Q:

Virtual PC Performance Issue on 64-bit Vista

I am running 64-bit Vista with 8 GB ram and 4 cores. It supports hardware-assited virtualization.
Using Virtual PC 2007, my newly built 32-bit Windows XP Pro VM is running incredibly poorly. Even the simplest actions like showing the start menu will cause the CPU usage to hit 100%.
The same VM setup hosted on a dual-core 32-bit XP Pro box without hardware-assited virtualization work just fine.
Any suggestions? Right now it is almost unusable on my Vista box and I don't even know where to start looking for the cause.

A:

Enable Hardware Assisted Virtualization in the BIOS.
Install the VM Tools on the guest OS.
Run your VM's from a separate spindle if you can. A lot of times the bottleneck is disk.
Give VM's the right amount of memory for the task. If the VM is constantly swapping it can play havoc with performance.
Make sure the host and guest operating systems are defragmented.
Cut off fancy gui effects on the guest systems.
Exclude your .vhd,.vmdk and associated files from the host systems active anti-virus scanning.

Just a few tips that should help. By the way I have the same exact setup on my desk as well (Quad Core Intel Q9400, 8Gb RAM, Vista 64) and have been using Vmware Server 2 with multiple VM's without issue.

