vista - virtual pc and iso mounting

i just got a note from jamesb who is an AZGroups.com frequenter.  he reports that he got vista running on a vpc.  while some may have already done this, others have struggled still.  james pointed to a resource that helped him get it running using microsoft virtual pc (now free).

he used: vista on virtual pc

he noted to me that it is running on 812MB RAM and took >8GB of the drive -- oh yeah, and took about 14 hours to install...yikes.

just a reminder that vista on vpc isn't a good experience at all and you aren't getting the full avalon...er, um...WPF experience.  it may be good for minor testing, but don't judge your opinion of features/perf on that environment.

on a side note, the virtual cd-rom control panel that microsoft had been distributing (the tool that loads a driver letting you mount ISO images as drives) does *not* work on vista in my experiences.  argh.  the good news is that there is another free tool from slysoft called virtual clone drive that is free and works on vista...it works a little differently in that you have to determine how many virtual drives you want upfront (versus just adding/deleteing easily in vcdrom), but it is just a few extra clicks -- nothing you'd likely be doing a lot.