Windows Vista and Virtual Machines

Microsoft released the MSDN versions of Windows Vista, and Office 2007. Since I have (legitimate) access to the MSDN downloads, I downloaded both ISO files.

Unfortunately, I don't have any spare hardware available for testing Windows Vista, so I decided to install it in a Virtual Machine.
First I installed it in Parallels on my Mac Book Pro (see earlier post), but I needed something more portable for work, so I installed it in VMWare Workstation.

The installation was a piece of cake, but the VMWare Tools seem to be as buggy as the Parallel tools. You install these tools to enhance the user performance (seamless mouse), and add drivers for network adapter, etc. Both virtualisation software packages fail to shutdown the Vista OS properly. Probably has something to do with the ACPI drivers included in the tools.

Anyway, that will most likely be solved with an update for both pieces of software in the next weeks. For now, I've got a proper Virtual Machine running Windows Vista Ultimate with Office 2007 Professional.

Let the evaluation begin.

B.t.w. I just hate the shutdown button on Vista. There's no confirmation on if you actually want to shut the system down. The old XP interface was better, but perhaps it's behavior is configurable.
Posted on November 19, 2006 and filed under Microsoft, Operating Systems.