Virtual PC
Virtual PC is a discontinued x86 emulator software for Microsoft Windows hosts and PowerPC-based Mac hosts. It was created by Connectix in 1997 and acquired by Microsoft in 2003, after which the program was renamed Microsoft Virtual PC. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version free of charge. The Mac version was discontinued following the transition to Intel processors that same year.
In 2009, Microsoft released Windows Virtual PC, which is only compatible with Windows 7 hosts, and is the technical foundation for the latter's Windows XP Mode. Windows Virtual PC does not officially support MS-DOS or operating systems older than Windows XP Professional SP3 as guests. Virtual PC was discontinued in 2011 in favour of Hyper-V.
History and versions
Connectix Virtual PC, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, and Windows Virtual PC are successive versions of the same software. Versions of Virtual PC by Microsoft runs on several versions of Windows, beginning with Windows 2000 in Virtual PC 2004 and later Windows XP in Virtual PC 2007 onwards. These older versions were still available and support operating systems older than Windows XP. Windows Virtual PC only runs on Windows 7 and only supports versions of Windows beginning with Windows XP. Starting in Windows 8, Microsoft replaced Virtual PC with Hyper-V.Virtual PC by Connectix
Virtual PC was originally developed as a Macintosh application for System 7.5 and released by Connectix in June 1997. The first version of Virtual PC designed for Windows-based systems, version 4.0, was released in June 2001. Virtual PC 4 was the first version with expandable drive images.Connectix sold versions of Virtual PC bundled with a variety of guest operating systems, including Windows, OS/2, and Red Hat Linux. As virtualization's importance to enterprise users became clear, Microsoft took interest in the sector and acquired Virtual PC and Virtual Server from Connectix in February 2003.
Under agreement with Connectix, Innotek GmbH ported version 5.0 to run on an OS/2 host. This version also included guest extensions for OS/2 guests, which could run on Windows, OS/2 or Mac OS X hosts using Virtual PC versions 5, 6 or 7. A new version of the guest extensions was later included with Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004.
Microsoft Virtual PC
On July 12, 2006, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2004 SP1 for Windows free of charge, however the Mac version remained a paid software. The equivalent version for Mac, version 7, was the final version of Virtual PC for Mac. It ran on Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later for PowerPC and was a proprietary commercial software product.Virtual PC 2007 was released only for the Windows platform, with public beta testing beginning October 11, 2006, and production release on February 19, 2007. It added support for hardware virtualization, "undo disks", transfer statistic monitor for disk and network, and viewing virtual machines on multiple monitors and support for Windows Vista as both host and guest. The Windows Aero interface is disabled on Windows Vista guests due to limitations of the emulated video hardware; however, Aero effects can be rendered by connecting to the guest via Remote Desktop Services from an Aero-enabled Windows Vista host, provided that the guest is running Windows Vista Business or a higher edition. It initially did not support home editions of Windows as host OSes such as Windows XP Home Edition, Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium, however a hotfix for Virtual PC 2007 SP1 issued on February 20, 2009 rectified this. Windows XP Starter, Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows Vista Starter is not supported on Virtual PC 2007, however the former and the latter are still supported as a guest OS. Support for Windows 2000 Professional as a host OS was dropped in Virtual PC 2007 and will not install at all on Windows 2000 hosts, however it is still supported as a guest OS.
"Undo disks" make it possible to revert virtual machines' state to an earlier point by storing changes into a separate
.vud file since the last save to the main .vhd file, which can be used for experimenting. The VHD file acts as a snapshot. The undo disk file incrementally stores changes made by the virtual machine compared to the main Virtual hard disk drive image, which can be applied or discarded by the user. If deactivated, changes are directly written to the VHD file.On May 15, 2008, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2007 Service Pack 1, which added support for both Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 7 as guest and host OSes, as well as Windows Server 2008 Standard as a guest OS. A hotfix rollup for Virtual PC 2007 SP1, released February 20, 2009, solved networking issues and enhanced the maximum screen resolution to 2048×1920, enabling 16:9 resolutions such as 1920×1080. It also added official support for Windows XP Home Edition, Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium as both guest and host OSes. A security update was released on July 14, 2009 to address an elevation of privilege vulnerability in guest operating systems.
Microsoft Virtual PC does not work at all on Windows 10 64-bit, and even on 32-bit platforms lack internet connectivity due to the lack of the VPC driver. This also impacts Windows Mobile emulators.
| Date | Version | Description |
| 2006-10-11 | 6.0.122 | Beta |
| 2007-01-02 | 6.0.142 | Release Candidate 1 |
| 2007-02-22 | 6.0.156 | Release to Manufacturing |
| 2008-05-15 | 6.0.192 | Service Pack 1 |
| 2009-02-20 | 6.0.210 | Update |
| 2009-07-14 | Security Update MS09-33 |
Windows Virtual PC
Windows Virtual PC entered public beta testing on April 30, 2009, and was released alongside Windows 7 on July 22, 2009. Windows Virtual PC is available free of charge for certain editions of Windows 7, either pre-installed by OEMs or via download from the Microsoft website. Unlike its predecessors, it supports only Windows 7 host operating systems. It originally required hardware virtualization support but on March 19, 2010, Microsoft released an update to Microsoft Virtual PC which allows it to run on PCs without hardware support.New features
New features include:- USB support and redirection – connect peripherals such as flash drives and digital cameras, and print from the guest to host OS printers. However, USB isochronous transfer mode is not supported Other methods involve simply just treating an active drive letter from a USB flash drive as a virtual hard drive.
- Seamless application publishing and launching – run Windows XP Mode applications directly from the Windows 7 desktop
- Support for multithreading – run multiple virtual machines concurrently, each in its own thread for improved stability and performance
- Smart card redirection – use smart cards connected to the host
- Integration with Windows Explorer – manage all VMs from a single Explorer folder
Removed features
- The Virtual Machine console is replaced by an integrated Virtual Machines shell folder. Several options from the console have been removed such as Restore at start, CPU time performance settings, muting sound in inactive virtual machines, full-screen resolution related options, configuring the host key, mouse capture options and settings for requiring administrator permissions.
- Official guest support for operating systems earlier than Windows XP Professional
- Drag-and-drop file sharing between the guest and the host
- Direct sharing of folders between host and guest operating system
- Ability to commit changes in undo disks upon turning off virtual machines
- Ability to use physical and virtual Parallel ports
- User interface controls for using virtual floppy disks
- Virtual PC additions for guest operating systems no longer supported have been removed. However, installing Virtual Machine Additions from an older Microsoft virtualization product works for some guest OSes.
- Properties of the virtual machine, like guest OS, processor, processor features, video mode, video RAM, code cache, IDE controller reads and writes, Ethernet reads and writes, video frame rate and command line options can no longer be viewed.
System requirements
- Computer running Windows 7
- 15 GB of hard disk space per virtual Windows environment
- Optional: if the processor supports hardware-assisted virtualization technology such as AMD-V or Intel-VT, it will be used. Before March 19, 2010, such a processor was mandatory.
Windows XP Mode
Applications running in Windows XP Mode do not have compatibility issues, as they are actually running inside a Windows XP virtual machine and redirected using RDP to the Windows 7 host. Windows XP Mode may be used to run 16-bit applications; it includes NTVDM, however it is impossible to run 16-bit applications that require hardware acceleration, as Windows Virtual PC does not have hardware acceleration for such applications.
Windows XP Mode is available free of charge to users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Users of other editions of Windows 7 are not eligible to download and use it. This restriction does not apply to Windows Virtual PC itself.
Windows XP Mode can also be run with VMware Player and VMware Workstation. However, like with Windows Virtual PC itself, VMware products only import Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate versions in order to adhere with Microsoft licensing requirements.