Windows 7: Virtual PC, can i install programs? Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Hi All
I am in the process of rebuliding my windows 7 home premium pc, i have decided to install virtual machine and then was hoping to install my copy of windows 7 onto it, but im confused as to if i can then install programs that ive downloaded of the internet onto it?

obviously i want to use this to test programs out before i take the plunge and install them onto the main pc, can this be done? if so how do you install programs?

Or would i be better of installing Virtualbox, as keep seeing this software talked about. inc on this forum.

Thanks

Pete

Virtual PC, VirtualBox, and VMWare Player are all essentially the same thing. When you "boot up" your virtual machine you can do almost anything with it that you could do with a physical computer. Simply install the programs in question from within the virtual machine just as you would on any other computer

Thanks for that, but say i have an .exe file on my main pc and i want to install it onto the virtual one, do i drag it over into the virtual pc, or do i double click the icon and then change where the program gets installed?, im sure i've installed programs before that didnt give me the option of changing where they get installed??

Thanks again

Pete

Which program are you using for your VM? Microsoft Virtual PC?

Im not using any at the moment, i wanted to check first but planning on using vmware player as it looks quite straight forward to set up?

A virtual machine is like another physical machine. And you cannot 'drag' things from one to the other. You also need a seperate product key for the OS on the virtual machine. But you also could use Windows8 for free. Else it works more or less like the host system.

I use vBox (for Windows8) and found it best to work with at least 6GB of RAM (3GB for the host and 3GB for the guest). With less RAM it will be slow.

Thanks, so would i not be able to use my product key from my original windows 7 disc??, if not are there any programs you could recommend that i could use to try out software but without it affecting the main pc, like some sort of secure area that wont mess with the registry etc?

Dont really want to try windows 8, i want the virtual pc to be the same OS as my main pc.

Pete

I use VMWare player, I've found it to be the best solution for simple installations. If you were running Server 2008 R2 I would recommend Hyper-V as it seems to run the guest OS as close to a native installation as possible.

The best thing to do would be to simply transfer the installers over with a share that's accessible to both machines; such as a network share or a USB drive. Many virtualization programs then have integration features that will allow you to open programs on one machine from the other, sync up mouse movement, share resources, etc. Basically the integration features allow you to then run the other PC similarly to an RDP connection.

The Windows 7 product key is for one installation unless you have one that states otherwise. It will not activate on a second PC and if it did then that would be considered piracy. If you want another Windows 7 installation, virtual or not, you will need to acquire another product key.

Oh no, thats not good what are the problems i may face if i dont activate it, i dont want to be a pirate, but i dont want to pay out just so i can try out software before installing it on the main PC

Pete