Poking around the Virtual PC Options.XML file

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There are a number of global settings for Virtual PC that are stored in our 'Options.XML' file. You can have a look in this file by running 'notepad %appdata%MicrosoftVirtual PCOptions.xml'. One interesting option is that we store the details of where the Virtual PC Console, New Virtual Machine Wizard and Virtual Disk Wizard were on the screen when they were last displayed. For instance - my Options.XML file has the following section:

 <window>
<console>
<height type="integer">626</height>
<left_position type="integer">821</left_position>
<top_position type="integer">173</top_position>
<visible type="boolean">true</visible>
<width type="integer">359</width>
</console>
<new_pc>
<left_position type="integer">429</left_position>
<top_position type="integer">61</top_position>
</new_pc>
<virtual_disk_wizard>
<left_position type="integer">429</left_position>
<top_position type="integer">148</top_position>
</virtual_disk_wizard>
</window>

As you can see it is fairly straight forward to change this information if you want these windows to come up in a specific location. Note that whenever these windows are moved - Virtual PC updates this information - so if you want them to always open in the same spot you will need to setup a program / batch file to copy over a backup of this file before launching Virtual PC.

Cheers,
Ben