Virtual PC 2004 Product Overview

Use Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, and enhance quality assurance.

Virtual PC lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. Use virtual machines to run operating systems such as MS-DOS®, Windows, and OS/2. You can run multiple operating systems at once on a single physical computer and switch between them as easily as switching applications—instantly, with a mouse click.

Virtual PC is perfect for any scenario in which you need to support multiple operating systems, whether you use it for tech support, legacy application support, training, or just for consolidating physical computers.

Benefits

Virtual PC provides a time-saving and cost-saving solution anywhere users must run multiple operating systems. Use Virtual PC in the following scenarios:

Ease Migration: Run legacy applications in a virtual machine instead of delaying the deployment of a new operating system just because of application incompatibility. Test your migration plans using virtual machines instead of actual physical computers.

Do More in Less Time: Support staff can run multiple operating systems on a single physical computer and switch between them easily. They can also restore virtual machines to their previous state almost instantly. Train students on multiple operating systems and virtual networks instead of purchasing and supporting additional computers.

Streamline Deployment: Test software on different operating systems more easily. One crashing application or operating system doesn’t affect others.

Accelerate Development: Increase quality assurance by testing and documenting your software on multiple operating systems using virtual machines. Decrease time-to-market by reducing reconfiguration time.

Key Features

Feature	Advantages
Configurability	After installing Virtual PC, you can configure it to suit your requirements. Virtual PC has a number of settings that control how the product interacts with the physical computer, allocates resources, and so on.
Easy Installation	Virtual PC is simple to install. Any administrator can run the Virtual PC guided setup program, and installation doesn’t require a reboot. The first time Virtual PC starts, it guides you through the process of creating the first virtual machine.
Standardization	Configure and test upgrades and installations on virtual machines, and then you can deploy throughout your company a standard configuration that avoids problems caused by minor differences between hardware platforms.
Convenience	Users switch between operating systems as easily as they switch between applications. They simply click the window containing the virtual machine. They can pause individual virtual machines so they stop using CPU cycles on the physical computer. They can also save virtual machines to disk and restore them at a later time. The restoration process normally takes a few seconds—much faster than restarting the guest operating system.
Host Integration	Users can copy, paste, drag, and drop between guest and host. Virtual PC provides additions that you install in a guest operating system to enable this functionality.

Product Specifications

The Virtual PC application requires a 400 MHz Pentium-compatible processor (1 GHz is recommended), and requires approximately 20 MB of disk space. It runs on Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional.

The real requirements for running Virtual PC are those necessary to support the guest operating systems that you will run. Add the disk requirements for every guest OS you’ll install and add the memory requirements for every guest OS you will run simultaneously, plus memory for the host OS. Below are the requirements for some of the operating systems that can be run as a guest operating system. Virtual PC can run most x86 operating systems, not just the operating systems listed below, in a virtual machine environment.

Guest OS*	Hard Disk	Memory
MS-DOS 6.22	50 MB	32 MB
Windows 95	500 MB	32 MB
Windows 98	500 MB	64 MB
Windows Me	2 GB	96 MB
Windows 2000	2 GB	96 MB
Windows NT 4.0	1 GB	64 MB
Windows XP	2 GB	128 MB
OS/2**	500 MB	64 MB

* Keep in mind that these are minimum requirements. Installing applications in a guest OS increases requirements. Increasing memory beyond the minimum can result in significant performance increases.

** Includes OS/2 Warp 4 Fixpack 15, OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 1, and OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 2.

Examples

•	To run Windows 95 as a guest OS on a Windows 2000 host requires 500 MB of free disk space and 128 MB of free memory (96 MB for the host and 32 for the guest).
•	To run Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 as guests concurrently on a Windows XP host requires 1.5 GB of disk space (1 GB + 500 MB) and 256 MB of memory (128MB + 64 MB + 64 MB).
•	To run Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 as guests separately on a Windows XP host requires 1.5GB of disk space (1GB + 500 MB) and 192 MB of memory (128MB + 64MB).

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