difference quite alot.

Martin Moustgaard

 

Not only that, but the "10 concurrent network connections" *only*
applies to Windows' services. It does NOT limit the number of TCP
connections you can establish at once, nor does it impact a Virtual PC
at all.

 

On the MacOS platform a Pentium III is emulated. This does not happen
on Virtual PC for Windows. Since we're not in the Mac support group it
is automatically assumed that all discussion here refers to the Windows
product unless specifically specified.

No, you're not running an emulator. VPC uses virtualization, not
emulation (of the CPU, anyway)

Either you are confused or the event presenter was confused.

By default VPC creates a 16 GB virtual hard drive (which may be dynamic
or fixed size on the disk), but you can use the virtual hard disk wizard
to alter this.

If I'm especially bored I can take some screenshots if you like.

True, if you can live with a Linux host OS to begin with. Since my
whole life doesn't resolve around Virtual PCs, running anything other
then Win32 as a host isn't acceptable.

Only the number of connections to Windows' internal networking
components is limited. You can have as many TCP connections as you
want, inbound or outbound.

These limits do not apply to a Virtual PC in any way as Virtual PC
effectively emulates a switched network, it doesn't create individual
TCP sessions as far as the host is concerned. The VPC switch doesn't
appear to be stateful although I've never done much testing.

<snipped other comments based on a false assumption>

 

My point exactly I do recall that this subject has surfaced in this NG a
couple of times last year, so it seems that some people are still a bit
confused about this or just to lazy to google the NG

Martin MOustgaard