I recently found myself frustrated by the inability to run Internet Explorer 6 on my Vista box at work.  Normally, I run three systems running Windows XP, Vista, and Centos 5 (linux).  Web application development nearly demands access to many different system for testing.  It also helps to spread out your various IDE's, browsers, and other tools.  Capitalizing on a tri-screen, tri-OS work space linked with Synergy makes it all that much more of blissful development environment.

However, my XP laptop was in use elsewhere and I was without access to IE6.  Still being one of the more popular browsers on the market; I needed access.  A Mac guy at work flaunted the fact that he could run windows xp in a window on his mac.  Silly macs trying to make up for the short-comings by emulating windows. Wait a minute, why can't I do that?

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

Microsoft Virtual PC is system emulation software originally developed by Connectix.  After Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix, they started offering the software for free and discontinued non-windows deployments (clever).  Which is all fine and dandy if your host OS is Windows.

Windows XP and 2003 Server in a Window

Now, Microsoft so graciously offers a 560Mb virtual pc image including IE6 (download here) for development testing.  However, I figured if I was going to goto the effort I might as well emulate XP and run IE6.  There are other things having XP on hand for that could be useful.

A Coldfusion project running on IIS required a testing server.  Most of our development is in PHP on apache (in linux). Without a box to spare, this was an excellent opportunity to use Virtual PC again. I discovered this also worked like a dream.  With a test server running Ms SQL, IIS, and colfusion I was a rather happy developer.  It pleased me even more to discover that the virtual pc running 2003 server consumed almost no resources from the host OS.

The virtualized OS appears as a second system on the network.  It has it's own IP address and everything.  While you can run the OS in a window or full screen mode, I found it easiest to turn on remote desktop.  That way I could access the server from any system in the office or from home.

Ubuntu Linux

With the recent success in emulating an environment for Windows OSs; I got greedy.  Many times I work from home and it often requires using ssh to access remote servers.  Despite tools like Putty, it just happens to be easier to ssh to a linux server from a linux client. However, I don't really want to sacrifice a section of my hard drive for a linux partition.  VPC is advantageous because it allows you to create virtual hard drives for the emulation that are actually single file images saved on your host system's HD.  So you don't have to worry about foobaring your HD's partition scheme.

I used Ubuntu as my distro of choice, but I suspect any of the common linux distributions would work.  Not to mention that Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) was recently released and I've yet to take it for a test drive.  I had enough confidence that this would work that I started writing this blog article while I was watching the install take place.

CD-Rom Emulation

I also found it handy that I could straight up mount my ISO image of ubuntu without burning it to a CD. 

You can also mount additional virtual drives or map a drive to your host system.

Video Notice

So it turns out that xserver tried to default to 1280x1024 in 24-bit color.  Unfortunately, Virtual PC 2007 only supports 16-bit and 32-bit color.  When you boot, it seems like all is going fine and then you get a borked log-in screen.  You will need to manually adjust your video settings if this happens.

1. Restart the system
2. When GRUB comes up, elect to boot in recover mode.  This will get you to a command prompt without booting xserver
3. Edit your xorg configuration.
   

   sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

4. Page down till you find Section "Screen", and update these lines:
   

   DefaultDepth    16
   Depth        16

   You may also try 32-bit if you can get the 16-bit working.
5. Ctrl-O to save and Ctrl-X to close nano.
   
6. Type reboot and hit enter.  You should be good to go.

Mouse Emulation Issue

If you install in text mode, you probably won't notice this until you boot and get your video running.  I didn't.  Apparently the linux kernel has troubles recognizing PS2 mice.  While you are in recovery mode above also edit your GRUB boot config to enable i8042.noloop.

1. Restart the system
2. When GRUB comes up, elect to boot in recover mode.  This will get you to a command prompt without booting xserver
3. Edit your GRUB boot menu:

   sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

4. Scroll to about line 132; Esc-g will get you there faster
5. Find the first line that begins with kernel and ends with splash
6. Append this to then end of the line after splash:

    -- i8042.noloop

7. ctrl-o to save and ctrl-x to exit
8. Type reboot and hit enter.

That should fix it. If you still have troubles with your mouse, there is a more detailed tutorial at Arcane Code.

Sweet Harmony 

That seems to be it.  Everything was good to go after that point.  I now have access to a linux OS when ever I need it without having to say good by to all my favorite windows tools and fuss with dual booting.