Rating: 
Summary: Great for creating CCNP or MCSE 2003 labs...
Review: Awesome product, I was previously using Partition Magic 8.0, which works,but you have to reboot and go into your other operating systems. I can now seamlessly boot from one operating system to another, using my sniffer, tftp server, ftp server, protocol generator, etc. you see where I'm going. This along with some free utilities for generating UDP and TCP floods is a great addition for training. Highly recommended!!!
Rating:
Summary: Love this software
Review: Having been a User of Both VMWare from version 2 to current(Workstation and GSX Server) and Virtual PC from Versions 4, through to 5.2 and now under the Microsoft banner of 2004, I can wholeheartedly recommend this software.Microsoft haven't really provided much in my option to tempt existing 5.2 users to Upgrade, but if you hold an old version, or you are new to Virtual PC, then this is some fabulous software. The software itself is stable, fast (requires a decent pc with lots of ram), but enables you to set up some great labs, and test environments. It supports a wide variety of Operating Systems, including Solaris and Linux, and lab scenarios with multiple NIC Cards. This is the client version of the soon to be released Virtual Server Product. Every single time I build a lab box or trial some piece of software, it begins its life on a Virtual PC Machine, I use this software that much. I couldn't recommend it higher than the fact that I have paid for every upgrade since version 4 and will probably continue to do so. One thing I like in comparison with VMWare, is that Virtual PC Emulates known hardware, this makes creating *Nix based Machines a lot easier as the Video card is identified on startup, even on Solaris! With VMWare you have to start in text mode and manually load the drivers - a lot messier. Finally, if you plan on doing RIS Installs, the RIS Boot Disk Creator supports creating a PXE Boot disc for Virtual PC, very handy and saved me spending money on 3rd party tools. Go to microsoft and get a trial, then come back and pay for the software, its worth every penny.
Rating: 
Summary: I weighed the options.
Review: I compared VMWare 4.0.5 and Virtual PC 2004 (VPC) side-by-side for a couple of weeks and ultimately decided on VPC for it's affordability, larger memory support, and standard S3 Trio video card emulation which greatly improved the guest OS graphics experience (especially for non-Microsoft OSes). I installed multiple instances of Linux (Redhat and Trustix) and they ran surprisingly well though obviously slower than on a dedicated machine. But, for setting-up a multi-network virtual lab where "how" it works was more important to me than "how fast" it was perfect. Using VPC I was easily able to setup a multi-network virtual lab with several routers, DHCP servers, and DNS servers to iron out some complex interaction scenarios. MS virtual hardware support is not as robust as VMWare however as it seems that you are limited to emulating (4) IDE drives. This wasn't a serious hindrance to me but should be considered. As of 3/5/2004 MS was offering a 45 day evaluation download from the VPC product page. I heartily recommend this product.
Rating:
Summary: Wanna unattended xp cd? this product will be good for you.
Review: I did not try it but I will buy it when I go to Canada. Its feature is so great for me when I see the info of this product from Microsoft.com. I will test unattended XP CD on Virtual PC and I think it will be easier than VMWare.
I did not hear the Virtual PC until I join the seminar of Windows XP SP2 in Microsoft Taiwan. I think it is good to use for testing unattended xp cd.
Rating:
Summary: Very cool!
Review: I initially approached this product with one raised eyebrow, however after putting it through the works I can say I am quite pleased with it. At 1/3 the cost of VMWare's product, this piece of software does the job nicely. Its marketed mainly as being useful for business and training applications, however I'm willing the speculate that the majority of this product's use will simply be for fun "playgrounds". :-) I pulled out my old OS/2 and Win 3.11 boxes that have been collecting dust and brought them to life on VPC. Very cool. Didn't try Linux on it, but it's reported to work. I wouldn't want to run Linux day-to-day on it anyhow, I'll just stick to using partitions and allowing Linux to get full use of computer resources. At the least, its very cool (and very fun!) to have DOS/Win3.11 under XP. I've now had a reason to break out all my old DOS/Win 3.11 games again. :-)
Rating:
Summary: Fast, stable, great for keeping viruses at bay
Review: My first experience with Virtual PC was years ago, when I had a Macintosh but also tons of Windows-envy, so I bought VPC for Mac OS so I could run Windows-only programs.
Fast-forward to 2004. I think Virtual PC is a should-have for every computer enthusiast. No longer a Windows programmer/developer but just an end user, I myself use it for the following:
- Web surfing. By setting up a separate, virtual PC for web surfing, I can keep viruses, trojans and spyware away from my underlying PC, which I use to do real work. Should a virus or worm hit the virtual PC, I just delete that VPC file and re-create another virtual machine.
Let's face it, since Windows is so popular and runs on 95+% of all personal computers, you'll always have virus writers attacking it relentlessly, no matter how Microsoft tries to improve security. (Back in the late 80s when I was a Unix guru, I used to witness a lot of hackers trying, often successfully to some extent, to crack Unix.) Esp. if you (ahem!) visit mature websites a lot, you should set up a virtual PC to isolate your treasured host system from getting infected.
BTW, AVG is a free personal-use-only anti-virus program from grisoft dot com. It's reliable and contiuously updated, just like the other major AV programs. Be sure to install AVG on your host machine (as well as virtual machine). It's just great.
- Testing new hardware. I'm a gadget freak. Since hardware drivers can often wreak havoc on a system, I use a virtual machine to test-install drivers first. VPC 2004 fully emulates Intel/AMD hardware so when you install another copy of Windows (which you need to buy separately), everything runs smoothly and as expected. It's even plug-n-play if you virtual machine runs WinXP.
- Playing with Linux. Nowadays it's easier than ever to install various Linux distributions, but 1) installing Linux often still requires you to create a separate partition, something I just detest, and 2) if you want to try more than one Linux ditribution it can be a mess to manage. VPC 2004 makes everything as simple as 1-2-3. One, create a virtual machine. Two, install Linux on that virtual machine which pretends to be a complete PC with one hard drive. Three, set up your device drivers within Linux without worrying about messing things up in the underlying system.
VPC 2004 so far has proven totally fast and stable. The only "downside" is, you are not getting any OS with this, so you need to buy a separate Windows installation package (or get Linux). But then, for a hundred bucks, you can create as many virtual machines as you want, and even run them at the same time if you have enough RAM.
Speaking of RAM, be sure to have *at least* 512MB on your underlying system, even if you just plan to use VPC to run plain ol' MS-DOS.
Rating:
Summary: Works well except for multimedia
Review: My interest at installing one of my kid's old computer game on my XP machine lead me eventually to Virtual PC. Since I only need it one time, I didn't buy it, but rather downloaded the free trial version from Microsoft. It works well, and I had no trouble installing another copy of XP within my Windows XP. My machine has 1.8 GHz speed, 256MB RAM and 40 GB Hard Drive, and the installed XP within Virtual PC ran sluggishly, but it did run and the programs within ran reasonably well. Then I put in Windows 95, and it ran smoothly. Also, I can leave the Virtual Machine on with 95 while working in XP without lost of speed. This is not true for the XP within XP - I can hardly move if I get out and not shut the virtual XP off.
You can install as many Virtual Machines as you wish, and while shut off, they cost nothing but hard drive space (XP takes 1.2 GB, 95 takes 128MB), and their activities are limited within the their alloted space, so they won't intrude upon the host. I like the feature of "save state", which means you can stop your vitual machine at any point and keep it saved that way while shut off. (This feature doesn't work well with virtual XP, but it works nicely with 95.) You can copy files between the host and the virtual machine simply by "drag-and-drop", which is very handy.
The only difficulty my virtual 95 suffers from is fast videos and sound. My kid's game ended up working fine in it, both the sound and the pictures, but problems came when it came to showing a little quicktime movie, the narration frequently skips and repeats itself. My son doesn't seem to mind, though. He enjoyed his game. According to my book, Mastering Windows XP Home by Hart-Davis, multimedia difficulties are to be expected with emulation. So unless you need to run movies or high-speed games, Virtual PC seems a good way to go.
Word of Caution: although the Microsoft website and this amazon page claims that Virtual PC is for Windows XP, when I installed my download free version, it claims to only support Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional, and will provide no technical support to platforms other than those two. I have XP Home, and it installed and ran fine.
Rating:
Summary: Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Rocks
Review: This is one of the best emulation software out there in the market. It is so much EASYER to use than VMWare Workstation 4x. You dont have to set up the cd drives or the floppy drives. I think that this is a much better software for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: It works!
Review: This software is great. I have successfully tested Dos 6.22, Windows 3.0, several versions of Linux (Red Hat and Suse), Windows 95 and Windows NT.
I agree with other reviewers that it can be used for recreational purpouses. My case is about retro-ware and retro-gaming. I have to admit that sound emulation is a little tricky for some old games, but overall the product is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Very cool!
Review: You do not have to be a developer to have fun with Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. This program is the greatest sandbox I have ever played in. If you have lots of older software and operating systems, this program is for you. You no longer need several old PC's to keep in touch with old favorites. MS Virtual PC not only does away with the need for multiple machines for legacy programs (yes, even games), but provides for cloning virtual machines in order to test new installations and settings without risking arduous rebuilding of systems if disaster strikes. Recovering from a disaster is a matter of a minute or two. MS VPC also solves software conflicts by providing for alternate versions of the same OS that are tailored to particular tasks. Also, virtual machines are networkable with other physical computers on a LAN. Your hardware may require some adjustment when running MS VPC. For example, my CD drive is a Sony DRU120 CDRW/DVDRW and is not automatically mounted by VPC when creating a new virtual PC, but installing a CDROM driver from diskette quickly sets up the basic configuration needed to install any OS. This was the only part of the learning curve I had to master. For the rest, MS VPC has proven to be the easiest power program I have ever learned. I cannot say enough good things about MS VPC in the space allowed here. Buy it if you are running Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP Pro. MS VPC is yet another reason for XP Home users to go Pro. This software is FUN because it invites so much experimentation and creativity. Have a blast!
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