Steve Erbach
erbachs at gmail.com
Sat Sep 20 19:02:28 CDT 2008
Dear Group, I've installed MS Virtual PC 2007 on my system and I've seen how easy it is to get 32-bit XP installed (I use XP x64). I'm curious about a couple of things: 1) I'd like to copy the entire hard disk from a couple of old systems into virtual partitions under VPC. I've used Casper successfully with regular hard disks to create a bootable copy of a drive, but I'm wondering about the logistics of making a Casper clone onto a virtual drive. I presume that I'd have to wire up the old drive (20 GB) to an IDE controller in my current PC before I could get Casper to even attempt to make a clone onto the virtual drive. Has anyone done this sort of thing with VPC to clone a bootable drive on top of a fresh virtual drive to avoid having to re-install all the software? 2) The documentation for VPC 2007 is unclear on whether Windows 95 or DOS 6.22 virtual drives can be created. I'd like to try something with VPC for a client of mine who still uses -- God help us! -- DOS workstations all over his business tied to a Novell 4.11 network that I set up for him. He wants to finally install Windows workstations in the plant but still run all of his old DOS applications (he has dozens of Paradox for DOS applications running everything in his business from production scheduling to printing bar coded shipping labels to his general accounting and ordering, etc., etc.) The main fly in the ointment is that the software he uses to print bar codes on his shipping labels is a memory-resident DOS utility (remember those?). It, of course, won't run under a DOS window in Windows XP. I was wondering whether I could set up a DOS 6.22 virtual machine and see if this memory-resident utility could be installed and print his labels properly. That'll do for a start. Thanks in advance. Regards, Steve Erbach Scientific Marketing Neenah, WI http://www.TheTownCrank.com