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February 2005 - Posts

Monday, February 28, 2005 9:27 PM

Why doesn't Virtual PC use the right refresh rate in full screen mode?

A number of people have noted that when they put a virtual machine into full screen mode under Virtual PC - it appears to use very low refresh rates (which can result in visual 'flickering' on CRT monitors).  They have also noted that this happens
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 2 Comments
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Friday, February 25, 2005 11:00 PM

Alpha Centauri under Virtual PC

Around the same time that 'Civilization - Call to Power' was being released by Activision, Sid Meier's new company "Firaxis" released "Alpha Centauri".  This game is a truly masterful and addictive strategy game.  Picking up where the original
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 2 Comments
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Friday, February 25, 2005 12:01 AM

A simple script to backup a Virtual Server

A common question is how to quickly and easily backup a virtual machine under Virtual Server.  There are a number of ways to do this - each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.  Today I am going to show you how to have a simple
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 20 Comments
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Thursday, February 24, 2005 12:09 AM

Civilization - Call to Power under Virtual PC

Moving on in the series of Civilization games under Virtual PC - we arrive at 'Civilization - Call to Power'.  For reasons that I do not wish to go into (but that you can find out about here: http://strategy-gaming.com/reviews/civilization_call_to_power/index.shtml)
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005 4:51 PM

Why can I only assign up to 25% of the CPU to my virtual machine? (under Virtual Server)

This is a question I get asked a fairly regularly.  The scenario is that the user is running Virtual Server on a 4 processor physical computer and is confused as to why they can only assign 25% of CPU resource to a virtual machine.  There are
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 7 Comments
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Friday, February 18, 2005 10:08 PM

Civilization II under Virtual PC

Civilization II was an evolutionary step forward from the original Civilization.  Running on top of Windows 3.11 and later it mainly offered minor enhancements, with the biggest change being updated graphics with an isometric perspective.  Having
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 5 Comments
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Friday, February 18, 2005 12:53 AM

How to 'delete' a virtual machine under Virtual Server

By default when you 'remove' a virtual machine under Virtual Server, none of the virtual machine files are deleted.  Normally this is a good thing - but when you are trying to perform repetitive tests on a virtual machine it is annoying to have to
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 0 Comments
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:22 PM

Running Civilization under Virtual PC

Civilization (by Sid Meier) is one of the original strategy greats of the gaming industry.  In this game you lead your race all the way from 4000BC to 2100AD and attempt to either conquer the world, negotiate world peace, or be the first to build
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005 12:06 PM

The virtual machine MAC address changes under Virtual PC...

MAC address management is a tricky task with virtual machines.  We need to be able to generate unique MAC addresses for each virtual machine - and try to do everything we can do to avoid MAC address conflicts.  Under Virtual Server we allow
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005 12:06 AM

Installing Windows 95 under Virtual PC

While Windows 95 is supported under Virtual PC 2004 - there are still a few common problems to be aware of when trying to install it. Firstly - a lot of people forget that the Windows 95 CD is not actually bootable.  This means that you will need
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 4 Comments
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Friday, February 11, 2005 3:16 PM

MinerVGA under Virtual PC

MinerVGA is a simple but fun game - where you control a miner as he seeks his wealth so that he can retire and marry his sweet heart.  Balance your health, mining equipment and money as you dig through treacherous shifting soils:  
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 0 Comments
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Friday, February 11, 2005 12:56 AM

Coding Corner: Compacting a disk part II

On Tuesday I posted some information about creating a 'disk compaction' script (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/02/08/369509.aspx).  Today I am going to explain how to hook this script up with all your virtual hard disks directly
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005 11:31 AM

Alone in the Dark under Virtual PC

Released in 1993, Alone in the Dark is a classic thriller game - with a simple polygon based engine.  You take the role of Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood and investigate the death of Jeremy Hartwood.  Upon entering his mansion you soon find
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 5 Comments
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Tuesday, February 08, 2005 5:24 PM

Coding Corner: Compacting a virtual hard disk

Today I am going to go over a basic script for compacting a virtual hard disk.  This script creates a virtual hard disk object from a string that points to the virtual hard disk file (in the script this information is provided as a command line parameter). 
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 5 Comments
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Monday, February 07, 2005 6:06 PM

DR-DOS under Virtual PC

DR-DOS is yet another DOS distribution, and one with a rather twisted history.  To quote The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project (http://www.drdosprojects.de): "DR-DOS is a popular PC operating system that was originally created and developed up
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 6 Comments
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Friday, February 04, 2005 11:38 PM

The Elder Scrolls: Arena under Virtual PC

'The Elder Scrolls: Arena' is the first game in the Elder Scrolls series - the latest of which is the fantastic 'The Elder Scrolls III: Morowind' - available for X-Box and PC.  The makers of The Elder Scroll series have just recently decided to make
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 5 Comments
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Thursday, February 03, 2005 12:58 PM

Coding Corner: A basic Virtual Server script

Due to reader demand - I am going to try and start a 'coding corner' where I talk about programming to Virtual Server's COM API.  For those that don't know - Virtual Server is completely driven via COM - and anything that you want to do with Virtual
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 4 Comments
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Thursday, February 03, 2005 12:36 AM

Battle Bugs under Virtual PC

Battle Bugs is a fun real time strategy game (with the twist of being able to pause the game to plan your next move) where you command a troupe of faithful bugs defending your territory against opposing forces.  You will command ants, cockroaches,
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, February 02, 2005 12:46 AM

Installing FreeDOS on Virtual PC

A number of people find that when they want to reminisce about the old days - that they no longer have a working copy of DOS handy - and it is quite hard to buy a copy of DOS at this stage.  Well - never fear - FreeDOS may be just what you need:
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 5 Comments
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Tuesday, February 01, 2005 1:19 AM

Enabling host disk cache under Virtual PC

When you are running operating systems other than Windows NT / 2000 / XP / 2003 under Virtual PC you can gain a performance boost by enabling host side disk caching.  This is not enabled by default as it is not architecturally correct behavior -
posted by Virtual PC Guy | 9 Comments
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