Running Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7

Attention: In this blog post I am discussing a configuration that is possible, but not officially supported by Microsoft at this point in time. Feel free to use this – but understand that you are in an unsupported configuration.

There is a fair amount of confusion out there about this – so I would like to start by simply stating that “Yes, it is possible to run Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7”:

You might be wondering why you would want to do this.  The most common reason is that you want to run Virtual PC on Windows 7 on a system that does not have hardware virtualization support.

There are, however, two issues that you should be aware of if you want to do this:

1. To reiterate, this is not officially supported.  Microsoft has not tested / qualified to combination, and has not made any commitment to ever do so.  So “buyer be warned”.

2. A number of people have reported that when they try to install Virtual PC 2007 they receive a compatibility warning like this:

   

   What you need to know is that you will only receive this warning if you have installed Windows Virtual PC.  If you get this, and you want to use Virtual PC 2007 instead of Windows Virtual PC, you will need to uninstall Windows Virtual PC.  Note – it will not work if you just uncheck Windows Virtual PC under the Windows Features dialog.  You need to actually uninstall the Windows Virtual PC update:

   

   Once you have done this you can install Virtual PC 2007.

You can download Virtual PC 2007 SP1 from here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=28C97D22-6EB8-4A09-A7F7-F6C7A1F000B5

Cheers,
Ben

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2009
  You could always run Virtual PC 2007 INSIDE Windows Virtual PC, if you want to run both at once! ;)

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2009
  Wanting to perform network access from the Windows Mobile emulator (at least for 6.5) would be another reason. Any update on that situation would be appreciated.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2009
  My PC doesn't have Virtualization Technology, so I just uncheck Windows Virtual PC under the Windows Features dialog (Windows Virtual PC update is still there) and install VPC2007 (on 7 Ultimate), it works great. I work now on my Virtual Machines without any trouble.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2009
  Thanks a bunch for posting this information. Past couple of months I'd been agonizing over the price jump to buy a couple of Intel-based laptops with virtualization built-in; this couldn't come at a better time.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2009
  Dan - We actually detect if you attempt to do that and stop it.  It does not work well at all. Coding4Fun - Thanks for the information! Horsie - No. Cheers, Ben

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2009
  If you get the "This program is blocked due to compatibility issues" on the Windows 7 RTM then you need to do the following:

1. Have to remove Virtual PC from the    - Control Panel > Programs and Features    - Then click on the "Turn Windows features on or off" link on the left
2. Uncheck "Windows Virtual PC". After this you will need to reboot.
3. Then you can install the new Virtual PC 2007 SP1 Note: you cannot just install the Virtual PC 2007 SP1 without disabling the Windows 7 built-in Virtual PC feature. Thanks to Necriis above who pointed me in the correct direction. I just put the above steps to make it clearer for people.

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2009
  Or if MS could lift the evil processor virtualization requirement, there would be no reason for us to use VPC 2007.

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2009
  When I install VPC 2007 on Windows 7 Ult 64, and then reboot my host operating system, the network card on my host operating system no longer works. The only way I can get it to work again is to uninstall VPC 2007 and reboot machine. Has anybody experienced this?

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2009
  I run Windows Server 2008 R2 on my development laptop.  I tried Hyper-V and the system slowed down too much. I was using Virtual PC 2007 on my old 2008 install.  How can I use VPC on R2?

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2009
  Abram...  see my question about R2... I had to uninstall VPC to get my nics working again too.  R2 is 64 bit.

• Anonymous
  August 26, 2009
  Charles: I seemed to have discovered a work around for getting your Nics to work with VPC '07 for 7 Ultimate at least.

1. Goto the properties of your network connection that is down.
2. Uninstall Virtual Machine Network Services
3. Reinstall Virtual Machine Network Services -- You will have to repeat this process every time you reboot your host os.

• Anonymous
  August 26, 2009
  Great stuff!  We have been fighting for days with the built in Win7 VM mysteriously turning off integration services on shutdown without saving undo disks, copy and paste suddenly pasting really old buffers (out of sync or something), loss of features from VPC 2007 (like drag and drop a file for testing quick)... Reverted to VPC 2007....  Been working like a charm for the past few hours.  Thanks for the post.

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2009
  Forget Virtual PC 2007... use Sun VirtualBox: http://www.sun.com/software/products/virtualbox/index.jsp Works with current VHDs and it's multi-platform including 64 bit guests OSes.

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2009
  >Forget Virtual PC 2007... use Sun VirtualBox Rafael, VirtualBox does not work on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 either - same problem with the virtual network driver. VMWare Server 2.x works - but it's my experience that it doesn't perform as well as other virtualization solutions, including Windows Virtual PC, Virtual PC 2007 and VirtualBox.

• Anonymous
  September 01, 2009
  This is helpful. Windows Virtual PC RC refused to run most of my existing VHDs saying "unknown error", but when I uninstalled Windows Virtual PC RC, installed Virtual PC 2007 SP1, and then I can run those VHDs.

• Anonymous
  September 02, 2009
  Oh, never mind. I had old .vsv files in the dsame directory and it looks like Virtual PC cannot import .vmc files if there were any .vsv files. When I removed them, things went well.

• Anonymous
  September 11, 2009
  Switching "back" to VirtualPC 2007 seems to have made my Linux guest faster; the video at least. No, I have no additions installed. Perhaps the products have different aims so non-Windows or non-additions guests suffer.

• Anonymous
  October 05, 2009
  Back in Vista, it was just a warning that Virtual PC is unsupported on Premium edition. Will I be able to run XP mode on my Win 7 Premium edition? I'd hate to shell out so much more money just because I need my Virtual PC!

• Anonymous
  October 23, 2009
  Not having heard that Virtual PC 2007 is not supported on Windows 7, and wanting to wait for the RTM version of Windows Virtual PC before trying it, I installed Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7 and have been using it without problems.  However, now that Windows Virtual PC RTM is available, I would like to switch to it.  Must Virtual PC 2007 be uninstalled prior to installing Windows Virtual PC? Can the two coexist?  Also, will existing Windows XP VM's created for Virtual PC 2007 run OK under Windows Virtual PC?

• Anonymous
  October 27, 2009
  You can use also the Windows Virtual PC application that is used for Xp-mode. Simple start de Wizard. You can find the wizard in: C:WindowsSystem32VPCWizard.exe In the wizard you can make a new virtual machine. (same options as in Virtual pc 2007

• Anonymous
  November 03, 2009
  Virtual PC 2007 had a good interface. Where is this with Virtual PC for Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit?

• Anonymous
  November 04, 2009
  I must prefer VPC 2007 as it supports older OSs better than Windows VPC. I like to use DOS, Win 95, 98 and 200 and the newer ones. Windows 95 on new VPC will not even load (prev. you had to turn of Hardware Virtualisation but that option no longer exists). I have tried Sun's VirtualBOX but older OS support is rubbish really, its ok for XP or later and Linux/Unix type OSs.

• Anonymous
  November 05, 2009
  I was happily running Virtual PC 2007 on my Windows 7 machine, until an overnight "update" just last night made it "not compatible."  This is the real Windows 7, not the release candidate.  Since I'm running 64b Home Premium, it won't allow you to use the new XP mode and Virtualization. I gotta tell ya, that sure ticks me off!

• Anonymous
  May 28, 2010
  Well I wanna thank you for your help ! By the other hand have window 7 x64 and I already installed a few programs in my virtual pc xp sp3, but the ones that I need the most just work with xp sp2, what can I ?

• Anonymous
  June 03, 2010
  Thank you!  Windows Virtual PC is a huge step backwards over VPC 2007, IMHO, and I was about ready to throw my PC through the window, trying to get it back.

• Anonymous
  July 16, 2010
  Long story short, my mother has a ton of vintage CD ROM games that she wants to use but they dont work on her windows 7 home premium machine.  i instally virtual pc 2007 SP1 on their computer to try and get windows 98 running on it but it just stalls.  is there anyway that virtual pc 07 will run on 7 home premium?

• Anonymous
  July 20, 2010
  Rock - This should "just work" - as this is something that I do all the time.  I am not sure why Windows 98 is not installing for you. Cheers, Ben

• Anonymous
  July 23, 2010
  I already did uninstall it Virtual PC, but it won't install Virtual PC 2007

• Anonymous
  July 26, 2010
  Thank you This is very helpful for systems that dont support Virtualization Technology

• Anonymous
  September 22, 2010
  Is that warlords II in the DOS VHD? Ahhh, remember that game from my 486 clone days. :)

• Anonymous
  October 06, 2010
  I have noticed that Microsoft are now saying that we should run their demos using Win2003 using VPC2007 rather than WinVPC as there are performance issues for the WinVPC / Windows 2003 combination. Given this, I have followed your suggestion and uninstalled WinVPC and installed VPC2007 on my work laptop and I have to say all of my Microsoft Windows 2003 pre-built Demos run much faster.  On my home PC, however, I want to run Windows 7 in a VPC and to still be able to run the Microsoft provided Windows 2003 VPC without the performance hit.  Is it possible to follow the VS 2005 instructions to switch off compatibility and have both WinVPC and VPC 2007 running in parallel blogs.msdn.com/.../running-virtual-pc-2007-on-windows-7.aspx

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2010
  I Have A Fix For Using Virtual Pc 2007 On Windows 7 all you have to do is navigate to the microsoft virtual pc folder located in c:/program files Or c:/program files(x86) For 64 Bit find the virtual pc application file Now Rename It File = Virtual Pc Renamed to = Virtual pc 1

• Anonymous
  November 13, 2010
  Why is it not fair that Windows 7 32-bit cannot install Victual PC 2007!?

• Anonymous
  January 22, 2011
  Actually, I figured out a way to run both Virtual PC 2007 AND Windows Virtual PC (and XP Mode) on the same machine.

1. Install Virtual PC 2007, copy its folder from Program Files to your desktop, and uninstall it
2. Install Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode
3. Copy the "Microsoft Virtual PC" folder back into Program Files, rename "Virtual PC.exe" to "Virtual PC.bin", and replace it with a launcher (I wrote a simple program that does just that). It actually works great -- networking works in both Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Virtual PC. The only limitation is that you can't run both simultaneously, i.e. if you have an XP Mode program open, you can't open Microsoft Virtual PC. Here's the post explaining the procedure (there's a bit more to it than the above outline): nookkin.com/.../run-virtual-pc-2007-and-windows-virtual-pc-on-the-same-machine.php

• Anonymous
  March 01, 2011
  This is reall helpful for me. thanks.

• Anonymous
  March 08, 2011
  Thank you, Microsoft needs more guys like you :)

• Anonymous
  March 13, 2011
  Virtual PC not running on WIN 7 Home Premium 64 bit ?

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2011
  You guys are making this way too complicated.  

1. Just install from the microsoft link listed earlier "www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx
2. Then go to the virtual PC directory and rename the Virtual PC.exe to VPC.exe [or anything you like]
3. Change your shortcut to look for vpc.exe and enjoy. If your install is not working it is because you didn't do one of the following above.

• Anonymous
  May 10, 2011
  I have windows 7 ultimate 32 bit and I like to using virtual pc 2007. It work properly for a week but it not working and it has an error message "Virtual pc can not find msxml 6, please install msxml 6 or reinstall virtual pc and try again". I fix problem which is they said but nothing better. Could you reply me on namebaramee@hotmail.com please, Thanks

• Anonymous
  May 26, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 19, 2011
  When I try to start Virtual PC it expands to the last program I was runnu=ing in Virtual and I need to attach a hasp to run this so Virtual willmot open?  How do I fix this?

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2011
  Wes - You should shutdown the virtual machine instead of hibernating it. Cheers, Ben

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 08, 2011
  Installed it and it worked. able to run both windows 7 and XP side by side. really nice.

• Anonymous
  October 14, 2011
  Que Dios les bendiga lo estoy descargando espero que me funcione soy creador de sistemas operativos desatendidos pero ahora me dedko a maquinas virtuales

• Anonymous
  November 01, 2011
  Windows6.1-KB977206-x64 or Windows6.1-KB977206-x86 will allow you to run the newer Windows Virtual PC without Harware Virtualization Support.

• Anonymous
  November 15, 2011
  Is this possible on Windows 7 Home premium SP1?

• Anonymous
  December 23, 2011
  Thanks. Very useful. Muchas Gracias, funciono perfectamente en Windows 7 Ultimate - 64

• Anonymous
  January 10, 2012
  Ben  - I have Virtual PC's set up for Windows 2000 and Windows XP but they won't go to wide-screen. The resolutions just do not show up. I want to make a Windows 7 as well, but figure why bother if if won't wide-screen. Any ideas on how to get it wide? Thanks.

• Anonymous
  April 12, 2012
  Thank you so much for showing this information, VPC 2007 is great, the newer one on the Windows 7 Edition is horrible :(

• Anonymous
  June 04, 2012
  Currently, I have installed Microsoft Virtual PC SP1 on My Windows 7 64 bit machine But still the compatibility issue error comes, I think I need to do some other configuration setting :(

• Anonymous
  June 12, 2012
  how i setup mvpc2007 on my system win7 without any problems .thank you

• Anonymous
  October 26, 2012
  Same error appearing on Windows 8 RTM. Any fix?

• Anonymous
  December 02, 2012
  Give that a shot. Then when Virtual PC says it can't run in another Virtual PC, say thank you to me.

• Anonymous
  February 11, 2013
  I am trying to install windows VPC 2007 sp1 and i do not have any version of windows vpc on my computer and it says it is not compatible with my operating system. I am running windows 7 home premium.... any suggestions!?!?!?

• Anonymous
  August 11, 2013
  it does not show up on my control panel please pm me aidanestes@gmail.com

• Anonymous
  December 11, 2013
  I dont have this and im on Windows 8 :|

• Anonymous
  March 28, 2014
  actually you can save file to the hard drive. then go to properties and then compatibility then choose windows 7 and it will install . just seen this cause I was having the same problems that I have seen all over google.

• Anonymous
  April 02, 2014
  MS Virtual PC 2007 does it supports Windows Server 2012R2 Because i'am unable to install the virtual pc getting error unsupported operating system I want supported MS Virtual PC for Windows Server 2012 R2

• Anonymous
  December 15, 2014
  Thanks alot pal been very useful tip ;)

• Anonymous
  January 02, 2015
  It's much easier than this - just rename the exe At least that worked for me.  

• Anonymous
  August 02, 2015
  When I install Virtual PC 2007 my Windows 7 (host) loses networking (red cross on network icon, no networks in Network&Sharing center and no internet) exactly as wrote Abram Newton in his comment on 25 Aug 2009 4:59 PM. The 'solution' is to (after every reboot) either (in LAN Properties) disable the Virtual Network, or to disable and again re-enable the LAN. It is, however, very annoying to do the same on every reboot. My motherboard is DFI Infinity UltraII-M2 (nForce4 chipset) and since there aren't nForce4 drivers for Windows 7 I am using nForce5 drivers for Vista. If anyone has a better solution for nForce4 network/storage drivers + Windows 7 I'd like to hear the soluion. Optimized NVIDIA nForce Driverpacks for Vista and Win7 crashed my PC so I had to revert to using nForce5 drivers for Vista (with nForce4 drivers for Windows XP from the original CD that came with the motherboard I could't connect to the internet).

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2016
  Trying to install VPC 2007 SP1 x64 on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 without any success!Always one and the same message: "The wizard was interrupted before microsoft virtual pc 2007 could be completely installed".What to do?!?