Microsoft virtual PC 2007 is a free program that lets you run almost any OS in virtual machine window,without affecting your primary operating system.
Download and install Virtual PC. Launch it, click next to start the wizard , and click next again to crate a virtual machine. The wizard then asks you to confirm the amount of memory and disk space to dedicate to the virtual machine. If you have 2 GB or more on your host PC, give 512 MB to the virtual XP machine. Unless you plan to install lots of apps, the default hard-disk size is usally fine.
Click next and then finish, and your virtual machine will appear in the virtual PC Console. Insert an XP installation CD and then doubble click the virtual machine icon in the virtual PC Console to start it up. Select the optical drive in the virtual PC's CD menu, choose action and then click Ctrl-Alt-Del to boot the virtual machine from the CD. After that ,the installation process should proceed just as it would on a nonvirtual PC. To run your virtual XP machine, select it in the Virtual PCConsole and click start. To close, choose Save state from the list of options. nad click OK.Clicking within the virtualzed OS window once allows it to capture the mouse pointer.
In the virtual PC menu , click action install or Update virtual machine additions to install several tools that will allow youto copyand paste text between the virtual machineand the host PC, as well as to send documents back and forth via a shared folder on the host system.
To get the mouse pointer to realese back to the host OS, press the right hand
key and drag the mouse outof the Virtual PC window.
