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Running Vista under Virtual Server

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Installing Vista under Virtual Server 2005 R2 is significantly easier than installing under VPC or Virtual Server 2005 RTM.  There are two main reasons why:

  1. Virtual Server 2005 R2 includes the new version of the Additions that work (but are UNSUPPORTED) on Vista.

    - and -

  2. Virtual Server 2005 R2 can mount an ISO file that exceeds 2GB in size.

To install Vista under Virtual Server 2005 R2, configure a new Virtual Machine and mount the Vista ISO.  Start the vm and boot to the Vista disc.  Prepare your Virtual Hard Disk, and reboot (to the Vista disc again).  Answer the questions you're asked, and install the Virtual Machine Additions that ship with R2 once Vista is installed. 

Easy, huh?

If you're using Virtual Server 2005 RTM, take a look at my instructions for installing under Virtual PC - they're quite similar.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2006
    Hi Inker,
    I'm not aware of any issues between the theme service and Virtual PC.

    Are there any error messages in the Event Viewer that might offer more details about why the Theme service isn't starting? Also, are you elevating the rights of the tool you're using to try to start the service manually? By default LUA/UAP/UAC (whatever it's called now) will run your applications as a normal user, even if you're a member of the administrators group.
  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2006
    Mike,

    Thanks for the reply. I actually did not run as elevated. However I just tried to do so and it still says Access denied. Here's what I did.

    Start - type "compu" and then click on computer managment and select run elevated. It then asks for permission and starts. I go to services and try to start the themes service.

    Very weird.

    BTW, any Idea how i can run stuff as elevated when I type into the run command? I usually just hit win+r and type services.msc but now it seems i can never start that as "administrator" this way?

    Thanks for your help
  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2006
    Doing a search on that error message leads to this KB article (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=899965). It says it's only for XPx64, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to try out the resolution.

    As for why it happened? I'm not sure. I'd be interested to know if you can reproduce the error in another VM.
  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2006
    Thanks for the link. I'll give it a try, however I'm not even sure the two problems are related.

    Also by "another VM" do you mean as in simply reinstalling Vista a second time under VP or do you mean in a different product, so somethign like vmware? The first I have already tried (reinstall) the second I have not since I don't have another virtual machine product.

    I might try it in virtual server 2k5, perhaps that has better support for vista? Can I just run the VHD from VPC2k4 in VS2k5?
  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2006
    Yes, you can run the VHD you created in VPC under Virtual Server - the VHD format has not changed.

    By "another VM" I meant creating a new VM under Virtual PC and installing Vista again.
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    Thank for the tips.. good that I read your posts before installing vista on VPC 2004.. had easy time installing it.

    Cheers,
    Naveen
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    PingBack from http://thinkabdul.com/2006/02/06/running-windows-vista-on-virtual-machines/
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    Adam,

    Is this something that you're only seeing with Vista as the guest OS?
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    On the Network Connection I have a gold padlock??  Also I have disabled all the firewall settings as the server is in a test domain
  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2006
    There haven't really been any changes to the process of installing Vista in a Virtual Machine. ...
  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2006
    Regarding network settings:

    A while back I experimented with Vista beta 1 retail build 32-bit in a VM.  I did several installations under VPC on two real machines.  In every case I tried to set fixed IP addresses to communicate through the real machine's loopback adapter.  100% of the time the network settings applet accepted the settings and pretended to work.  90% of the time it was lying and it continued to use its autoconfigured 169.something address that couldn't reach anything.  10% of the time it obeyed until the next virtual reboot.
  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2006
    Norman - lots has changed since Vista beta 1.  Please give it a shot again with the February CTP and see if you're still having the issue.
  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2006
    Here's a question; With 1G RAM, and a reasonably average machine with Virtual Server 2005 RTM, how much tim,e should I allow for the install on average? I ask because it always starts out as a reasonable pace and at about 1/3 of the way through, it goes to a crawl. It takes about 15 minutes for the first third, and it took the next 7 hours to get through the next 16th or so. It is still not 1.2 way through.

    I only discovered that it keeps going, albeit very, very slowly when I threw in the towel and decided to see what happened overnight.

    Is R2 of server 2005 known to spped the actual install up?
  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2006
    At one point, I believe I timed out a an Ultimate install at a little under 2 hours.  This was under Virtual Server 2005 R2 in a VM with 512MB of RAM - the host machine is a quad-proc.