Can I use an existing VM with Windows 7 1

[iamjim1]

I've been using a virtual XP machine out of a real XP machine to support an old version of Visual Basic for about 4 years.

I'm about to upgrade to Windows 7. Can I import my existing virtual machine into Windows 7 or will I have to do a complete new installation?

 

[Nelviticus]

It should work fine - Virtual PC 2007 isn't supported under Windows 7 and has been replaced by Windows Virtual PC (WVPC). I'd shut down the XP VM and take a backup of it before upgrading. Once you've upgraded and installed WVPC you should be able to just double-click the .vmc file and it'll open up. You'll probably have to update the guest additions but that's all - I had several XP VMs that I used under a 32-bit XP host and they all worked fine when I upgraded it to 64-bit Windows 7.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[iamjim1]

Thanks

 

[iamjim1]

I've run into a problem. It looks like I would have to have bought a more expensive version of Win7 to install Virtual PC.

I read on the web that it will install on Home Premium (that's what I bought, not knowing) but somehow I'm unable to download it from the microsoft website.

Is there a way to get around this?

 

[iamjim1]

I got a friend with a higher version to download it but I guess the answer to my original post is no. Here's what I get:

 

[flyboytim]

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

Converts Virtual PC VMs to VMware VMs. Converter and VMPlayer are free downloads.

Oracle's VirtualBox supports native .vhd virtual machines (i.e. Virtual PC VMs)

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Both will run under Windows 7.

 

[iamjim1]

After seeing your message I installed and ran the VMware converter. I got this error message:

 

[Nelviticus]

@iamjim1: Microsoft are making things a bit confusing here and it stumps a lot of people.

There are two different things you can downloads from their site: 1) Windows Virtual PC, which is just the new version of Virtual PC 2007 and which anyone running any version of Windows 7 can download and install; 2) Windows XP Mode, which is Windows Virtual PC with a free virtual machine included that's running a licenced copy of Windows XP. Only Professional and Ultimate users can download XP Mode.

They make it damn hard to find the download for just Windows Virtual PC by itself, but you can find it here:
Windows Virtual PC

The error message in your other post is because you didn't shut down the VM before you moved it to Windows 7, you just closed it and saved its state. That saved state isn't compatible between Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Virtual PC. You can get around the error by just deleting the staved state file. I think it's either a .sav or .vsv file that you'll find in the same location as your .vmc file.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[iamjim1]

>They make it damn hard to find the download for just
>Windows Virtual PC by itself, but you can find it here:

I downloaded the program from your link (I only found one version for 64 bit machines, not two). During installation is required me to uninstall the one I downloaded and installed earlier (which I thought was the same program). It offered me two installation modes one including XP and one NOT. I chose NOT and it installed without issues. I tried to get it to adopt my existing VM and got this error:

These are my VM files. Based on your post I deleted the .vsv file before trying to get it to adopt this VM. That is, the .vsv file was not in the compliment of files when I got the error message above.

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[iamjim1]

By the way Nelviticus, I am very grateful for your help. I may not be able to reconstruct this VM and even if I can it will take me a at least a week. It will be like losing an entire system in a crash with no backup.

 

[iamjim1]

Another BTW:

I have now tried the following virtual machine programs:

MSVirtualPC64bitEN.exe From a place called Softonic
Windows6.1-KB958559-x64.msu From the link you gave
VirtualBox-3.2.8-64453-Win.exe From a link in a message above
Plus another one from Microsoft that starts with a download called setup.exe. This is the one that gave the error message about the state that I posted above.

 

[Nelviticus]

The .vmc file is just an XML text file that holds the settings for the virtual machine, including the path to the virtual hard disk. Between Windows XP and Windows 7 the paths to things like 'my documents' have changed so your settings file is probably looking for a .vhd file in 'C:\Documents and Settings\Mark\My Virtual Machines', but under Windows 7 that path would be 'C:\Users\Mark\My Virtual Machines'.

Ordinarily that'd be OK, you'd just need to point it to the right .vhd file when it pops up a dialog saying that it can't find the disk.

However it looks like your Windows XP installation was using the FAT file system, so when your .vhd grew to more than 4 gigabytes Virtal PC split it into two files. That's why you have a 4GB .vhd file and a ~2GB .v01 file.

Hopefully, Windows Virtual PC should be able to use it if you just point it to the .vhd file. If not you'll have to try joining the two files together. Apparently you can do this with the Virtual Disk Wizard in 2007 but I don't know how and don't know whether WVPC can do it. Alternatively there's a free app called HJSplit that can join files (despite the name).

You just need to join the .v01 and .vhd into a new file with a .vhd extension - make sure you keep the originals though just in case something goes wrong.

You'll get there in the end!

Nelviticus

 

[iamjim1]

>Ordinarily that'd be OK, you'd just need to point it to the right .vhd file when it
>pops up a dialog saying that it can't find the disk.

I don't follow. I had pointed it to the .vhd file. If you note in the above capture it's using the new addressing.

I've now put a copy in "C:\Users\Mark\My Virtual Machines" and edited the path in the settings file to be this location. I get the same error. Are you saying I must join the two parts, and that's why it can't "attach the virtual hard disk to the virtual machine?

 

[iamjim1]

I've got it working. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I could never have done it without your help.

 

[Nelviticus]

Cool!

Nelviticus

 

[iamjim1]

It's slow as molasses, but it gets my job done.

Incidentally, I did have to reinstall the my compiler. Somehow it has missing or corrupted stuff. The development environment would work but nothing would compile.

 

[Nelviticus]

Time to port your code to a dev environment that runs natively under Windows 7 maybe, then you can forget about VMs.

Nelviticus

 

[flyboytim]

Just an addendum re XP Mode and Virtual PC 2007. I have just bought a Packard Bell dot s netbook to carry around for work on the hoof. Preloaded with Windows 7 Starter, I also wanted it to run XP, but just don't seem to be able to install from a USB drive without errors before even the partitioning stage.

I thought I would attempt a to run a Virtual XP machine, which would be worth a memory Upgrade if feasible. Starter will not download VPC alone from the Microsoft web page which also offers XP Mode unless you tell it you have either Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise Windows 7 version installed. It then proceeds to validate the Windows 7 Starter and allows the downloads of the XP Mode, Virtual PC, and the patch for machines that have no built-in virtualization.

Installation (i.e. extraction) of the XP Mode VHD proceeds without issue, but the Windows 7 VPC 2007 installation fails. If you Google around, the Virtual PC 2007 for XP and Vista can be found, which downloads without validation, and installs on the netbook perfectly (I elected for compatibility mode, not sure it was necessary). I have now removed the XP Mode VHD. and replaced it with a full version.

The XP Mode runs fine under this VPC, but will not activate using the key provided under these conditions. It is a fine juggling act to allow enough memory from my 1GB installed for both host and virtual OS, but it can be done.

Thankfully, I had already installed Mint Linux on another partition, so I could rescue the Windows 7 bootloader which was trashed (together with the GRUB chainloader) each time I attempted to install XP either as a separate OS (understandable and documented) or as a VM on VPC, which was totally bizarre.

Repairs done to the Windows bootloader with a bootable Windows 7 .iso on a USB drive created another interesting permanent boot option - that of menu booting the Vista WinRE kernel on the System Reserved Recovery Partition, like a simple version of the XP recovery console. With options to repair leaving data intact, reset to factory default, or exit it is much easier than trying to trip the boot-time F8 Advanced Options Menu or catch the <Alt F10> system recovery mode.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk