"Julian" <msforums@tiger2.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:%23tBP8zcWIHA.4196@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Can one legitimately (i.e within the terms of the EULA) clone the Vista
> installation into Virtual PC (on the same PC as the licensed OS), if so
> how? I have some applications I want to trial and I know (cos I tried it
> before) that they don't sit well alongside the currently installed
> applications... and I would rather like to minimise the uninstall -
> install - uninstall - reinstall aggravation if at all possible.


I make old OS installations into virtual machines all the time using Acronis
TrueImage Workstation (or Server) with the Universal Restore add-on. You
can also use it to move OS installations onto different hardware. I have
done this many time with XP and Server 2003, but now Vista. I have only
made Vista into virtual machines.

It is very useful to make OS installations into virtual machines so that you
can still refer to them, or extract little things like registry entries.
You can also consolidate old machines, like old servers, into one physical
machine.

If you go to the VirtualPC newsgroup, some other people use something
cheaper to do this, but I forget the name, but that tool does not seem to
reset the HAL (Hardware Extraction Layer) like Universal Restore does.

The new version of TrueImage is called Echo, which I have not upgraded to
yet. This is the info on the Universal Restore add-on:
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/pr...l-restore.html

ss.