Windows 7: Virtual XP Machine - Copy

When Vista was on one vhd I copied the vhd itself over to the next drive and ran it there. The same worked for the 32bit 7 RC upgrade over that but all this was seen on the VPC and XP Mode RCs not final.

When going to start up the XP Mode RC with a new vhd already sitting blank waiting for an OS instead of seeing the XP Mode come right up the installer for Windows disk in the drive would load!

The images here are part of a guide I made up for installing Vista on a VM last summer. The finished XP Mode however will still see the "press any key to boot from dvd" message and then proceed onto the XP Mode's desktop.

Hi Kari -
I have no doubt this works perfectly for you, and I am grateful for your efforts to post these instructions. But clearly it doesn't work for everyone. Now we just need to figure out what's different between our setups. I'm on the release version of Windows 7 Professional v6.1 build 7600. The VM I was trying to copy is not the original Windows XP Mode vm, but rather a new VM I created from scratch. Maybe that's the difference? My vm disk is of type "dynamic", not "differencing" like the pre-configured XP Mode vm. As such, it has no parent disk specified. I have undo disks enabled, which may have an effect as well (although I made sure to discard all the changes before copying the VM). The other difference I can see is that my networking is not "Shared" like it is with the pre-configured XP Mode VM, but I doubt that matters.
-Roy

Ok, rfeague. I'll try to install new virtual machine using my old XP Pro disk. I'll be back to tell how it went.

Kari

Did not find my XP install CD, so I tested now with Vista Ultimate.

I installed first Vista to a Virtual PC virtual machine. When it was installed, I turned it of and followed this tutorial step by step to make an independent copy.

I then booted both, changed desktop on one and installed Firefox to the other, only to check that they really are two fully separate machines. Everything works, as you can see in the attached screenshot.

I do not know what else to say. If the computer can run Virtual PC, making a copy of any virtual machine is just so easy as told in this tutorial.

Kari

The reason the XP Pro disk wasn't seen is that XP is not supported on the VPC. Vista is required. The Vista install later to 32bit RC worked when copied over to a second RC by simply creating a new shortcut to the vmc file itself. Virtual Box or another VM ware.

You still have to install the Windows Virtual PC before you can do anything else however. The setup for the XP Mode mainly preconfigures the vhd as it detects the hardwares on your system as it creates the new files on the drive in the designated folders there.

Even 7 was installed to the VPC as you can see here but has one unresolved problem connecting. The device manager there shows everything properly including the virtual ethernet adapter while the XP Mode and previous Vista and 32bit RC vhds never ran into this. Blocked by Windows Firewall until on the excepted programs list!

Hi Kari -
I appreciate your dedication! What kind of disk did you use in the new VM you made? As noted previously, mine is type "dynamic"; I wonder if that matters?

My computer can run Virtual PC just fine. Both the Windows XP Mode default VM and my new made-from-scratch VM work fine. But making a copy of my new VM from these instructions does not work for me. Don't take it as an offense or an indication that there's something wrong with your instructions. I'm sure there is just a difference between our setups.
-Roy

I'm always using dynamic disks with virtual machines. Anyway, disk type should have nothing to do with this.

Could you attach the vmc and vmcx files of your new VM here for us to see? Just copy them to a new folder and change the filename extension to .txt, or zip them, and then attach to a new post.

Kari

Thanks, this really helped.

Really excellent article. Very helpful. However, step 14 has a small mistake. The vmc_path should be set to Windows XP Mode - Copy.vmc not Windows XP Mode - Copy.vhd

Hello Alochi, welcome to the Seven Forums.

That was a really bad typo! Thank you for pointing that out to me. Typo is now fixed.

Kari