Windows 7: Hey/Help

Hey I'm new to the forums! My name is Shawn and I'm 15 years old. I joined the Windows 7 Forums because I have a huge question.

As we all know Microsoft doesn't have the brain to create a virtual pc for ALL WINDOWS 7 USERS! . I have the Home version of Windows 7 like any other ordinary person. So I recently found a VPC alt. called Oracle VM VirtualBox. I don't know how to use it well. Can anybody tell me how to install it properly so that I can have Windows XP run on it. I have a program that I want to run thats only for Windows 98/2000/Me/ and XP users.

Hello there. Take a look this links

Installing Ubuntu inside Windows using VirtualBox

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/12183...-on-windows-7/
And here you got great tutorial for installing ubuntu on Windows 7. It's the same process but you just select image file from Windows XP instead Ubuntu
Linux - Install on Windows 7 Virtual Machine using VirtualBox

Thank You

Hi Shawn, welcome to the Seven Forums.
As we all know, Microsoft Virtual PC is available to every edition of Windows 7 except Starter



(extract from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir...uirements.aspx)

There's nothing that prevents you from using Microsoft Virtual PC on your Home Premium. Only the Windows XP Mode is restricted to Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions, being one of those extras you get when you pay a bit more.

You can download and install Virtual PC, and then install an XP virtual machine on it like this:

• Go to Virtual PC download site
• Click the link Don’t need XP Mode and want VPC only? Download Windows Virtual PC without Windows XP Mode
  .
  
  .
• Because of a known bug on the download site, now you need to "lie" a bit: select Professional or better from the drop down menu, select your preferred language and click Download button
  .
  
  .
• Install Microsoft Virtual PC
• Install XP to Virtual PC using your own XP install media

That's it. Notice that according to Microsoft, an XP virtual machine should have SP3 to guarantee total functionality.

Kari

P.S. This method, telling the download site you have Pro or better even you only have Home Premium or less does not help you to get XP Mode. XP Mode checks the edition of your Windows 7, refusing to work if it's not Pro or better whereas Virtual PC does not check anything because it is meant to work in any edition.

So If I download virtual PC, what can I put on it? Is it possible to add Windows 98/00/Me on it?

With all virtual machines, integration with the host and the network is important. For this purpose all major virtualization applications offer a set of tools. In Microsoft Virtual PC these tools are called Integration Components, in Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions, and in VMware you have VMware Tools.

Microsoft Virtual PC Integration Components only work with XP, Vista and Seven, with all editions and versions of these three OS. However, if you want to use Virtual PC virtual applications, launch a program installed in a Virtual PC virtual machine directly from your host's Start Menu, this is only supported if the guest OS is XP SP3, Vista Ultimate or Enterprise and Seven Ultimate or Enterprise.

So if you have for instance an XP install media, CD/DVD or ISO, you can create a new Virtual PC virtual machine and install a guest OS from that install media. The result is a working XP virtual machine; if it is XP SP2 or less, you can use applications installed on it only by launching the vm and then launching the app from vm. If you have installed XP SP3, or you update the XP SP2 or earlier vm to SP3, and you enable integration, you can then launch apps installed on this vm from your host's (Seven) Start Menu.

VirtualBox Guest Additions work with Linux, Unix and Windows 2000 or later, VMware Tools also offer support for older Windows versions, Windows 95 or later, as well as for Linux and Unix vm's.

I use Virtual PC for my XP, Vista and Seven virtual machines, VirtualBox for Linux and Unix vm's, and VMware Player for pre-XP Windows vm's. Please notice this is my personal opinion, based on my own experience. Other members might recommend something else


Kari

Hey! Sorry again, but I just downloaded Windows 98 onto VPC 2007 and I works fine, except everytime I start it up it says that the BIOS are disabled. I Have an HP desktop and I did all the steps to get to he BIOS menue but nothing works! Help me.

....

I have no idea what you mean. Virtual machine BIOS is disabled? Please take a screenshot of that message and post it here.

Kari

I might be mistaken but you mention that you have a HP desktop and you have taken steps to access your BIOS menu. You don't need to access BIOS on your local computer when using a Virtual PC. I have used VPC many times and have never needed to access VPC BIOS.

To access VPC BIOS, just press DEL on boot.