Microsoft Virtual XP performance

[Yousuf Khan]

Microsoft bought Connectix some time ago.

So I assume that these products are separate from Microsoft's Hyper-X
virtualizer?

I can see by looking at this article, that Windows Virtual PC is
indeed still a single core environment. There are basically
no driver options in this case. "ACPI PC" = doomed.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283

"Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC," ACPI PIC HAL
(Halacpi.dll)

* Standard PC <--- Do not use.
* Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC <--- Your
existing HAL

If you were to request a driver update, and check the list of
available drivers, those are the two you'd see. And you
definitely do *not* want Standard PC, as that disabled ACPI
and really makes a mess. So basically there is only
one realistic option in that case, which is the HAL currently
being used.

If you saw this in Device Manager:

"ACPI Uniprocessor PC," ACPI APIC UP HAL (Halaacpi.dll)

then that has more options when you go to update the driver.

Sitting back here, Windows Virtual PC looks to be just as
bad as VPC2007. So that Wikipedia entry for SMP must be wrong.

Checking another article, they claim Windows Virtual PC is
threaded, such that each guess OS gets its own thread, but
I don't think anyone gives a rat's ass about that. I found the
lack of improvements and the ribbon style interface change to
be such, I gave up on it. (I can't run WinXP Mode, and
I tested just the Windows Virtual PC part of the package,
and I'd sooner be running VPC2007 personally. It has the same
flaws when I install Linux as a guest, as VPC2007.)

Yeah, each instance of virtualized Windows XP would get its own thread.
As if I want to run more than one, the first one is slow enough.

The processor name string may say "Pentium", but the emulation
is not restrictive enough to prevent non-Pentium instructions
from running. Some multimedia software will be able to detect
several flavors of SSE. I don't know the details of what they
do with privileged instructions, whether those return fixed
emulated results, or offer to "passthru" the real processor
info (but in a protected way, so the VM can't "leak out").

XP's Computer Properties properly shows it as the Phenom II X6 that it
is, yet still only one core available. Running CPU-Z under it also shows
the proper physical processor, but it shows the number of cores and
threads as just 1 each.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Yousuf Khan wrote:

Because VirtualBox has a different BIOS, the XP mode doesn't consider itself
to be a licensed copy,

I tried to persuade Microsoft to activate my XP mode, as it says it can be
used under any hypervisor, not just VirtualPC, but they weren't interested.

However you can poke the relevant bytes into VirtualBox's BIOS binary file
and it's happy ($DEITY knows what side-effects that may have, but can't say
I've noticed any).

This is Windows. You shold have written %DEITY%.

....I'm apparently not in a mood to do anything useful today, just bad
jokes

 

[cameo]

This is Windows. You shold have written %DEITY%.

...I'm apparently not in a mood to do anything useful today, just bad
jokes

Actually, I think it was a good one.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On 12/12/2011 2:38 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

Actually, I think it was a good one.

Thanks!

 

[Roy Smith]

Can you use the same XP image file for VirtualBox that came for VirtualPC?

I don't know about VirtualBox, but with VMware Player it will allow you
to use the XPMode virtual disk with no problems as long as your system
meets the requirements for having XPmode in the first place.

--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Postbox 3.0.2
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 4:56:05 PM

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I don't know about VirtualBox, but with VMware Player it will allow you
to use the XPMode virtual disk with no problems as long as your system
meets the requirements for having XPmode in the first place.

Thanks, I'll check that out then.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Thanks, I'll check that out then.

I've downloaded the VMWare Player, but it seems to want to convert the
Microsoft XP image file into its own format. There is an utility called
VMWare Standalone Converter that's supposed to do that, but I've tried
several revisions of it, and they all seem to exit with an error. I
couldn't get the image converted.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Paul]

I've downloaded the VMWare Player, but it seems to want to convert the
Microsoft XP image file into its own format. There is an utility called
VMWare Standalone Converter that's supposed to do that, but I've tried
several revisions of it, and they all seem to exit with an error. I
couldn't get the image converted.

Yousuf Khan

Can you use an existing Windows OS you have, to make a test VHD ?

Take the output of this, and try feeding it to the VMWare tool.

"Disk2vhd v1.63"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415

I thought VMWare was supposed to check you were running a Windows 7
suited for WinXP Mode. So Home Premium wouldn't work. If, on
the other hand, you're not using a copy of the WinXP Mode image,
and have created your own image of a WinXP system (with its own
license key), perhaps it will accept that without doing any kind
of check.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp_mode#Windows_XP_Mode

"Windows XP Mode can also be run with the VMware Player and VMware Workstation.
However, VMware products only import Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 Professional,
Enterprise, or Ultimate to adhere with Microsoft licensing requirements.[37]"

[37] http://www.mydigitallife.info/run-xp-mode-in-vmware-workstation-or-player-with-activation-intact/

Hmmm. Looking at the example menu option, it looks like it's only
set up to import WinXP Mode ? Is that the menu you're using ?

If you're using Disk2vhd, there will still be Activation to take
care of, when the resulting VHD is booted somewhere. I think I
got the "72 hour warning" when I transported my main OS, into
a Guest and booted it for a test.

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Can you use an existing Windows OS you have, to make a test VHD ?

Take the output of this, and try feeding it to the VMWare tool.

"Disk2vhd v1.63"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415

I thought VMWare was supposed to check you were running a Windows 7
suited for WinXP Mode. So Home Premium wouldn't work. If, on
the other hand, you're not using a copy of the WinXP Mode image,
and have created your own image of a WinXP system (with its own
license key), perhaps it will accept that without doing any kind
of check.

At the original message of this thread, I did state that this is the XP
Mode feature of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp_mode#Windows_XP_Mode

"Windows XP Mode can also be run with the VMware Player and VMware
Workstation.
However, VMware products only import Windows XP Mode on Windows 7
Professional,
Enterprise, or Ultimate to adhere with Microsoft licensing
requirements.[37]"

[37]
http://www.mydigitallife.info/run-xp-mode-in-vmware-workstation-or-player-with-activation-intact/


Hmmm. Looking at the example menu option, it looks like it's only
set up to import WinXP Mode ? Is that the menu you're using ?

Yup, and that's the one that's failing.

If you're using Disk2vhd, there will still be Activation to take
care of, when the resulting VHD is booted somewhere. I think I
got the "72 hour warning" when I transported my main OS, into
a Guest and booted it for a test.

Not using Disk2vhd, using Vmware Standalone Converter and the XP Mode
image, as I said.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Paul]

Yup, and that's the one that's failing.

<<snipped>>

Thread here notes people having problems with VMWare Player 4.
Try installing some version of VMWare Player 3, do the conversion,
and keep the machine for usage in 4. If you can get past the
conversion step, the rest of it might work.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/338190

If I had Ultimate here, I'd give it a try, but all I've got is Home Premium.

Best guess,
Paul