My goal is to use 8 or more gig of ram on a mobo...

Borg Vomit · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 2

I want to build a box to run 3 or more VPC's and I want to be able to
use 8 or more gig's of ram on each box. The VPC's will run 2003 or
XP.

So far I know my options to be some kind of server OS (2003 etc),
Vista (yuck), or a special 64bit version of XP.

XP 64 is somewhat hard to find, correct? Vista is god-awful and very
big footprint wise.

What's the smallest (lightest) MS OS that I can run to host VPC's.

Can I use Apple? Linux?

And just out of curiosity:
If I have a 32 bit host can I run a 64 bit VPC?
Is MS working on a "fix" that will allow me to use USB devices
(scanners etc.) on USB?

Archived from group: microsoft>public>virtualpc

Colin Barnhorst · Joined: 06 Jan 2008 Posts: 210

VPC does not run on OS/X or Linux. It runs fine on XP Pro x64. XP Pro x64
is only available as a system builders edition and you can buy a copy from
resellers like NewEgg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116378
You need to determine if drivers are available for your computer and add-ons
(printers, etc) before doing anything else. Consult the appropriate
websites.

If you are going to run server virtual machines then consider Virtual Server
instead of VPC (although you can run both).

You say you want to run 8GB+ "on each box." You don't mean virtual
machines, do you?

Read the following article for essential info on XP Pro x64:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/64bit/russel_exploringx64.mspx

"Borg Vomit" wrote in message @71g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>I want to build a box to run 3 or more VPC's and I want to be able to
> use 8 or more gig's of ram on each box. The VPC's will run 2003 or
> XP.
>
> So far I know my options to be some kind of server OS (2003 etc),
> Vista (yuck), or a special 64bit version of XP.
>
> XP 64 is somewhat hard to find, correct? Vista is god-awful and very
> big footprint wise.
>
> What's the smallest (lightest) MS OS that I can run to host VPC's.
>
> Can I use Apple? Linux?
>
> And just out of curiosity:
> If I have a 32 bit host can I run a 64 bit VPC?
> Is MS working on a "fix" that will allow me to use USB devices
> (scanners etc.) on USB?

Steve Jain · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 835

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:42:42 -0800 (PST), Borg Vomit
wrote:

>I want to build a box to run 3 or more VPC's and I want to be able to
>use 8 or more gig's of ram on each box. The VPC's will run 2003 or
>XP.

So, you want 3 VMs with 8GB each? You realize you'll need more than
24GB of RAM to run them concurrently. Also, XP x32 won't use more
than 4GB, and even then you'll only have access to 3-3.5GB.

>
>So far I know my options to be some kind of server OS (2003 etc),
>Vista (yuck), or a special 64bit version of XP.

You're going to want the x64 version of any OS to efficiently manage
the amount of RAM you want.

>
>XP 64 is somewhat hard to find, correct? Vista is god-awful and very
>big footprint wise.

Vista x64 is miles ahead of XP x64.

>
>What's the smallest (lightest) MS OS that I can run to host VPC's.

The lightest OS for hosting VMs would be Windows Server 2008 core with
HyperV.

>
>Can I use Apple? Linux?

Not with Microsoft VM solutions.

>
>And just out of curiosity:
>If I have a 32 bit host can I run a 64 bit VPC?

Not with Microsoft virtualization solutions and even then you have
specific CPU/BIOS requirement.

>Is MS working on a "fix" that will allow me to use USB devices
>(scanners etc.) on USB?

Nothing is broken, it's not an included feature.
It's likely that a future version of a Microsoft virtualization
product will include this, but nothing has been announced.

If you need USB immediately, you will need to look at VM Ware's
products. USB 2.0 is currently only available on VM Ware Workstation.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/
I do not work for Microsoft.