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who has run nt/2k in a virtual machine?


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I have not done this. I would like to know how practical it is. How would performance compare to a native install, how much memory overhead, what impact on battery life, etc. Thanks for any info

There are a number of variables.

The specific virtual machine, the availability of dedicated accelerators/system tools, etc. may play a role in this.

Generically speaking, you can expect the OS inside the VM to run at a speed (processor/CPU) between 33% and 70% of what it would run on the "real" machine (provided that you have the drivers for the latter).

The storage subsystem is usually very fast, and the memory usage only depends on how much memory you assign to the VM.

Speaking of say a 2K, that normally ran on (say) a 600 Mhz CPU with 128 Mb or 256 Mb of Ram, it will run in a VM on a modern machine with a 2 Ghz processor at the same speed or better that what it ran at the time on the hardware available at the time.

jaclaz

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I have not done this. I would like to know how practical it is. How would performance compare to a native install, how much memory overhead, what impact on battery life, etc. Thanks for any info

I have run Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 in a virtual machine before.

Virtual machines such as Bochs, Qemu, VMware, VirtualBox and Virtual PC all play a role. It all depends on how much storage and memory that you assign to the virtual machine. The larger the storage and memory requirements, the better.

Since Windows NT 3.1, a absolute minimum of at least 512 kilobytes of base memory (low memory) and 7 megabytes of extended memory is required in order for it to run and at least a 100 MB hard disk image for testing purposes.

Windows NT 3.51 and Windows NT 4.0 will recognise up to 4 GB of system memory, however is a drawback.

According to this page regarding information on large hard drives, Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 are limited to a 4 GB partition upon setup and will not properly support IDE hard disks above 7.84 GB (1,024 cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors per track) without workarounds to overcome this limitation. The limitations are caused by the ATAPI.SYS driver shipped with Windows NT 3.51 and Windows NT 4.0.

Speaking of Windows NT 4.0, the limit applies only to the boot partition where the OS is installed with Service Pack 4-6a applied. Even with Windows NT 4.0 SP4-SP6a installed, the OS will only properly support hard disks with 28-bit LBA which translates to 268,435,456 sectors or up to 128 GB.

As far as I know, without any hacks or workarounds to overcome the 28-bit LBA limitation on secondary hard disks, Windows NT 4.0 might not properly support hard disks larger than 128 GB without a high probability of data corruption.

I have yet to test these limitations when running Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT 4.0 under VMware Player.

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I run 2K in a virtual machine pretty much daily. The host is Linux and the VM software is "Sun's" VirtualBox, so yes my VM is dated. It isn't broke, so I'm not going to fix it. As for performance, I don't really notice much difference between the VM and native on the same machine. But, it is used as a glorified word processor most of the time, so little hard to give real performance comparison, I could never out type a 1 MHZ machine. I do also have a geological application that seems to work almost as fast as it does natively on the same dual boot machine.

On my VMs I don't run any anti virus, but I do run an old version of Zone Alarm for a firewall. On my native 2K I do run a current anti virus program, so that may make some of the difference not show up. I don't worry about virus infections on the Virtual 2K, as it behind two NATs and I don't use it to do anything on the web, except where absolutely have to have IE, which is only on one trusted site. Besides, if it gets hosed, I just have to copy the backup file I have for the VM hard drive.

This is on an old AMD 2Ghz Athlon, single core, with 2 gig of ram and slow hard drives (by todays standards). I set the VM up with 10 gig hard drive and 512K memory. I try to put all output files out on the base system. That allows me to access them from either the Linux or 2K OSes without having the VM running.

Hope that helps some.

bpalone

edit to correct some typos.

Edited by bpalone
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OK I think I will give it a go, just have to do a little research to figure out which VM software to choose.

According to this page regarding information on large hard drives, Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 are limited to a 4 GB partition upon setup and will not properly support IDE hard disks above 7.84 GB
I have NT3.51 booting from a 20GB FAT32 partition using modified drivers from here http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/winnt351.htm Disk access is fairly slow though (3.5MB/s instead of the proper 18MB/s or whatever). Beware, I did try the UniATA driver also but it badly trashed my drive. Twice. (not inclined to try a third time)
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Im running NT4 SP6a with Virtualbox. The only problem which I have with it is the display driver. I have only 16 colors. But in terms of perfomance it is very good. Software support amazingly is well too and you can run most of the modern programs just fine but I do not recommend installing NT 4.0 on a real modern machine.

PS: Installing NT 3.1 or 3.51 on a real machine is overkill.

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Which version of Virtual PC (2004 or 2007) on what Host OS and installing which Guest OS (you said "any OS setup")?

I use it regularly and have no problems whatsoever (aside from the hardware limitations, e.g. USB access). Of course, that includes all DOS/Win3.x/Win9x/Win2k/WinXP/Win2k3 but NOT any WinNT3.x/4.0 OS. You MAY be lacking the latest ServicePack (but shouldn't matter)?

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It is "Windows Virtual PC." In other words, the latest one. The host os is Win7 pro 32-bit. The image (which I dumped from a bootable CF card and converted with VHDtool) boots to a Win98 command prompt, from which I could then run the setup program for whatever version of Windows, if not for the fact that it crashes before I can do so.

Virtual PC 2007 will not run, an error window pops up saying that it doesn't work under Win7.

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It is "Windows Virtual PC." In other words, the latest one. The host os is Win7 pro 32-bit. The image (which I dumped from a bootable CF card and converted with VHDtool) boots to a Win98 command prompt, from which I could then run the setup program for whatever version of Windows, if not for the fact that it crashes before I can do so. Virtual PC 2007 will not run, an error window pops up saying that it doesn't work under Win7.

Sounds like some of the forced obsolescence used by our good friends from Redmond, and others in the industry. Do a search for VirtualBox and go download the Windows version from their site. It will handle 2K without a problem and can even be made to work with DOS and 98se, as guest systems, with some tweaking.

bpalone

edit for clarity.

Edited by bpalone
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According to this -

http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15478

It suggests "uninstalling" "Windows VPC" and using VPC2007 instead.

Google this

"Windows Virtual PC" "windows 7"
You used the wrong one (see WikiPedia). It's primarily for non-DOS based OS, e.g. XP Virtual Mode, using VT Technology, although it works without it. Again, wrong one.

HTH

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ah yes. vpc2007 does work after uninstalling windows vpc and the update. once win2k is installed it is not terribly responsive though. it seems that video emulation is rather slow.

I tried virtualbox as well. the installation took ages (seemed to be about Pentium 75 speed) and eventually it suffered an unexpected reboot and was not successful. it can boot the installation created in vpc2007 (although the video and networking "hardware" do not match up).

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I tried virtualbox as well. the installation took ages (seemed to be about Pentium 75 speed) and eventually it suffered an unexpected reboot and was not successful.

Check out their forums for getting 2K to work. I'm guessing that you may have to turn off some hardware items in the virtual machine. I also recall there being a race issue with 2K and I am not sure whether they ever fixed it or not, as 2K was not as widely used/accepted as XP. I have not had any issues with 2K on a Linux host. But, I am using a pretty dated version of VirtualBox, 2.2.4. You can download older versions on their web site, or at least you used to be able to.

But, do check out their Forum for an answer. I'm sure you will find an answer.

bpalone

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I think you may have missed installing the VPC2007 Add-On (an ISO inside the Installation folder) into the Guest. After you fire up the Guest, there will be a Selection in the pull-downs at the top of VPC.

You may need to update the MSI Installer inside the Guest. EVERYTHING will be "laggie" until you install it/them. Try that. ;)

Edited by submix8c
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