Virtual PC Optimizations

Tags: Virtual PC, Virtual Server
A coworker recently sent me a link to an excellent document describing the difference between VPC and Virtual Server and how to squeeze the most performance from it. I'm not going to reproduce the entire document here for brevity but I do want to describe the settings made within the virtual system to improve performance (because I know I'll want to do this on every new VPC I start working on). You can grab the whole document here: http://blogs.msdn.com/nolansax/attachment/700992.ashx.

Configure performance settings on the Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 virtual machine

1. Start Virtual PC 2004, and then start the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 virtual machine that you want to configure.
2. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
3. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Performance.
4. On the Advanced tab, click Programs under Processor scheduling, and then click OK.
   ** Note Before you modify this setting, you must verify that the host is not running critical services in the background.
5. On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager.
6. Expand Disk Drives, right-click the drive that you want, and then click Properties.
7. On the Policies tab, click to clear the Enable write-caching on the disk check box, and then click OK.
8. On the File menu, click Exit to close Device Manager.
9. Click Start, click Run, type desk.cpl, and then click OK.
10. On the Settings tab, click Advanced.
11. On the Troubleshoot tab, move the Hardware acceleration slider to Full, and then click OK two times.
12. Click Start, click Run, type regedit.exe, and then click OK.
13. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
    My Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
14. In the right pane, right-click MenuShowDelay, click Modify, type 400 in the Value data box, and then click OK.
15. Quit Registry Editor.