Install Virtual PC


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Old 10-16-14, 11:14 AM
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Install Virtual PC

I'm thinking to install a virtual PC in my windows 8.1x64 laptop but not sure how to go about it. Searching I noticed there are two virtual PC systems, VirtualBox and VmwarePlayer. Is one better than the other?

On my HDD I have two partitions, the C: with 190GB free and D: with 180GB free. Does it matter where I install the virtual PC?

Any suggestions?
 
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Old 10-16-14, 11:26 AM
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I use VMware and can endorse it, no experience with VirtualBox.

Why do you have two large partitions like that? I assume your programs are in C and, if so, I would put the VM files in D.
 
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Old 10-16-14, 11:46 AM
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I use Virtual Box and find it easy to use. Never used it on Windows though so can't comment on how easy it is in Windows.
 
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Old 10-16-14, 12:08 PM
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I will wait to see what other members say about the virtual PC

mitch the laptop came with the HDD partitioned like that and for now I will leave it as is. Although I have done partitioning HD's before I'm too new with windows 8.1 to start doing this now. I will be glad to hear if you have any suggestion on the size of partitions for a 750GB HD

Yes on C: I have all my programs and on D: I keep my backups. I also keep backups on my 1.4TB Seagate USB HD
 
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Old 10-16-14, 12:23 PM
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I don't like partitioned drives but that's just me. I have a pretty fast PC with an i7 quad core processor and 24 GB RAM and I find when my machine is slow it's the drive itself which is the bottleneck. I added a USB 3.0 external drive and have my VMs stored there, which helps. I don't know if this will make any difference for you since this is all one physical drive but that's why I suggested a different partition for the VMs.
 
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Old 10-16-14, 02:36 PM
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I have to agree with mitch17 I think VMWare Player is the best especially for a Windows OS guest if you are only going to use Linux then Virtual Box would work fine. Look for my download link in my post about Windows 10 here http://www.doityourself.com/forum/co...announced.html . I have been using VMWare Player to host Windows 10 without any problems but with Virtual Box it caused me problems. VmWare Player by the way is available for Linux too.
 
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Old 10-17-14, 06:27 AM
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Often I receive an email notification like the one bellow but when I go to this link there is no new email. Is this a bug or what?

Hello kolias,

iqra6500 has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - Install Virtual PC - in the Computers, Internet Capable Devices and Peripherals forum of DoItYourself.com Community Forums.

This thread is located at:
http://www.doityourself.com/forum/co...-new-post.html

There may be other replies also, but you will not receive any more notifications until you visit the forum again.

Yours,
DoItYourself.com Community Forums team
 
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Old 10-17-14, 08:15 AM
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The VM has to be installed where the system files are & that's the C: drive. I use VMware Player. Since I wanted the guest OS (Kali Linux) on the same subnet as the rest of my network, I disabled VMware's DHCP server in services & added another network adapter to the machine. I used a USB to Ethernet adapter. Kali sees it as eth1.
 
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Old 10-17-14, 08:49 AM
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I just install it on my D: Is it important to remove it and re install on C: ?

I have not installed any OS system yet but since my laptop came without any DVD I was thinking to install my windows 8.1 factory backup to assure that the backup is ok.
 
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Old 10-17-14, 11:16 AM
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I think either partition on your computer is fine as long as you have enough space to run the program and the guest OS.
 
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Old 10-17-14, 12:01 PM
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Here's a link to an article in Windows Secrets if it works:

How to safely test-drive Win10 — step by step
 
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Old 10-17-14, 12:32 PM
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No one can give me an answer to my post #7 or I have to start a new thread ???
 
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Old 10-17-14, 01:01 PM
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Start a new thread in the Chats sub-forum. The administrators at least used to read what was in there for stuff like this. If you don't hear anything, PM me and I'll put it in one of the non-public forums where we can get a hold of them (but you, of course, don't get to see their response).
 
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Old 10-17-14, 01:05 PM
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If you were able to install the VM on D:, leave it. I don't understand what the guest OS is going to be.
 
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Old 10-17-14, 03:23 PM
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I started a new thread in the section "Community Meeting Center for Non Forum Topics" under sub forum "General Chats & Discussions"

Thanks
 
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Old 10-17-14, 03:34 PM
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When I go to create a new virtual machine with Vmaware Player the options are:

Installer Disc
Installer Disc Image
I will Install the OS Later

I want to install my windows 8.1 OS and since I have no DVD I made a backup with Macrium. This backup software makes images with .mrimg extension (as per attached picture) and this extension is not included in the supported files for disk image.

Is there another option?
 
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Old 10-17-14, 07:31 PM
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I never heard of installing a backup of the host OS, as the guest OS.
 
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Old 10-17-14, 09:12 PM
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I have never heard of trying out a back up either but it doesn't hurt to test it either. Kolias I am not on my desktop which now is using a Windows 10 guest in VMware Player and this spare laptop doesn't have it so my instructions are from memory. I have only used VMware player twice to install a guest. After you have selected the type of Windows you want to emulate and in your case it will be Windows 8.1 you then need to change where the program looks for the guest. If memory serves me right there is a drop down area where it says D:.

Look for drive F: which is what you are showing us and then select the drive. I am not sure that it will work for you in a virtual environment but it might. I tried Macrium Reflect and an external HDD on a blank hard drive and it didn't work for me. The drive though was probably not the right kind of drive and I really have never had experience with it before. I could have done things wrong too but as they say we learn by doing and we learn by our mistakes as well.
 
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Old 10-18-14, 12:51 AM
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I know it sounds strange but the reason I want to install my backup as the guest OS is to try my backup to see if its a good one. My laptop came with no DVD for windows 8.1 and I want to make sure that my backup is a good one to re install windows when I need it

I thing the problem is that Macrium backup creates an ISO file with the extension .mrimg which is not recognized by the player. Now I get the message as per attached file.

Any idea what it means?
 
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Old 10-18-14, 05:54 AM
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I don't see how you can test a backup that way, especially with that proprietary extension. I read somewhere that snapshots taken within the volume are not as good as snapshots taken outside the volume. I haven't researched it. It's just something I heard.

Also, backups are made to go back to the environment from where they came. You can't backup an OS on a Dell & restore it to an HP, for the simple reason that the drivers are part of the backup & each machine has different drivers.
 

Last edited by Pulpo; 10-18-14 at 06:15 AM.
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Old 10-18-14, 12:32 PM
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Thank you Pulpo, I guess I have to find another way to verify that my windows 8.1 backup is good to re install the OS when I need it. I asked ASUS if I can buy an OEM DVD and they told me they dont have DVD's to sell.
 
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Old 10-18-14, 03:51 PM
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MS may have taken the next step in stopping recovery CDs. I bought an OEM Windows 7 recovery CD from Lenovo. You maybe able to copy or burn the recovery partition to a DVD. I don't know.
 
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Old 10-18-14, 05:27 PM
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Lucky you Pulpo you were able to get your recovery CD.

I will try to burn a DVD for mine because Macrium has the option to burn DVD's but the only problem is that my windows is in a partition which is 10.11GB. This will take 3-4 DVD's and I don't mind to loose the DVD's if it does not work.

I don't think that the 10.11GB is only for the windows, that is the factory state recovery system and probably includes all the garbage Asus provides etc.
 
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Old 10-18-14, 05:46 PM
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I wouldn't bother to try to burn that to DVDs. Maybe a USB drive might handle it. There is still another choice. It's similar to RAID. Redundancy Array of Independent Drives. Personally, I wouldn't do it but you seem to want to take the plunge.

Create RAID-Like Data Backup using Storage Spaces on Windows 8
 
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Old 10-19-14, 08:59 AM
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Pretty good article Pulpo thanks, but it's too complicated for me and besides I still will be using my HD which means if the HD is gone I lost my OS.

I do have another backup of my OS on a bootable 16GB USB plus on a non bootable 1.4TB USB. Now I got to figure out how I can test one of these backups I have if it's good when the time comes.

In the 90's I got burned from my backup; I was using a Seagate backup and when the time came to use it nothing worked and lost all my files. Even Seagate was unable to help me, lol
 
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Old 10-19-14, 02:21 PM
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Kolias, backups should be divided between a system backup & a file backup. To me the files are more important. Either way, one shouldn't be dependent upon the other.
 
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Old 10-19-14, 07:26 PM
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I guess I need some help here with Vmware Player

I try to install Vista Home Premium(32bit) and since it did not work I try XP PRO both from original DVD's The player provides the windows to enter product keys, name, passwords etc and all locks fine until I hit the finish button

I get the message from either of the above “Error while powering on: Internal error” or “You have an incorrect version of driver vmci.sys”

I try to repair the player by re install but this did not work

Then I remove it from the D:\ and after reboot I re install on C:\ and reboot again

Get the same messages and I gave up

Am I doing something wrong?
 
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Old 10-19-14, 09:56 PM
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I don't think you are doing anything wrong Kolias I think what happened is that you received a bad download. I would download VMware Player again.
 
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Old 10-20-14, 07:22 AM
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Old 10-20-14, 07:30 AM
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Downloaded again the player but after re install the results were the same

Searching the web I found this tip

Under Users\my name\documents\vmware, there is a file with .VMX extension. I opened this file with Notepad and replaced the entry "VMC10.PRESENT=TRUE" TO "VMC10.PRESENT=FALSE

Now all went fine and installed Vista but Vista hungs half way the installation. Thats another problem I now try to solve
 
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Old 10-20-14, 12:26 PM
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Finally success, I installed XP PRO on Vmware Player and all is fine now. It looks like the VISTA I tried to install did not succeed because it was an OEM DVD from my old Dell laptop and probably had drivers specific to my old laptop. The XP PRO is a store bought DVD good for any PC

Just a few questions to learn a bit more about Vmware

I know what is the difference between Shut Down Guest and Restart Guest but why I would choose one over the other one?

What is the “Enter Unity Mode”?

I have 2 small utilities which only run with XP and I made shortcuts in the XP desktop and then copied them to my windows 8.1 desktop. But clicking on them they don't run. Is there any way to have programs installed in VMware to run when I'm in windows 8.1? Perhaps a silly question but you don't learn if you don't ask
 
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Old 10-20-14, 01:21 PM
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To your last question, the answer is no - the VM is a different computer running inside your physical computer; you cannot link the two like you wish.

Shut down and restart are just like any other computer based on what you're trying to accomplish.
 
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Old 10-20-14, 03:14 PM
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Thanks mitch, I understand

I try to understand now the file structure of Vmware. I can see that it is installed in the “Program Files (x86)” folder plus it has another directory in the “Users\myname\Documents\Virtual Machine”

I have use the VMware Shared Folder and this created the 2 folders I wanted in the XPPRO Explorer under Shared Folders on 'vmware-host (Z and I can use the program in these folders. But I find this strange, I mean the folders are installed in windows 8.1 and VMware just reads from these folders?

But if I want to install another program, how do I go about it ?
 
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Old 10-20-14, 05:13 PM
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Shut down clears the memory completely & restart doesn't.
 
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Old 10-21-14, 10:17 AM
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But if I want to install another program, how do I go about it ?
Where? If you want the program available on the VM, you simply install it to the running VM - a VM is basically just like another computer running inside the physical computer and you largely use it the same way.
 
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Old 10-21-14, 12:07 PM
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Thanks mitch, I'm getting to understand it more now and all looks fine
 
 

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