Vista - How to find which VPC guest(s) missing?

Hi,

When I start VPC, I get a popup window that says:

"At least one virtual machine added to the Virtual PC Console could not
be found."

Is there any easy way to find out which one(s) is/are missing?

I know that I can go into the Applications Data\... and check each link,
but I have a bunch of guests in VPC, and that is really tedious.

Thanks,
Jim

What other method could there possibly be (apart from looking at what is
in the console window and trying to remember what else should be there)?

When you start VPC it looks at that list and tries to add them to the
console. If one or more can't be found, you get an error message.

"ohaya" <ohaya@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#ayyyMk1JHA.1196@xxxxxx

"Bill Grant" <not.available@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#v#Wi1n1JHA.480@xxxxxxJim probably knows all this, but it may be worth posting for others
reading this thread.

When you create a vm, or add an existing vm to the console, the name is
entered into the list Jim mentioned. When VPC starts it looks at this list,
follows the links and lists the specs of each vm in the console window. If
you delete a vm from the console, it deletes this link but does not delete
the vm files. This is basically like a desktop shortcut. You can delete the
shortcut without affecting the target.

On the other hand, it you move the target, it does not remove the
shortcut. It is still there, but doesn't work. The same thing happens with
your vm link. If the vm's files are renamed, moved, deleted or on offline
storage, the link is still there and VPC will try to add the vm to the
console display. If it can't find it, you get that vague error message. It's
a bit like the startup message "One or more services did not start". Not
really helpful. Your best chance is the event log.

Sometimes when you try to create a vm, you will get a message that it
already exists. That indicates that the name is already in the list, even if
there are no vmc or vhd files. If you really need to use that name, remove
the existing entry from the list and try again.

Bill Grant wrote:
Bill,

Yes, I already knew that .

I do know that I can do this by going through all of the shortcuts in
"C:\Documents and Settings\<MY_USER_NAME>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Virtual PC\Virtual Machines" and check to see if each one
is pointing to a .vmc file, etc., but that is always a bit painful with
the number of guests that I have .

So, with my post, I was hoping that someone might either know of a way
to get VPC2007 to tell me which one(s) were missing, or a tool or
something that would do that.

I keep thinking (for years now ) that I should write something like
that, but I've just never had the time. If I ever do get around to
doing that, I'll surely post here.

Thanks,
Jim

On Sun, 17 May 2009 22:54:16 -0400, ohaya <ohaya@xxxxxx> wrote:
Well, it's not a tool, but you could:
1. copy all the shortcuts out and save somewhere else
2. start VPC have it remove the missing VMs
3. compare the 2 shortcuts
4. locate the missing VM, restore it to it's original location and
then copy the shortcut back

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