Redefine the VM importing the now immutable VHD.VBoxManage modifyhd "c:\path\to\disk.vhd" -type immutable Browse the virtualbox installation folder and open a DOS console in it.Delete the VM you want to modify (keeping the files).You can set a disk image to immutable, but how is that done? This is open source after all, so don't expect any GUI conveniences, and even RTFM won't tell you much. Virtualbox doesn't have a simple way to terminate a VM deleting any changes in the VHD. You can do something similar in virtualbox, discussed below. You do a little test, then press X to wipe clean. I used such VMs as a sandbox, installing software without fear of malware. You could set a VM to automatically delete changes. VPC2007 had a very useful option that would terminate a VM discarding any changes. It is also possible to uninstall it after, but with no mouse you must be good with the keyboard to reach add/remove software in the control panel. The advice is to uninstall the old VM additions tool before passing it on to virtualbox. When run inside virtualbox, the mouse pointer disappeared altogether. One of the programs installed in the original VHD was virtualPC 2007's own virtual machine additions tool, that helps with sharing files, clipboard etc. Almost sorted, except for a couple of snags: The best news is that you can import in VHD format instead of the default VDI type. When you create a new VM you can instruct Virtualbox to use an existing virtual hard drive file rather than creating a new empty one. Obviously I wanted to reuse these VHDs, since they included windows updates and lots of installed software. The all important "hard disks" were in the handy VHD format. I had 5 virtual machines in vpc2007: windows 98, 2000, (2x) XP and vista. So it was down to virtualbox - better the devil you know! With version 5 they finally fixed the drag-drop from host to client, making file transfers even easier. In the interest of preserving my limited 256GB SSD space, I took a left turn. I can't blame them for trying to make a living, but it also took more space for its installation. Supposedly this is the best of the bunch but has licensing restrictions. But that's the hand I was dealt with in life, and hyper-V was ruled out. Imagine the oxymoron, having access to all windows versions though my MSDN subscription, yet being stuck with a basic home version. But in my part of the world, you can only buy laptops from high-street retailers (online shops won't deliver to Cyprus) so I'm stuck with windows 10 Home edition. All windows 10 versions Pro and above come with built in VM support. I had to bid farewell to the lightweight and long serving virtual PC 2007. Apparently people have managed to use it but only on 32 bit versions of windows 10. The installer could not add the Virtual Machine Network Services and trying to start a VM would lead to a BSOD (!). I got several warnings from the OS that this would't work ignoring them proved futile. The first realization was that virtual PC 2007 won't work on windows 10 圆4. Migrating the development environment to the new laptop is a big job part of it was the virtual machines I use for testing xplorer² et al in older windows versions. The replacement is a Toshiba satellite with SSD. The old trusty HP probook hasn't kicked the bucket yet, but it was profusely sweating (cooling fan went crazy) especially running windows 10 in virtual machines, so I thought I'd best retire it before it retired itself in a catastrophic meltdown. If you're looking for a free program that will allow you to virtualize other versions of Windows on your PC in the most simple fashion, download and try out Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, the alternative developed by Microsoft.■ Migrate virtualPC 2007 machines to VirtualBox (and keep the old VHDs)Įvery 5 years or thereabouts I switch laptops. Another of the main features of this tool is that it's possible to share folders between the virtual machines and our operating system with a single click of the mouse, thus making it very easy to share files. The program will allow us to manage the resources that each of the virtualized systems will be able to use (connection to the Internet, access to external drives, amount of RAM memory, space on the hard drive.). One of the greatest appeals of this tool is how easy it is to handle, thanks mainly to how simple its interface is and the assistants that will guide us step by step in the creation of each one of the virtual machines. Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is the solution offered by Microsoft, thanks to which we'll have the opportunity to virtualize almost any version of Windows, thus being possible to use applications without them being able to affect our computer.
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