I was wondering how I would run vista with Virtual PC?

Install VPC first and things will be a lot easier to understand afterwards.

The internet is a series of tubes!

Well, yes. Install VPC2004 and be sure you have the updates if needed.

VPC can boot just like a normal PC. In it's own bios settings you decide what bootable device order. Choose CD first.

VPC also can use an iso image. If you downloaded then when you boot the machine you made go up to the cd pulldown and select the iso file to act as your cd-rom drive. Much faster.

As a side note be sure to make a hard drive first with the wizard to a pre-set size. It will improve the install a bit.

Afterwords you can install the vm additions to make the systems seamless.

Better start with a very good machine too. Vista on VPC is really slow to the point of not being able to evaluate it.

OH, by the way. Vista will not load as a virutal CD.

I am having trouble installing Windows Vista RC1 in VPC. Of course VPC will not accept the ISO because it is too big so I am using a virtual drive to load the DVD ISO. This appears to work correctly. The prompt to boot from CD or DVD pops up and I go into the setup. After a couple of steps the Install hangs forever….

Then I tried installing over a virtual hard disk with Windows XP installed. I boot into windows and there’s the DVD looking just as it should. I right click and select AUTOPLAY. The drive works for a while then comes up with the following error:
Setup.exe – Bad Image
The application or DLL D:\Sources\SPWIZENG.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.
Followed by this error:
The file ‘autorun.dll’ could not be loaded or is corrupt. Setup cannot continue. Error code is [0xC1]

I thought maybe it was the virtual drive so I burned it to a DVD: no luck same error. So I tried re-downloading the ISO thinking maybe I really did get a bad image: same error. I tried the Japanese version: same error. If I start a clean install with a burned DVD instead of hanging I get a similar error to the one I received in Windows XP once I enter the Product Code. Something about corrupt or missing file D:\Sources\Install.wim.

However, I was able to the DVD and install it on VPC on my other computer with no problems whatsoever. It seems to me this is some sort of hardware conflict with my laptop. This is the computer that will not install Vista:
Dell Latitude D620
Intel Core Dou Processor
1 GB RAM
Running Windows XP SP2 as Host OS

Does anyone have any insight into what may be causing this problem?

I have been having a great time trying to get Vista RC1 running on VmWare and Virtual PC. I finally succeeded with VPC.

I tried doing a fresh install with VMWare originally with no luck, I`d get the copying files bar which would get to the end and then hang, Then I decided to try installing XP and doing an upgrade, no joy as it required SP2 before an upgrade is possible, installed sp2 started the upgrade and all was going well, did a couple of reboots then hung on a black screen for 2 hours I left it and no joy. Started all over with Virtual PC, fresh install gave me an unable to open install.wim message, tried the disk on a system at work (p3 866) and it worked fine, installed vista no problem, but no driver for the onboard graphics, still at least i know the disk is ok now. back home, install XP on VirtualPc, install SP2, try the upgrade from the disk , get an error message that its corrupt!, decide to use alcohol 120% to mount the ISO image and use that to upgrade, Success!!!! its running tho with no sound.

A bit slow, but then thats due to it running in Virtual pc, slightly faster than it was on the p3 866 at work.

1st impression?? Well its very pretty, looks a lot nicer out of the box than XP did with its garish green and orange "fisher Price" style. I like the icons, but they are a bit large. I haven`t had time to do a lot more with it as yet, but maybe just maybe I might buy it to put on a system I'm planning to build when I have the cash, it depends how much it will cost, you never know I may do what a friend does with XP, puts a copy on with a known to microsoft shared license key, then just pays Microsoft £90 for a genuine copy and key, a lot cheaper than buying XP pro retail here in UK.

Woof

Always proof-read carefully to see if you any words out.