Readme for
Microsoft® Virtual PC 2004
Service Pack 1

Microsoft® Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains the latest software updates for Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. To make sure that you understand these updates and their effects, review all of the information in this document before you install SP1.

Important

• Information in this document might differ from some of the information that appears in the Virtual PC Help or Getting Started. If you find such differences, consider the information in this document to be correct.

• SP1 updates Virtual PC so that Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, Standard Edition is a supported host.
• The readme.htm file that is included on the Virtual PC 2004 product CD contains a spelling error. In the section, "MYVIRTUALMACHINES Environment Variable," "MYVIRTUALMACINES" is misspelled. It should be spelled: MYVIRTUALMACHINES.
• SP1 includes software updates for the Installation Wizard. After you install SP1, do not use information about the Installation Wizard or command-line installations that appears in the Virtual PC Help or Getting Started. For more information about command-line installations, see the following section, "Installing Virtual PC SP1 from the Command Line."

Important

• You must shut down or turn off all guest operating systems before installing SP1. This ensures that there are no virtual machines in a saved state. This is important because saved states are not compatible between SP1 and all previous versions of Virtual PC 2004.

If you want to install SP1 from the command line, you can do so by using Msiexec.exe. For more information about Msiexec.exe, see the Microsoft Web site(http://www.microsoft.com/).

Syntax

msiexec.exe {/i|/a} "msifile" [ALLUSERS=value] [PIDKEY=value] [{INSTALLDIR=value|TARGETDIR=value}] [ALLUSERS=value] [/qb | /qn | /qr | /qf] [/l logfile]

Parameters

/i

Installs Virtual PC SP1. You can use /x to uninstall Virtual PC SP1.

/a

Applies the administrative installation option. Installs Virtual PC SP1 on the network.

/q

Sets the user interface level as shown in the following table.

Value	Action
q or qn	No user interface
qb	Basic user interface
qr	Reduced user interface
qf	Full user interface

For more information about the user interface levels, see the Microsoft Web site(http://www.microsoft.com/).

/l logfile

Specifies the path to the log file.

PIDKEY=value

Specifies the unique product key number required to perform the installation. Do not use dashes when typing the number.

INSTALLDIR=value

Specifies a custom folder in which to install the program. If you do not include this parameter, the program is installed in \Program files.

TARGETDIR=value

Specifies where to install the Virtual PC SP1 installation package when you are using the administrative installation (/a) option. The package's data files are uncompressed in this location.

ALLUSERS=value

Determines what users see in the Start menu and in Add or Remove Programs. If ALLUSERS is not set, the installer does a per-machine installation. If ALLUSERS is set to an empty string (ALLUSERS=""), the installer does a per-user installation. In all cases, the installer uses folders in the "All Users" profile.

Example

The following example shows how to perform an unattended installation and make the program accessible to all users on the computer. During an unattended installation, the Setup program runs without prompting you for input.

If you want to use Group Policy to deploy Virtual PC SP1, you must use the administrative installation option (/a) along with the TARGETDIR option. This is shown in the following example:

Msiexec.exe /a "Microsoft Virtual PC 2004.msi" PIDKEY=PID key number TARGETDIR=Installation folder's network path /qn

The following table provides a formatting legend for the command-line information.

Courier font

SP1 includes Virtual Disk Precompactor, a utility that is designed to "zero out"—that is, overwrite with zeros—any available blank space on a virtual hard disk.

We recommend that you use Virtual Disk Precompactor before you compact a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk. Using Virtual Disk Precompactor should result in a smaller compacted virtual hard disk. After you install SP1, Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso is located in the folder: \Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\.

To use Virtual Disk Precompactor, you must first capture Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso. To do so, use the standard procedure for capturing .iso files. For more information about this procedure, see "To capture or release a CD or DVD" in the Virtual PC Help.

After you capture Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso, you can run Virtual Disk Precompactor by going to the CD drive of the virtual machine. To view Help for Virtual Disk Precompactor, type precompact -help. To run Virtual Disk Precompactor, type precompact.

Virtual PC emulates the DEC 21140A network adapter, which is a multifunction Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) card. A PCI card that supports more than a single network interface is known as a multifunction card. For a single network interface, only Function 0 is exposed. For two network interfaces, Function 0 and Function 1 are both exposed on the same virtual PCI card. Exposing Functions 2 and 3 enables the third and fourth network interfaces.

Microsoft Windows NT® Workstation 4.0 is compatible with multifunction cards, including the DEC 21140A network adapter. However, the .inf file that is included with Windows NT Workstation 4.0, and which configures registry entries, enables the adapter to use only the first function (Function 0). Because of this limitation, the driver for the DEC 21140A network adapter included with Windows NT Workstation 4.0 can only use the first network adapter configured in a virtual machine that was created by Virtual PC.

SP1 includes a virtual floppy disk, NT4 Network Driver.vfd, that contains an updated driver for the DEC 21140A network adapter. The .vfd file is located in the folder: \Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions.

You must install the updated driver to enable multifunction support and allow a Windows NT Workstation 4.0 guest operating system to use more than one network adapter.

To add the NT4 Network Driver.vfd to your virtual machine

1. Log on to the virtual machine by using an account that has administrative credentials on the guest operating system.
2. Click Start, click Settings, and then click Control Panel.
3. Double-click Network, and then click the Adapters tab.
4. If there is an existing DEC PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter, click Remove to remove it, and then click Close.
5. After you click Close, you are prompted to shut down and restart.

Important

• When you remove an adapter in Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you must restart the operating system before you add the updated adapter driver.

To add the updated adapter driver

1. After Windows NT Workstation 4.0 restarts, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click Network, and then click the Adapters tab.
3. Click Add, and then click Have Disk.
4. Click OK to use the default path of the A drive.
5. Click OK to use the DEC PCI Fast Ethernet DECchip 21140, which is the only option available.
6. When you are prompted to choose a connection type, click OK to use AutoSense, which is the default.
7. When you see the message "A network card of this type is already installed in the system. Do you want to continue?" click OK.
8. Repeat the steps until you have added as many instances of the DEC PCI Fast Ethernet DECchip 21140 as the number of network adapters you want to use. Virtual PC supports up to four network adapters per virtual machine.

After you have completed this procedure, use the following procedure to change the internal network number.

To change the internal network number

1. When you are done adding network adapters, click Close.
2. If you see the message "Your network configuration has multiple adapters. The default internal network number is 0 and needs to be a unique number. Do you want to change this now?" click Yes.
3. Change the internal network number value from "00000000" to "00000001," and then click OK.
4. When you are prompted for TCP/IP information for each new network adapter, you can type a specific IP address or obtain an IP address from a DHCP server.
5. After you configure each new network adapter, you are prompted to restart the operating system. To use an adapter that you have added in Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you must restart your operating system.

Prior to SP1, the Shared Folders setting in Virtual PC was turned off by default under MS-DOS 6.22 if EMM386 was loaded. To support Shared Folders under MS-DOS 6.22 if EMM386 is loaded, SP1 includes a new file, Vmadd386.sys. This file is located in the folder: C:\Vmadd\.

For Shared Folders to work under MS-DOS 6.22 when EMM386 is loaded, the Config.sys file must include the following line before EMM386 or any other extended memory managers:

Device=C:\Vmadd\Vmadd386.sys

Vmadd386.sys must also be loaded if you intend to use Shared Folders under Microsoft Windows® 3.11.

SP1 includes the following additional software updates.

• Updated version of Virtual Machine Additions. You should update the version of Virtual Machine Additions on all virtual machines where Virtual Machine Additions is installed. For more information, see "Installing Virtual Machine Additions" in Virtual PC Help.
• Update to support TCP segmentation offloading. Prior to SP1, if TCP Segmentation Offloading was activated, some virtual networking features would not function correctly. With SP1, if your physical network adapter supports TCP segmentation offloading, you can activate TCP segmentation offloading, and virtual networking will function correctly.
• Update to support Group Policy Software Installation. For more information about Group Policy Software Installation, see Help and Support Center in your Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system.
• Update to change the default performance option from Give processes on the host system priority to Run Virtual PC at maximum speed.
• Updates to improve the performance of Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.
• Update to allow the name of the host computer and the virtual machine name to be read from within the guest operating system. This functionality is used by server management software, such as Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003.
• The hotfix described in article 833506, which describes how Virtual PC 2004 may stop responding when a virtual machine is started, in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

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