Virtual PC 2007 Beta Program
The Virtual PC 2007 Beta is available for beta users and if you want to participate in the beta program you can sign up for the Beta Tests of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 by the URL Virtual PC 2007 Beta Program
The Virtual PC 2007 Beta Program will let you to evaluate and test the pre-releases of Virtual PC 2007 software, as well as providing feedback to the Microsoft Virtual PC Product Team.
Microsoft users can download Virtual PC 2007 from Microsoft's official download portal Download Center
So what is new in the next version of Virtual PC? The release candidate (RC) version of Virtual PC 2007 has a few numbers of major enhancements and improvements compared with previous versions.
So with the RTM release of Microsoft Windows Vista, the Virtual PC 2007 will provide support for Windows Vista as a host operating system. Windows Vista version which will have the feature of running VPC applications as host system will be the versions Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, Vista Ultimate editions. Also the same Windows Vista Editions Vista Business, Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate editions will be also available for Virtual PC 2007 as guest operating system. Prior VPC 2007, Vista editions were also running on VPC's. This is not actually a major enhancemant for VPC 2007. Also Aero Glass for guest operating system is not supported but the Aero Basic is.
Virtual PC 2007 now supports built-in installations through network.
Virtual PC 2007 includes support for virtualization technology from Intel and AMD.
Virtual PC 2007 now supports 64-bit host operating systems. Unfortunately this does not include support for 64-bit guest operating systems.
You can download Virtual PC 2007 Release Candidate (32-bit) and Virtual PC 2007 Release Candidate (64-bit) which are approximately 28,5 MB in size. There is also a fix for conditions with installing Virtual PC 2007 Beta on a computer that has the AMD hardware-assisted virtualization support (AMD-V) and using 64-bit Windows operating system as the host operating system except Windows Vista.
Virtual PC 2007 now supports the use of ISO images that are over 2.2GB in size. This was a problem with previous versions since you had to burn the ISO image on a DVD and then run this bootable DVD from an external drive.
Problems related with Intelppm.sys and processr.sys under Virtual PC's or Virtual Server has been fixed on the RC version of VPC 2007.
And the Virtual PC 2007 now works with a better performance.
You can join the beta program and download and try the RC of Virtual PC 2007.
Here is a list of supported host operating systems:
Windows Vista Enterprise,
Windows Vista Ultimate,
Windows Vista Business,
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition,
Windows XP Professional, and
Windows XP Professional Tablet PC Edition
And you can find a list of supported guest operating systems:
Windows Vista Enterprise,
Windows Vista Ultimate,
Windows Vista Business,
Windows XP Professional,
Windows XP Home Edition,
Windows 2000 Professional,
Windows 98 Second Edition, and
OS/2
There is also excluded operating systems that were supported for Virtual PC 2004 but now not supported in Virtual PC 2007. These operating systems are:
Windows NT Workstation 4.0,
Windows Millennium Edition,
Windows 98,
Windows 95, and
MS-DOS 6.22
The officially supported systems for Virtual PC 2007 has been listed as above. But we know that although they are not supported officially it is possibly to install and run other operating systems as Windows 2003 servers, Windows 2000 servers and even Linux operating systems. But of course if you are going to use Virtual PC in your office, you should be aware that it is your own risk running systems not supported by Microsoft.
Upgrage from Virtual PC 2004 SP1
If you are running Virtual PC 2004 SP1 you can easily upgrade to the Virtual PC 2007 RC (Release Candidate). For a successfull upgrade all virtual machines should be turned off. It is especially stated that saved states are not compatible between VP 2004 SP 1 and VP 2007. So be sure that you have not left behind a virtual machine in save state. One more important thing is that you should have backed up your current virtual machines in case of something unexpected. Then you can run the Virtual PC 2007 installation. After the installation of VPC 2007, the last step will be installation of Virtual Machine Additions on each system to finish the upgrade process.