Does Windows Virtual PC support virtual applications with an XP Home Edition guest?

Question

I've installed Windows Virtual PC in Windows 7 and have the XP Mode virtual PC working. I can run virtual applications with it and the integration features all work.

I used Disk2VHD to convert my existing XP Home drive into a VHD, so I can use it as a virtual PC, too. It works in general, but it sometimes pops up the "Could not enable integration features" error. I don't see the host computer's drives in the guest, and I don't see the guest's applications in the host's Start menu. Is this just because the guest is XP Home instead of XP Pro? Do I have to reinstall all these apps in the XP Mode VHD in order to get them as virtual apps? Could something else be preventing it from working?

Answer 1

You might not have the right version of virtual machine additions installed in the guest.

If that's the case, I suggest that you uninstall the old version and reboot the guest before installing the new version.

EDIT

Since the above is not the case, the problem is actually that the guest is Home edition, and does not have a Terminal Server. Hence, the error that it cannot enable integration features.

For integration Features to work, the guest OS should allow Remote Desktop, and hence have a TS server. Unfortunately, XP Home doesn't have Remote Desktop.

From Disabling Integrated Mode in Windows Virtual PC :

You can permanently disable integrated mode by disabling integration features under the virtual machine settings:

I haven't tried this, but the screen above also mentions the clipboard. If you lose clipboard integration, the cure might be worse than the disease.