Couple of newbie questions

bww · 16 Aug 2010

I have my xp mode working and everything is going well. I have a few questions that I cannot seem to find the answer for:

1. My xp mode vhd is on the c: drive (when I did the install I tried to say to put it on the x: drive but it only put an "xp mode base.vhd" there and it is listed as the "Parent drive" in settings. I would like to have my actual vhd on the x: drive and not take up space on my c: drive. Is there a way to move it? Also what is this parent drive xp mode base.vhd, can it be deleted?

2. The default was 512kb memory, I have 6 gb. If I increase my vm to 1024kb will it make much difference?

3. If I save a big file, 1gb to my vm c: drive I assume the actual vhd file would grow by 1gb and if later I delete it will the space of the actual vhd be reduced?

Other than having the virtual machines on my c: drive I am very happy with virtual pc and xpmode, however I have only one program that I need to run so my needs are very minimal.

pparks1 · 16 Aug 2010

bww said:

1. My xp mode vhd is on the c: drive (when I did the install I tried to say to put it on the x: drive but it only put an "xp mode base.vhd" there and it is listed as the "Parent drive" in settings. I would like to have my actual vhd on the x: drive and not take up space on my c: drive. Is there a way to move it? Also what is this parent drive xp mode base.vhd, can it be deleted?

The parent mode base vhd file is the starting point...a plain clean vanilla image. To find where your actual VM file is, go to Edit Virtual Machine Settings, click on the hard drive, click on Utilities and then Map..you will see where the actual file is stored. You can move that file to another location. Once you do, just go into the VM, remove the HD and then add back a new hard drive and point at the existing file that you moved elsewhere. You can delete the base parent file if you want..no problems.

bww said:

2. The default was 512kb memory, I have 6 gb. If I increase my vm to 1024kb will it make much difference?

Yeah, it will make a difference. I would go with no less than 1GB unless you are really low on RAM. Just experiment and see what works best.

bww said:

3. If I save a big file, 1gb to my vm c: drive I assume the actual vhd file would grow by 1gb and if later I delete it will the space of the actual vhd be reduced?

You are correct in that the file will expand...however like an email PST file in Outlook...it will not shrink in size automatically. You actually have to go into the Hard Drive properties in VMWare and under Utilities choose the option to compact the hard drive to get the physical space back. However, if you did delete the 1GB file, you would have 1GB of whitespace in the file and you would then work within that free space before it grew the physical file any larger.

bww · 16 Aug 2010

Thanks ppark1 for the reply, that helps, however about moving the vhd to another drive; I have virtual pc and I know where it is because in settings it shows where on c: it is located.

Would your instructions for moving it work in virtual pc? I am not really sure what you mean about removing the hard drive. Later in your reply you mentioned VMWare and I am not using that.

Thanks again

bww · 17 Aug 2010

I found the answer to moving my vhd file from c to another drive in virtual pc.

Here are the instructions copied from another site....I have completed it and everything works great.

The base vhd, in programfiles cannot be moved or renamed, if done, xp mode will stop booting.
To move the files under c, first boot xp mode, instead of saving the virtual machine., shut it down. (change the close settings to prompt the user for close action). Close the virtual machine., and choose shutdown. This will remove the vsv file. Do not delete the .vsv file, as it contains data if you have not saved inside the virtual machine.
Now, move the 'C:\Users\CHRIS.domainname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Mode.vhd ' to a desired location.
Open xp mode settings, go to hard disk 1 setting, and repoint the hard disk to the new location of the vhd. You should now be able to boot off the virtual machine.

Thanks and Regards:
Shalini Surana - Microsoft Support.