Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Windows Virtual PC

I tried to install Windows 10 in Windows Virtual PC, but it did not recognize my Windows 7 product key, so I am installing Windows 7 and debian at the same time.  They are just crawling, compared to VMWare.  I am pretty sure virtual Windows 7 will automatically upgrade to Windows 10.  (I have the automatic upgrade disabled on the host Windows 7.)

VMWare keeps your mouse captive in a virtual machine window until you Ctrl-Alt.  Windows Virtual PC requires the equally obscure Ctrl-Alt-right arrow.  At least VMWare warns you.  It also appears that whichever virtual machine starts installing from an ISO first takes priority.  Of course, only yours truly would do something as silly as install Windows 7 and debian at the same time.

Windows 7 is running in Windows Virtual PC.  The free upgrade to Windows 10 ended in 2015 (no surprise), so I bought Windows Professional 10 from https://pcmarket-online.com/ for $28.50.  They are sending a DVD, but in the meantime, I have a Windows 10 product code so that I can test it out, and decide whether the GUI hacks make it acceptable as an upgrade from the soon-to-be abandoned Windows 7.

Windows Virtual PC is so slow that I am installing Windows 10 in VMWare.  Even in VMWare, Windows 10 creeps along.

I am persuaded.  I can make Windows 10 look and act enough like Windows 7.

3 comments:

  1. Clayton, how many cores does your machine have? Running a VM with (say) a dual-core hyperthreaded laptop (like a 2-3 year old i5) would probably be pretty slow. If that's what you're doing you might want to buy something newer with more cores. (My last work machine was a quad-core i5, and I had Windows 10 as the host OS and Windows Server 2012 in a VM, and the VM ran really poorly. My current machine is a 6-core i7 (so 12 threads) and doing the same thing is much faster--in fact I actually don't even bother with the VM any more.) If you are willing to use a desktop, a 6- or 8-core AMD Ryzen 2000 would be a relatively cheap powerhouse system. (There are even still a few motherboards with real COM ports on them, which I think you once mentioned you use for your CNC. I just got a new motherboard a couple of weeks ago with one.)

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  2. Rick: 4 cores. The laptop running the mill uses a parallel port, not RS232C (thank goodness that is just a memory). A desktop is not as useful; I get a lot of work done in tire stores.

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  3. Clayton, Windows 7 will not upgrade to windows 10 anymore. This upgrade path is disabled now. If you want to upgrade manually, you will need to get a windows 8/10 license key

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