Just installed Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 in a virtual PC (Microsoft Virtual PC 2007). It is kinda slow, but it works.
In the process I created two “baseline” images – a “pure” Windows XP install, and the original VS 2010 just after the installation. What I found that the virtual hard drive size may increase considerably as you start using the system. Here’s the algorithm I used to minimize the size of the “baseline” file:
- Shut down the virtual PC
- Copy virtual hard drive to another file
- Edit your virtual PC settings to mount the copy as a second hard drive
- Run the virtual PC.
- Remove pagefile.sys from the copy. Make sure it does not end up in the recycle bin!
- Defragment the copy using Dave Whitney’s defragger (google it if the link is broken).
- Using CD menu of the Virtual PC mount “Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso” from “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\” on your host system.
- The precompactor application by default zeroes out free space on all mounted hard disks. Stop it and use command line options to precompact only the second virtual hard disk.
- Shut down your virtual PC.
- From Virtual PC Console choose VHD wizard and compact the baseline disk.
These operations may take a while, but it is well worth it – I went from 4+GB image to 1.8GB.