Running an existing VHD Image in Windows 7 RC 1

In my previous post, I showed the difficulty of running Virtual Server 2005 on Windows 7 RC 1 due to the “Hard Block” and I vowed to try to get an existing VHD running inside Win 7. Here is a screenshot showing my VHD running in all its glory in Windows 7 Release Candidate 1. Its a SharePoint (MOSS 2007) image that I created a long long time ago.

 

In order to get an existing VHD running, the option you can use is Windows Virtual PC.

1. Download and install Windows Virtual PC from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx.
2. Navigate to a folder that contains the VHD and VMC file like the image shown below and double click on the VMC file.

   

3. This will start up the Virtual PC and ask you to install the integration module. Click ok and after a restart, you should see the login screen for your VHD image.

 

For now this method will get you running in the environment. However, I am finding that it is painfully slow, much like using the Remote Control Client that ships with Virtual Server 2005. Next thing to find out is how to set this up efficiently and in a way that allows you to get things done.

 

 

Update (6/1/2009) 

I setup a Microsoft Loopback Adapter on my machine, bound the Network Adapter for the VHD to it and was able to RDP to that IP. However, it is INSANELY slow! This is NOT a way to run a VHD and do local development. I tried using Windows Virtual PC itself instead of RDP and that was just as slow. Here are the settings for the VHD. As you can see, I am using 2560 MB of RAM. My machine is a dual core CPU with native virtualization support.

 

 

So to summarize, Windows Virtual PC BLOWS, RDP into Windows Virtual PC BLOWS, making the VHD bootable BLOWS (because its complicated and requires you to exist in the VHD OS at all times).

 

MICROSOFT! Just what is a Windows 7 RC 1 (x64) user supposed to do?

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