Rhymes With Geek

Dunno how old this news is...probably posted before. But just wanna let you guys know that SP1 for VPC 2004 is released. It has a new function called Virtual Disk Precompactor which zeros out HD data. This solves the issue of virtual drive size not shrinking even after compacting. No other disk zeroing tool is required. Check it out here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b07c9ef0-265a-4237-ae3b-25bc8937d40f

Just installed the update and it appears to be working fine.

It might be my imagination but it does seem that my XP/SP2 test system runs faster then before the update.

The new zeroing out tool works as advertised. Keep in mind it is provided as an ISO image in the VM Additions folder. Read the VPC/SP1 Readme file to learn how to use it. It is really easy.

Back to testing some more.

There should be the performance fixes for XP SP2 included in Virtual PC SP1 so what you are seeing is correct.

One important note for people reading this before they upgrade, shut down all virtual machines properly first, e.g. put them in a shut down state, not a suspended state.

When I get some time (yeah right!) I will obviously do a proper write up for VPC SP1 as part of the FAQ proper.

For now the high points are
* XP SP2 performance fixes
* Windows 2003 server is now a supported host I believe
* The disk zeroing out tool
* Updated drivers for NT4.0 network adapters
* Offloading now supported on the host NIC driver
* Update to change the default performance option 'to Run Virtual PC at maximum speed'.
* KB 833506 hotfix now included in Service Pack build.

Virtual PC FAQ now updated to include SP1 notes
http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/vpcfaq/VPC2004SP1.html

Please post SP1 queries, especially about FAQ entries, in this thread.

Hi Everyone, I've just installed SP1 for VPC and have trouble with going to fullscreen mode with a 2K3 server image. Rightalt/enter blue screens the image with vpc-s3.dll as the driver in question. Anyone else seen this?

Works fine for me.

My first thoughts would be the obvious ones; have you updated the VM additions to the SP1 version? That's obviously where the error lies...

And are you using one of the "standard" screen resolutions that your monitor supports? While I can't generate a blue screen this way, I can cause myself temporary display problems by setting my guest OS screen resolution to a size my TFT monitor won't display then attempting to switch to full screen. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that sometimes this issue can be handled less gracefully than you'd like.

Has anyone had a problem installing VPC SP1

I cannot install it.
Always get the installer was interrupted please try again.
I've removed and reinstalled countless times.
Removed and reinstalled XP SP2 in host OS as well.

Host OS: Win XP Pro SP2 (currently)
RAM: 1 GB
Disk: 60 GB
CPU: P4 3.0 Ghz

Any suggestions?

is there an error code to go along with that (possibly in windows event logs)? Have you experienced problems with other MSI based packages?

Is there a way to slipstream VPC + VPCsp1 or to install VPCsp1 without installing the full original package first ?

I'm wondering what is the use of the «PIDKEY=key» command line switch documented in the SP1 readme doc if an original installation must anyway exist at install time ?

TIA

I don't think we can "slipstream" SP1 into VPC "gold" at home, but the new downloads available for virtual PC 2004 in MSDN and volume licence include SP1 and i presume the retail channel will too in time.

Has anyone seen a slow down when shutting down? I upgraded to VPC SP1 and all seemed just fine. However, I'm seeing a 25-30min time frame for shutting down my Win2003 images. I don't recall having this problem prior to SP1. I'm running this on a Dell laptop 1.6GHZ Centrino 1GB ram with XP sp1. I verifed I have all the suggested performance tweaks & also tried moving to a fixed size. Nothing helped. During the shutdown, I have little to no disk activity and cpu is not taxed at all. Any thoughts or suggestions on this behavier would be much appreciated.

I've had the same problem that everyone has or about with the SP1 to Virtual PC 2004, tried every version of the ISScript.msi, and all the engines, that did not work, but i managed to trick it into working, by taking the setup.exe from the non sp1 update or full sp1 cd of VPC 2004, had to rename the .msi so that setup.exe from old version would find it, and it removed old files, copied new ones, and everything was updated properly, if u already have saved sessions, shut the virtual pc down, cause u will lose them, u will have to boot them from scratch

PS: Copy content of new cd to a folder, copy setup.exe from non sp1 version, and then run the setup... next.. next.. next.. thats it

Once I installed SP1 the ethernet connection for it stopped working.

> One important note for people reading this before they upgrade,
> shut down all virtual machines properly first, e.g. put them in
> a shut down state, not a suspended state.

Does this also include undo disks?

I have a feeling that it's going to be awhile before I am going to be able to have all my VM's shutdown so that I can do this SP1 upgrade.

quote:

---

Does this also include undo disks?

---

Not sure. If you forced me to guess I'd say "Yes" to err on the side of caution; its better to be slow to upgrade than it is to mess up your virtual machines, right?