Hi Metamuse,
The restriction on running Virtual PC 2007 on Vista Home Edition is purely a
licensing/marketing issue - there are no technical barriers to running
Virtual PC 2007 on Vista Home edition.
(In fairness to Microsoft, "not supported" also usually means they have not
run the full suite of product validation tests on a specific platform
combo - so they might not have run the formal test scripts for Virtual PC on
Home Edition. Hence, they cannot "support" it in the specific,
PSS/QFE-related sense. But there's no technical facility which is required
to run Virtual PC, but is missing on Home Edition. In fact a few weeks back,
Microsoft came very close to changing their policy and supporting VPC on
Home Edition ... but then retracted, at the last moment).
Assuming you have the released version of Virtual PC 2007 (ie not a beta
version), try to uninstall it this way:
- find Command Prompt under Accessories in the Start menu;
- right-click it and choose "Run as Administrator"
- at the administrative command prompt, run this command:
C:\>MsiExec.exe /X{8A7CAA24-7B23-410B-A7C3-F994B0944160} /l*vx
vpcuninst.log
(all on one line, command may be wrapped in post)
At this point, 3 things could happen:
1) your existing Virtual PC 2007 installation could succeed; or ...
2) the command could return an error that package
8A7CAA24-7B23-410B-A7C3-F994B0944160 was not found; or ...
3) Msiexec could start uninstalling Virtual PC 2007, but then uninstallation
will fail with an error.
Case (1) - Uninstall Succeeds
=============================
After VPC 2007 is uninstalled, I'm guessing you should be able to go ahead
and re-install VPC2007 with no problem. But to get good diagnostic
information about the re-installation, use this procedure:
- make sure you have a good, recent copy of Virtual PC 2007 Setup.exe (ie,
don't re-install an old copy if you think you have beta versions floating
around. It's just a 30MB download, to get a known good copy).
- open an administrative command prompt;
- run these commands (assuming a scratch directory of C:\TEMP - but any dir
will do):
C:\TEMP>mkdir vpcinst
C:\TEMP>setup /t c:\TEMP\vpcinst
VPC Setup will start running. Click "Next" at the first prompt. Then
click Cancel to exit out of setup.
- the "/t" parameter will have unpacked the constituent setup files into the
c:\TEMP\vpcinst directory;
- C:\TEMP> cd vpcinst
C:\TEMP\vpcinst>
- install the XML update:
C:\TEMP\vpcinst>msxml6-KB927977-enu-x86.exe <enter>
- next, run the VPC msi file with this command:
C:\TEMP\vpcinst>msiexec /i Virtual_PC_2007_Install.msi /l*vx
vpcreinst.log
This will create a detailed log file "vpcreinst.log" which shows what the
installer is doing at every stage. If you encounter problems re-installing,
examine vpcreinst.log for errors and clues. Assuming installation completes
normally, you can then delete the vpcinst directory and files.
Case (2) - 8A7CAA24-7B23-410B-A7C3-F994B0944160 package not found
=================================================================
8A7CAA24-7B23-410B-A7C3-F994B0944160 is the Product Code GUID for Virtual PC
2007 RTM. If the Installer can't find this, it would indicate the Virtual PC
you already had installed might have been a beta edition. You'll need to
work out the uninstall string for the specific version you have installed:
- run Regedit as Administrator;
- navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products
- examine the various keys to find which one relates to Virtual PC. Under
"InstallProperties" will be a value called DisplayName. VPC will have a
Display Name something like "Microsoft Virtual PC 2007"
- under the same InstallProperties key will be a value called
"UninstallString", which will be an msiexec command.
- copy the uninstall msiexec command to your Administrative Prompt, but
don't run it just yet.
- at the end of the command string, add the parameters "/l*vx
vpcuninst.log", for example:
C:\TEMP>MsiExec.exe /X{8A7CAA24-7B23-410B-A7C3-F12345678912} /l*vx
vpcuninst.log
- *now* press <enter>, and run the command. This will try to uninstall the
package, creating a detailed log of its actions called vpcuninst.log. Once
again, if you encounter problems uninstalling, examine this vpcuninst.log
for errors and clues. This should give you a much more precise idea of what
the Installer is unhappy about.
Case (3) - Msiexec starts uninstalling Virtual PC 2007, fails with an error
===========================================================================
Well, you'll be getting the idea by now ... the command:
C:\>MsiExec.exe /X{8A7CAA24-7B23-410B-A7C3-F994B0944160} /l*vx
vpcuninst.log
will create a detailed log file called vpcinst.log. If uninstall fails, make
a note of the exact text of the error message displayed on the screen; then
go an examine teh log file to see exactly what msiexec is complaining about.
The corrective actions wil depend on what you fond; so, if in doubt report
back here and we'll take it from there.
The msiexec log files are plain text files, they can be examined with any
text editor (eg Notepad). The names for the log files are arbitraty - I've
called them vpcinst.log, etc ... but you can name them anything you like.
The important bit is the "/l*vx" to turn on detailed, verbose, debugging
logging.
As you've seen, most discussion in microsoft.public.windows.vista.general is
at a pretty simplistic user level. For detailed technical discusson of
Virtual PC issues, you may get better results in microsoft.public.virtualpc.
Hope this helps - let us know how you get on!
