Alexander’s Blog

So you think Windows 7 is cool and is so much better than Vista. Well, it is. But did you know you can do some cool magic tricks…..well, sort of……in Windows 7? Try this.

1. Start, Run, C: and press ENTER

2. Create a new folder in the root of drive C

3. Rename the folder to UFO.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

4. Open the folder and see all the things Windows 7 can do for you.

Cheers!

NOTE: You don’t have to type UFO, you can type anything you want before the period. The result will be the same.

Here’s a video that walks you through the steps necessary to clone a VMware Server image on Windows 7. I used Windows 7 as my host computer for this video but you can use any other operating system and follow the same procedure for cloning a virtual image. VMware makes cloning images a breeze and because the FREE VMware Server uses a Web interface you will love the ease and efficiency of VMware server.

You might also be interested in this video: How to Install VMware Server on Windows 7

End users are so glad to see Windows 7 released, an operating system that works so much better than Windows Vista. The developers, system administrators,  and Microsoft Certified Trainers are not too happy to find out that Microsoft doesn’t support Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in Windows 7 and even though there are ways to install it (see my blog post “How to Install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7″), you cannot install a 64-bit guest operating system in Virtual PC 2007.  Yes, although Virtual PC 2007 can be installed on a 64-bit host operating system, you cannot run any 64-bit guest operating system in Virtual PC 2007.

Unfortunately, SharePoint Server 2010 can only be installed on a 64-bit computer. Which means, if you are a developer, trainer, or a tester interested in testing SharePoint Server 2010 in a Virtual Machine, you can’t, You have to go buy a 64-bit computer just to test SharePoint Server 2010, or look for non-Microsoft solutions. For some people it may not be a big deal to look for non-Microsoft solutions but for people like me who teach, consult, support, test, and write about Microsoft technologies and products, it sure makes our jobs difficult.

Luckily, CodeProject has an interesting solution that allows running SharePoint 2010 on a Windows 7 x64 computer simply by modifying the config.xml file located at C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010. Here’s how.

- Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\MSECache\oserver2010
- Go to the Files folder
- Go to the Setup folder
- Open config.xml
- Add the following line before the closing </configuration> tag

<Setting Id=”AllowWindowsClientInstall” Value=”True”/>

Click here to read the details on CodeProject’s Web site. Before you get started, I encourage you to read this post from MCT Michael Pisarek who explains the steps and gives you some nice tips.

Managing Windows Server 2008 R2 Core edition can be challenging without a GUI. Luckily, CodePlex has come out with Core Configurator 2.0, a free, open source, graphical tool that will let you manage several of your Windows Server 2008 R2 Core edition settings. The previous version was meant to work with Windows Server 2008.

This tool has been written in PowerShell with a reference to Winforms so that a GUI format is displayed. If you haven’t enabled PowerShell on your server core, it will even offer to enable it. Core Configurator tasks include:

• Product Licensing
• Networking Features
• DCPromo Tool
• ISCSI Settings
• Server Roles and Features
• User and Group Permissions
• Share Creation and Deletion
• Dynamic Firewall settings
• Display | Screensaver Settings
• Add & Remove Drivers
• Proxy settings
• Windows Updates (Including WSUS)
• Multipath I/O
• Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails
• JoinDomain and Computer rename
• Add/remove programs
• Services
• WinRM
• Complete logging of all commands executed

You can download the tool here.

If you are new to Windows 7 then first of all I want to make sure that you understand the different versions of virtual PCs offered by Microsoft. Before Windows 7 Microsoft offered Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Once Windows 7 was released, Microsoft offered Windows Virtual PC, which along with Windows XP Mode, allows you to run older applications that ran on Windows XP in Windows 7. Windows Virtual PC is a special version of Virtual PC specifically designed for Windows 7. One of the major differences between the two versions is that Windows Virtual PC requires that your computer support hardware virtualization. [UPDATE: Microsoft has released a patch called Windows XP Mode Update that enables Windows XP Mode for PCs without Hardware Assisted Virtualization Technology.] Microsoft Virtual PC does not have that requirement. It can run on computers that do not support hardware virtualization.

Now what happens when you install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (yes, I said “Microsoft Virtual PC 2007″, not “Windows Virtual PC”) on a Windows 7 computer? Well, you can’t. Bummer!  You can either install one or the other, but not both on the same computer. And before you even ask, no you can’t install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in a virtual machine inside Windows XP Mode because you can’t run Virtual PC inside a Virtual PC.

So how do you run Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7? In order to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7 you need to make sure that you first remove Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode or else you will get the following message.

If you have removed Windows XP Mode and are still getting this error then you need to make sure that Windows Virtual PC has also been removed in Control Panel, Uninstall a Program. If you do not see Windows Virtual PC listed, click on the link in the upper left-hand corner “View installed updates.” You will see Windows Virtual PC (KB958559) listed in the Microsoft Windows section, as shown below.

Right-click and uninstall the update then restart the computer. Now you should be able to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Of course, if you never installed Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode in the first place then you should have no problem installing Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, even though it is not supported on Windows 7. Yes, you heard it right. Microsoft does not officially support Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7.

Troubleshooting Tips

Here are some of the techniques you can try to troubleshoot the installation of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7.

#1. Make sure that you have removed Windows XP Mode from the Control Panel, Uninstall a Program.

#2. Make sure that you remove Windows Virtual PC (KB958559) by going to “View installed updates” as described above.

#3. Make sure that you have rebooted your computer after removing Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode.

#4. Try and run Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in compatibility mode by right-clicking the setup.exe and selecting a compatible OS on the Compatibility tab, as shown below. I tried it but the Compatibility Mode did not work for me. However, I know that others have been able to make this work.

#5. Some people have reported that they have been running Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7 for a while until one of Microsoft’s update caused it to start displaying the Microsoft Compatibility Assistant message that you see above. If that is the case then you’ll have to uninstall the update, which may not be advisable, or just wait until Microsoft finally realizes that support for virtualization in Windows 7 is important. I mean true virtualization, I don’t consider support for only Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 true virtualization.

#6. It may not be enough just to use the “Turn Windows features on or off” link and uncheck Windows Virtual PC. You should completely remove Windows Virtual PC by uninstalling it, as I have mentioned earlier in this article.

#7. I tried everything listed in this article and was still getting the dreaded compatibility assistant warning until I decided to try one final troubleshooting technique. I disabled hardware virtualization in my BIOS and was finally able to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 successfully.

#8. After you install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 successfully, one problem that you may encounter is that the NIC in Virtual PC 2007 will no longer be available (even though it is available on the host computer). This is a problem that I encountered on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 running on an AMD 64-bit computer. When I started Virtual PC 2007 I received this warning:

“Virtual PC could not open the Virtual Machine Network Services driver. Access to the virtual network and host will be unavailable to all virtual machines using virtual networking. To fix this problem re-enable the Virtual Machine Network Services driver on one or more ethernet adapters or reinstall Virtual PC.”

Here’s what I did. I opened Network and Sharing Center, clicked Local Area Connection, clicked Properties, and checked the box Virtual Machine Network Services. That didn’t solve the problem so I uninstalled and reinstalled Virtual Machine Network Services. After you reinstall you need to go back and check the box for Virtual Machine Network Services as it doesn’t enable it automatically…….DO NOT forget this step. As soon as I checked the box and restarted Virtual PC 2007 I was able to see the NIC in Virtual PC 2007 images.

COMMENTS: All of us MCTs around the world have to use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (or Virtual Server 2005) because most, if not all, Microsoft Learning courseware uses virtual images. It’s a shame that Microsoft does not offer support for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7. If you visit various Windows 7 forums you will discover that there a lot of disappointed people out there. Microsoft first got everybody hooked on virtualization (especially Virtual PC 2007) but then decided to pull the rug under their feet by removing support for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 in Windows 7. As more people start to use Windows 7 and realize how Microsoft has removed virtualization support in Windows 7, the pressure will start to mount on Microsoft and I am sure they will eventually provide a solution to Windows 7 users. I am not sure what the solution will look like. Perhaps its time for Microsoft to consider purchasing VMware .