Is there any way where I can store my Virtual PC on an external hard
drive, and use that same VPC on different multiple machines?

Eg work on my laptop when travelling and then save and merge and then
start that machine on my desktop when in the office?

I don't mind a different VMC file for each physical machine even, it's
just that making the same data available when I restart the the VPC on
a new machine seems next to impossible to me.



regards,
Paul.

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:16:45 -0800 (PST), Paul <listnz@xxxxxx>
wrote:

>Is there any way where I can store my Virtual PC on an external hard
>drive, and use that same VPC on different multiple machines?
>
>Eg work on my laptop when travelling and then save and merge and then
>start that machine on my desktop when in the office?
>
>I don't mind a different VMC file for each physical machine even, it's
>just that making the same data available when I restart the the VPC on
>a new machine seems next to impossible to me.
>

Yes, I do this all the time....
1) When you create the virtual machine, make sure you point the Wizard
to the detachable USB hard disk for storing *both* the VMC and VHD
files.

2) When you are done creating the virtual machine all files will
reside on the detachable hard drive, so you can use it all you like
and then shut it down.

3) Now attach the drive to a new PC also with VPC2007 installed. Then
tell VPC you want to add an existing guest and navigate to the VMC
file on the detachable drive.

4) When you start it on the new PC you will have the exact same guest
as you shut down in 2 above (not surprising since it uses the same
files)

I have my development system installed on an XP-Pro VM on a USB2
connected 2.5" 160 Gb drive and it works just fine.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

thanks for your response Bo.

When I attempted to open the VMC on the 2nd machine it responded that
files were "locked" by another machine. I assumed thismeant the VMC
knows about the hardware it expects.

When I copied the VMC and used this one it worked, however it created
a new undo disk and would not allow me to merge this when shutting
down. Therefore when I moved the disk back to the original machine
and opened the original VMC, it knows nothing about the undo disk and
simply starts the VPC with it's own new undo disk.

Therefore I can get both VMCs sharing the same base VHD, but just not
both being able to use the same change set.

It sounds like what you are doing is exactly what I want to be doing.

Maybe it's Vista not allowing Admin access to the files as I am
appearing as a different user on the 2 physical machines?

regards,
Paul.

> Sure. Just copy the .VHD file.

Thanks for yor response Robert, however I want to use the same VHD and
move backwards and forwards between the 2 physical machines, with the
VPC in the same state on each machine.

regards,
Paul.

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:59:17 -0800 (PST), Paul <listnz@xxxxxx>
wrote:

>thanks for your response Bo.
>
>When I attempted to open the VMC on the 2nd machine it responded that
>files were "locked" by another machine. I assumed thismeant the VMC
>knows about the hardware it expects.
>
>When I copied the VMC and used this one it worked, however it created
>a new undo disk and would not allow me to merge this when shutting
>down. Therefore when I moved the disk back to the original machine
>and opened the original VMC, it knows nothing about the undo disk and
>simply starts the VPC with it's own new undo disk.
>
>Therefore I can get both VMCs sharing the same base VHD, but just not
>both being able to use the same change set.
>
>It sounds like what you are doing is exactly what I want to be doing.
>
>Maybe it's Vista not allowing Admin access to the files as I am
>appearing as a different user on the 2 physical machines?
>
>regards,
>Paul.

You can't move a saved state between systems.

Also, the Undo info is stored in the VMC file, so that's why you're
seeing new undo disks created.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:59:17 -0800 (PST), Paul <listnz@xxxxxx>
wrote:

>It sounds like what you are doing is exactly what I want to be doing.
>
>Maybe it's Vista not allowing Admin access to the files as I am
>appearing as a different user on the 2 physical machines?
>

I don't use Vista neither in the guest nor in the host...
But I definitely use the guest on both a laptop and my main system.
However, I do shut down the guest when I stop using it. No saved
state.

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

Thanks to all for your responses.

I tried a few more things and as I had guessed it seems the problem
was due to limited file access for the laptop user.

NB I was using 2 VMC files to reflect the different hardware on each
host, RAM, network card etc.

The laptop and the desktop are not on a domain (but are both running
Vista) and the VHD was created by the first user on the desktop. He
could then start the VMC, shut it down and merge his VUD file into the
VHD no problem.

Now when the laptop user came and started up his VMC - it also all
worked fine except when he shut down and tried to merge he did not
have "modify" access to the VHD file and so it was effective read-only
for him. Therefore
1) the changes could not be merged into the VHD and
2) as the VUD file was not known by the desktop user's VMC it was not
used by it and all work done on the laptop was not visible
3) any subsequent work done on the desktop meant the laptop VUD was
not compatible with the newly merged VHD.

So to cut a long story short, adding Modify access for the laptop user
to the folder meant both users could merge into the same VHD file and
the external drive is now fully transportable between systems.

Hope this helps someone.

cheers,
Paul.