Tips for using the December CTP with Virtual PC / Virtual Server

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Build 5270 was released yesterday as the December CTP - if you've got access to MSDN or Connect, you should definitely check it out. There are some awesome changes in this build.

So, there are probably a fair number of you out there who are interested in using Vista in combination with Microsoft's Virtualization offerings (Virtual PC or Virtual Server), either as a host or a guest. Over the next few days, I'll be posting some tips for using Vista in conjunction with those products for anyone who's interested.

First of all, here's a few general tips:

  • Generally speaking, there's no difference between using Vista and Longhorn Server on Microsoft's virtualization products. A tip for one should work on the other - and I can't think of any exceptions. So, I'm just going to refer to the products as Vista, but feel free to replace it with Longhorn Server if that's more applicable.
  • All tips posted will be based on Virtual PC 2004 SP1 and Virtual Server 2005 R2. If you're using an older release, you may need to adapt the instructions.  If there are differences that I know about, I'll make sure to point them out.
  • The Virtual Machine Additions for Virtual Server 2005 R2 should be used on Vista. Previous versions, including beta versions, don't have all the performance enhancements.
  • I wouldn't recommend using anything less than 512 MB in your VM.  It's too painful otherwise.
  • Using emulated SCSI drives seems to speed things up a bit.

Hope that helps for now.