I was installing VirtualPC so I could run their free IE images for testing and I wondered if VirtualBox supported the VirtualPC .vhd file format. Last time I had checked (a while ago) it did not and you had to run through a conversion process.
Looks like somewhere around VirtualBox 2.x they added support to directly load .vhd files (need to read the change log more closely!) :)
So now I can run my IE image along with all the other items I have in VirtualBox instead of installing VirtualPC.
Update:
They run. Yes.
But! In Microsoft’s infinite wisdom they have somehow tied the image to a specific bit of hardware. When run on VirtualBox the image complains that the hardware has changed and requires re-activation… :(
So I guess it’s VirtualPC or nothing for the IE images. Way to go Microsoft!
Most likely tied to the VirtualPC network card or processor hardware. When a copy of Windows is “activated” – it generates a “key” based off of the hardware contained in the computer it was “activated” on… Change certain pieces of a REAL Windows box – and the same thing occurs.
Yes, Windows XP in the image has been activated with the Virtual PC hardware. This is part of the copy protection built into Windows XP, and works just like on real hardware. Without Windows activation, you would be able to copy the contents of the virtual disk to a physical disk on real hardware and then have a free copy of Windows XP. For obvious reasons they want to prevent that from occurring.