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My OS is Win XP 32 bit, i'd like to install Virtual PC, unfortunately, its only for win 7, is it possible to install in win XP too? Or is there any alternative to Virtual PC in win XP?

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2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

Virtual PC ... only for win 7

Virtual PC 2007

If you are running Windows Vista or Windows XP on your physical machine, you can still use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer.

Although personally I would recommend you try VirtualBox.

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thnaks a lot :) – Anok Imchen Jan 1 '12 at 12:11
Could you list the specific features of VirtualBox that make it a more appropriate solution, on XP, than Virtual PC 2007? – RedGrittyBrick Jan 1 '12 at 12:33
@RedGrittyBrick: Supports more recent hardware, experimental 3D acceleration, USB 2.0 support, snapshots, is cross-platform. It partially depends on the guest, too -- Virtual PC is still very good for MS-DOS and Windows guests, and in fact better than VBox with BSD guests (last time I tried); on the other hand, it hardly boots Linux. – grawity Jan 1 '12 at 13:22
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VirtualBox is also under active development, and it gets new features from time to time. The most recent versions have a Windows 8 profile, even though Win8 is not officially available. – ta.speot.is Jan 2 '12 at 2:39
up vote 1 down vote

Virtual PC is only for windows7

Here are two great free alternatives:

Vmware Player

Virtualbox

These solutions offer (like grawity mentioned)
2D and 3D acceleration, USB 2.0 support, snapshots (saving of machine states) and file sharing between host and guest.
Above that, they support more then just windows you can also use it for linux/unix/bsd environments.

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Two notes: First, Virtual PC is not only for Win7; older versions are available from Microsoft. Second, it also supports "more than just Windows", you can use Linux or BSDs as guest systems. (VirtualBox cannot boot BSDs without special tricks; Virtual PC can.) – grawity Jan 2 '12 at 8:37
Sorry I havn't used Virtual PC at all since I stopped taking those classes at school... And since microsoft isn't famous for keeping old programs alive I assumed it wasn't available. – s4uadmin Jan 2 '12 at 12:14
IMHO, that's exactly what Microsoft is famous for. Windows 7 still runs programs from MS-DOS, Windows 95 and even Windows 2.0. Windows Update still worked for Win98 up until this autumn. I think they even sell WinXP after almost 10 years. But eh, I'm rambling offtopic again. – grawity Jan 2 '12 at 12:19

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