One of our new desktops has a Core 2 Duo processor (E6400) which includes Intel’s VT technology, or “Hardware Assisted Virtualization” mechanisms, inherent in that processor. It’s got a bare install of Vista Business that we are using for testing, and I just installed Virtual PC 2007, and it is amazingly fast. I had <a href=”" mce_href=”">DSL Linux</a> and Windows XP virtual Machines running side by side. The host OS was barely breaking a sweat, aside from the increased memory usage.
I was parallel tasking with my WAIK installations and thought, “Hey, maybe I could use ImageX to apply a WIM image to a virtual machine!” It’s often come up what would happen to a system if we applied application “X” or GPO policy “Y” to our standard machine. More often than not, it typically works. Sometimes, however, the system reacts violently to the change (i.e. BSOD), and we have to reimage the machine, post-config, add it to the domain, etc. A time consuming process.
I’ve tried to apply a Ghost image to a Virtual PC with out success. So, since ImageX is file based, could I use my WinPE boot disk, create an image from a reference machine and apply it to a Virtual PC?
Stay tuned…!
