Virtual PC (and others)?

[VirtualLarry]

Just wondering if anyone has a chart or something of the various flavors of VPC, and what Host OS is supported, and what Guests are supported, and whether or not it requires a CPU with VT-x?

For example, can I run VPC2004 on Win7 (64-bit?)? Or will it only run on top of XP?

 

[jasonjas]

Just wondering if anyone has a chart or something of the various flavors of VPC, and what Host OS is supported, and what Guests are supported, and whether or not it requires a CPU with VT-x?

For example, can I run VPC2004 on Win7 (64-bit?)? Or will it only run on top of XP?

I wouldn't run Virtual PC because it doesn't support a wide range of OSes. Instead I would use something like VMWare's free stuff (requires free registration). I use VMWare Player (works on 7) and it works great with all guest operating systems (I have used Debian 5, Red Hat 6, and XP on it).

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

And yes, I have used both Virtual PC and multiple VMWare products and VMWare wins with the support it has for different operating systems.

Edit: I don't believe VMWare Player requires hardware virtualization, I didn't see it in the requirements anyway.

 

[lxskllr]

VirtualPC is nice for Windows on Windows, and simple applications. It's the easiest to setup, and my first choice when I don't require much from a VM.

 

[RebateMonger]

VirtualPC is nice for Windows on Windows, and simple applications. It's the easiest to setup, and my first choice when I don't require much from a VM.

I used VirtualPC for years with good success. The version that's in Win7 Professional or higher is pretty nice with its USB access and other new features.

Of course Hyper-V is nicer, but that's not something folks would normally run on an all-around desktop computer.

For example, can I run VPC2004 on Win7 (64-bit?)? Or will it only run on top of XP?

I doubt VPC2004 is supported any more. The last "System Requirements" says XP SP2.

Here's the Guests and Hosts supported by varioius versions of VPC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Virtual_PC

 

[postmortemIA]

why use vpc 2004 when 2007 sp1 is free??

 

[VirtualLarry]

why use vpc 2004 when 2007 sp1 is free??

I was under the impression that the last version of VPC that supported mapping a virtual parallel port to a physical port on the Host, was VPC 2004. At least, from my Googling, this feature was removed from VPC7. I really don't know about 2007sp1.

Ideally, I would like to run Win7 64-bit as the Host OS, and WinME as the Guest, and map a parallel port from WinME to a physical port on the Host, to run a vinyl cutter.

Edit: Also, VPC2004 is a free download too, from MS. So I don't believe that either one is non-free.

Interesting. I thought that when Win7 came out, and XP Mode required hardware support for Virtualization. Hence the reason that Intel even started including support for VT-x on their dual-core Celerons, and their lower-end quad-cores.
This link claims that hardware virtualization isn't required:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/faq.aspx

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here's the Guests and Hosts supported by varioius versions of VPC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Virtual_PC

Aww, crap. According to that, VPC2004 only works on XP Pro and Server 2003, not on XP MCE. Since XP MCE 2005 is virtually XP Pro, this is surprising. My problem is, I cannot easily source a copy of Pro to use on this machine, and was thinking of picking up a copy of XP MCE from TigerDirect while they are still available.

I wonder if the installer can be hacked or something. Why does MS make their solutions so impossible to use. I thought MS was supposed to make their software easy to use.

All I need, is a modern PC with a modern OS, that can run a virtual machine with WinME as a Guest OS, and drive a physical parallel port (vinyl cutter). Is that so hard?

In all of MS's wisdom (?), they dropped support for parallel ports in VPC7, and no longer even support WinME as a Guest OS, which is total BS.

Are there any competing virtual-machine softwares that would allow me to do what I want?
Open-source would even be better, as long as it does what I want.

Checked out VMWare Workstation, they have a limitation too:
"Parallel ports are used by a variety of devices, including printers, scanners, dongles, and disk drives. Although these devices can connect to the host without problems, only printers can reliably connect to virtual machines by using parallel ports.
Currently, Workstation provides only partial emulation of PS/2 hardware. Interrupts that a device connected to the physical port requests are not passed to the virtual machine. Also, the guest operating system cannot use DMA (direct memory access) to move data to or from the port. For this reason, not all devices that attach to the parallel port are guaranteed to work correctly. Do not use parallel port storage devices in a virtual machine."
http://pubs.vmware.com/ws65_ace25/w...ws_user&file=ws_devices_parallel_install.html


This royally sucks! Where can I find a virtual machine software that allows full emulation of a hardware parallel port, with passthrough to a physical port? (Edit: That runs on XP MCE, and allows me to run a WinME guest.)

 

[lxskllr]

Have you tried VMware or VirtualBox?

 

[theevilsharpie]

Vinyl cutters could be considered a type of printer. Why don't you try VMware Player and see what happens? I know it supports Windows ME, and if it doesn't work, the only thing you'll have wasted is your time.

 

[Steltek]

Vinyl cutters could be considered a type of printer. Why don't you try VMware Player and see what happens? I know it supports Windows ME, and if it doesn't work, the only thing you'll have wasted is your time.

I agree. And, if Player doesn't work, I'd still go ahead and try downloading the 30 day trial version of Workstation to see if it works any better (as the current version of Player is a feature-limited version of Workstation). You've got nothing to loose.

Out of curiosity, will the cutter work on the current WinME system if you hook it up using a USB to parallel port converter cable instead of a parallel port cable? If so, it ought to work if similarly connected under a VM as USB support is far more stable and complete under both VMware and Virtualbox than is parallel port support. If you try this, make sure the adapter cable you choose is a bi-directional cable (some of the cheaper ones aren't).

 

[Modelworks]

The parallel port issue is well known. Even getting devices to work correctly with parallel ports in widows 7 is a problem. Most of the devices that used parallel ports expect direct hardware access, something windows 7 makes hard to do . Instead of direct access it caches and mangles bits , alters timing, before they get to the port making it look like gibberish to anything but basic printers.

USB adapters will not work either since they don't allow direct access either. I have an eprom programmer that requires parallel and getting it to work in windows 7 is very unreliable. It gives different crc every time you program something. winxp it works fine.

 

[Steltek]

The parallel port issue is well known. Even getting devices to work correctly with parallel ports in widows 7 is a problem. Most of the devices that used parallel ports expect direct hardware access, something windows 7 makes hard to do . Instead of direct access it caches and mangles bits , alters timing, before they get to the port making it look like gibberish to anything but basic printers.

USB adapters will not work either since they don't allow direct access either. I have an eprom programmer that requires parallel and getting it to work in windows 7 is very unreliable. It gives different crc every time you program something. winxp it works fine.

Didn't know that Win7 had such major issues handling parallel ports (hadn't paid much attention to it as most of my stuff is either dual USB/parallel or has been replaced with USB devices over the years) - I assume Vista must have had the same difficulties as well.

Parallel ports and firewire support are probably the two most common problem issues I see with virtual machines, and I'm doubtful that is going to change anytime soon.