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“The crazy dual booting…! Aren’t there an easy way???” what about Virtual PC?



You have always wanted to learn many Operating systems, probably other than windows, but your concern is the pain taking dual booting process, where you install windows and Linux on the same machine or even multiple windows OS when it comes to learning and getting ready for certificate exams like MCSE and so forth.
So here is the solution for that! I am talking about Virtual PC, referred as hardware virtual machine,


a Software application that is built to work as a virtual PC so that you can
install multiple operating systems on the same computer without formatting the
hard disk and without making any damage to the actual system. That’s not
all; you can even work on different Operating systems simultaneously.
Sounds good? Let’s see what we have to do to make this as real as you might imagine.


Getting handy with a Virtual PC Software application.


First thing you need to do is getting a virtual PC software and there are two good products out there that I recommend, one is VMware and another one is Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007. You can get more information on these products by visiting their websites.
If you ask which one is the best, I might say its VMware, but if you ask which one is the easiest to use, I will say Microsoft’s Virtual PC, because it is really simple and easy to use, and also its FREE. Microsoft has mad this very handy little software available for free download and its only 30.4MB!
Click here to download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007! So in this case its better you go for the MS Virtual PC 2007, but there are some versions and operating systems which want work with this product but definitely will work with VMware. If you go and check the VMware Website , you can see they offer really cool and fascinating Virtual reality products which can be very handy to personal and business use. VMware provides a 30 day trial version for free; check it out it as well.


Before you download any virtualization software you need to know about few tearms,
Guest Operating system: the opearating system which we want dual boot, or the operating system that you are gonna install using Virtual PC Software.
Host Operating system: The Operating system that is currently running on your machine to which you have installed the Virtual PC software. And I also recommend you to check the Microsoft website to check the system requirements, remember, windows Vista home basic and windows XP Home edition is not supported by this Virtual software. If its XP, you have to have Professional edition.



I have downloaded MS virtual PC 2007, then what?

  • You just need to double click and install the application, it’s really an easy installation wizard, just press next, next, then you are done.


  • After installing you can see the Microsoft Virtual PC icon in your start menu > all programs, when executed, you will see the following screen.



  1. Just press New, and follow the wizard, select the first option, “Create virtual machine”, press next.

  2. Give a name for your virtual machine, for example, Linux machine or Windows 98, it must be something readable, press next.

  3. Select an operating system from the list or if not present just select other and press next.
    From this screen, select “adjusting RAM” option and adjust the RAM size to a reasonable, it is should not be 128MB or 256MB, because it totally depends on the amount of RAM you have and the type of work you are gonna do in the guest operating system you are going to install, better not to give large space for gust learning purposes if you don’t have enough RAM on you computer like say, IGB. Any ways putting the minimum requirement will be fine in most cases, now press next.

  4. From this screen, select “A new virtual Hard disk” from the options and select next.
    Here you have to mention the folder which will be used as the virtual machines hard disk to which the respected guest operating system will be installed. You can also specify the capacity of the hard disk you are going to use for this virtual hard disk, better to select a reasonable one, say 5GB may be. And press next.

  5. It finishes configuring a new guest operating system wizard. Next thing you have to do is just insert the CD containing the operating system that you configured for, and click the start button in the Virtual PC 2007 interface. (same as the in the diagram above)

  6. When you click start, the virtual PC will be started and as you are installing a new OS, it will show the boot screen and all the boot sequence and installing procedures step by step, that’s it.


If every thing goes smoothly as it should be, you will most probably end up with installing another OS in the same OS environment and you can switch between OS like you switch between normal windows programs. For any Assistance you can just post any comments, I will be glad to answer to the capacity of my little knowledge and even redirect to some good stuff on the web.

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