Micrsoft VPC 2007 v.s. VMWare Workstation 6.5

I did a real usage comparison of VPC 2007 and VMWare 6.5 and im astonished by my experience.
The great thing that microsoft has done is to provide VPC free of cost but in lieu of this the end user has to compromise in many areas like:

• It is really good for those who can use it free to have multiple environments on same machine provided they have good configured box in terms of memory and processor
• VPC is not good in performance; i felt it too by working with it even with good configured machine. If running with 1 GB then you have memory issues for VPC
• There is not server and client version of VPC
• VPC cant be used by network admins to manage and control various VPC images to be shared among different teams like dev, test, implemtation etc with variety of roles
• The admin console in VPC lacks in various configuration and settings
• Atleast 2 VPCs makes the host machine very slow
• Hardware detection of host is not that effective; For example if you have any software that virtually adds something to your h/w then VPC will do least; also you may have to install sound drivers and etc again in VPC
• Network configuration is not very flexible and not very effective
• No cloud computing support
• And much more. Im not against VPC as i like it too much but when for the good and positive side of effective and productive usage of a tool i felt the need of few above points. I wonder why microsoft can’t make VPC more stronger and charge few more $ but to come out with a scalable and high performance tool

I wish if i could share the snapshots of VMWare Workstation but im running late for my dinner with friends and want to share this with  you all. VMWare Workstation 6.5 is just fantastic and im too impressed with this tool. This is what i explored in VMW so far

• It is not free but can be tried with a trial of 30 days but i hope that once you try it out then you wont let it go. It takes more space than VPC but its worth
• VMW is real fast like bolt
• I opened 3 images and all worked fine along with my host with 2 GB box
• Networking is really excellent in VMW
• Most of above points are taken care pretty well by this tool
• Many more features and definitely this is a better Virtual Imaging tool than VPC
• I was highly excited to see the working and performance of this tool

I can only say I’ve moved on from VPC to VMWare Workstation from today. I will be sharing more details and information on VMW

Virtual PC for Windows 7 RC

If you are running Windows 7 RC and wish to install XP or any other windows OS in a VPC then now you can do so. Microsoft just launched Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7.


Click here for more details.

Hardware acceleration in VPC 2007

When i started working with VPC i found one strange problem. It was something that i could not figure initially. I was running win2003 OS and finished installing VPC Addins and after reboot i felt that the mouse was flickering and the windows was taking long time to refresh the screen.

After some drill down few areas i found a fix.

1. Right click the desktop in VPC and select properties
2. Goto settings tab and click the Advance button at the bottom in the window
3. Select the Troubleshoot tab and set the hardware acceleration to FULL
4. Click Apply and ok

Enjoy the difference.

Configuring website and network access between XP host and Win2003 with MOSS 2007 VPC

I assume that you have a XP host which has a VPC image with win2003 and moss 2007 installed but the host will not be able to access the sharepoint sites due to network related issues.
So its time to setup and enable website access between host and the VPC. I assume few things before you apply this solution:
1. You have a rotuer and you access internet
2. You have disabled DHCP option in router and have given manual IP with you subnet like 192.168.1* or 10.10.1.* to your machine and VPC
Then check my blog here that covers the steps of converting the win2003 VPC from a workgroup into a domain.
Now you need to do is to setup XP to recognize the win2003 server. I found a solution of doing so without adding my XP to the domain that you just created.
On our host machine irrespective of you using your lan or wireless card; just double click the icon in system tray or goto start->settings->network connections and right click the active adapter and select properties. The adapter properties window will appear; select TCP/IP and click properties. refer to below snapshot

The trick is under “Preferred DNS” enter the manual IP of the win2003 server running in VPC as the server now has a DNS installed. In order to allow your host to access internet as well enter the IP of your ISP under “Alternate Preferred DNS” so that internet is accessible

If you wanted to enter the alternate Preferred DNS of your ISP then you can add by clicking advance button and enter the IP as shown under

And you are done; hopefully you shall be able to access the sharepoint websites. I doubt that you will face any further issue but by chance if you get stuck then you may try below section as well.
The last thing to do in both host and VPC is to add an entry of the IP address of both in host file. Just type drivers in the start->run to and windows will open windows explorer windows; go into etc folder and double click the hosts file; select notepad and open the file; 
In XP host file add entry in a new line with 192.168.1.4 myserver and in win2003 VPC add entry in a new line with 192.168.1.3 xphost
By following above information you can have multiple development environments on a single machine and explore the benefits of VPC.


Hope it was useful

Moving MOSS 2007 from a workgroup to a domain running Win2003 VPC in XP Host

This post is for those who have XP host and a VPC running with Win2003 and others as well who have the below stated problem.
If you installed Moss 2007 on a standalone machine running Win2003 and later you plan to move it on a new domain then below steps will help you.


1. First in win2003 run DCPromo.exe from the start->run and set it up. DC promo is the most easiest, simple and automatic way of configuring AD and DNS easily
2. After the machine is added to the domain and if you try to open the sharepoint central or other sites then browser will give error. The reason is that Administrator account has been updated with domain information and moss is not updated. In order to fix up the problem just run the below commands in dos prompt to sort it out.
First, goto cd %commonprogramfiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\Bin directory
Second, stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword
Here NewPassword can be the same password that you are using or you can give the new password
Lastly goto c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files in windows explore and right click the folder->Sharing and Security->security tab; add Network Service to the group with full access
After this just run the central site and you are done.
Hope this is useful.