Windows 7 Virtual PC Experience

I was finally able to get Windows 7 RC1 updated to the current version from MSDN.  I had kept my local backup needs lightweight since I new this day was coming.  The install of Windows 7 Enterprise went very smoothly as did the updates to Office and other programs I needed.   However, I did have a challenge moving my Virtual PC 2007 .vmc’s into the new Virtual PC for Win7.

What I found was that my old VMs almost all had Diff Disks.  Virtual PC would not boot from a 2007 Differencing Disk.  It would boot from the base VHD though.  So, I had to merge my disk on an old desktop Running XP Pro and had a copy of Virtual PC 2007.  After merging the disks, I tried to create a new .vmcx for the drive, but after launching I blue screened.

Finally, I had to create a .vmc file on the old XP Pro box with VPC2007.  Once that file was created, I was able to launch the VM on Win7.

So, if you have a VM that you are migrating from VPC2007 to Win7 VPC, you will need to merge the differencing disk on VPC2007 and then create a new .vmc file to run the merged .vhd.  The new vmc file can be launched in Win7 VPC without issue.

Create a VHD from a running local Windows Host

I recently wanted to back up my laptop and preferred to create a VHD for Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007. So, I went to the net and found a procedure from Microsoft that indicated that you could use a linked disk to the image disk and convert by editing that disk. I tried that process but could not get the OS to recover.

So, I next found a helpful post talking about WinImage. (http://blog.kirb.us/2008/10/09/how-to-convert-a-physical-hard-drive-to-a-virtual-machine/) I had success using this method. Here is a step by step process to follow if you are interested in attempting. I cannot guarantee your process will turn out as mine did, but this mechanism preserved my installed programs (Office, Outlook, Visual Studio, etc) and files. However, I did need a new version of my Windows XP Pro SP3 on media with a valid license key.

Prerequisites:

• an external drive with space greater than local host system hard drive
• a copy of Windows OS with proper service level and license key (iso)
• a copy of WinImage installed on the local host system
• the Administrator password
• about 4 – 6 hours of spare time or more depending on HD size

Caution: This process involves backing up a running host Windows XP Professional instance. While successful, the procedure could have unintended consequences to the local system. I believe the risk is low. However, if your drive system has critical data and has not already been backed up, then you should use your favorite backup and recovery tool to ensure you have a recovery mechanism.

PREPARE LOCAL DISK

*for best results, remove any unnecessary data files to alternate storage*

1. Right click on your C: drive and choose “Properties”

2. Click on the “Tools” tab. Under “Error-checking” choose “Check Now…”.

3. Check both boxes on the next prompt and click “Start”

4. You will be prompted to restart. Restart.

5. Check disk process will run on restart, this can take some time. Monitor from time to time to ensure process completes.

6. Log back into Windows

7. Defragment the drive with your preferred disk defragmentation tool.

8. Disk is prepared.

CREATE AND FIX THE VHD

1. Load WinImage

2. Click on the “Disk” menu option and choose “Creating Virtual Hard Disk image from physical drive…”

3. Click the “Include non removable hard disk(s) option.

4. Select the local disk you wish to convert to VHD. (Usually Disk 0)

5. Choose a location on the storage disk and name for the VHD.

6. Allow the WinImage process to complete. This will likely take more than two hours. However, you may be prompted about files that cannot be accessed. Choose “Skip All” and the process will run to completion.

7. After the process is complete, close WinImage. Create a new virtual machine to run the VHD created. The boot process will likely hang. If this occurs, you can try the blog linked earlier in this post to see if the solution works in your case. It did not in mine. However, I still followed that procedure first and I do not know if that is critical.

8. Attach the iso to the virtual machine (unless you already have)

9. Boot the VM from the CD/DVD drive first. Choose to repair an existing Windows installation.

10. Choose the Windows installation to repair and allow the repair to complete. (During my repair, I was prompted for gameenum.sys. I cancelled and the process completed without further error)

11. When the VM reboots, it will complete the installation process. The license key will be input during this process.

12. Once installation completes, the machine will reboot. Mine didn’t fully boot on restart. However, it booted up fine after I turned it off and restarted.

POST INSTALL CLEANUP

Congratulations if you got to this part successfully. You may likely have endured unexpected issues and extra hours in an already long process. At this point, you will have a VHD file that is the size of your old disk drive. If you have the space, you can perform the following clean up steps.

1. Use the Virtual PC 2007 Virtual Disk Wizard.

2. Choose to edit an existing disk.

3. Choose the VHD created by WinImage

4. Choose to convert to a dynamically expanding disk.

5. Load the output VHD as a VM to ensure it starts, you can now delete the large VHD file.

6. Install Virtual Machine Additions if you haven’t already

7. Defragment the VM

8. Load up the pre-compact tool while the VHD is running (C:Program FilesMicrosoft Virtual PCVirtual Machine Additions). Run the tool within the VM. This will get the VM ready to compact.

9. Use the Virtual Disk Wizard to Compact the disk. Use edit an existing disk, then choose the VHD you just ran the pre-comact tool. Choose the option to compact. Save as a new file.

10. After it completes, you can make a Differencing disk to preserve the state if you desire.