Has your Virtual PC disappeared?

I and most of my colleagues use Virtualization extensively for testing and demonstrations, for example with beta software or CTP’s. Today I was using it for this Webinar.

About two hours before the Webinar, I was surprised to discover that my Virtual PC did not appear to be working.

I don’t know if anyone else has encountered this yet. This one was weird, but easy to fix once you figure out what’s wrong.

The symptoms: Virtual PC starts and an icon is created on the task bar. However, any attempt to interact with that icon causes it to disappear. If you check Windows Task Manager under processes, the Virtual PC executable is still running.

What happens is that the window location somehow gets set to ridiculous values, like 986875767436543 – which makes it invisible.

It turns out if you are able to hit the correct keys, you can start the VPC and the VPC session will appear on the screen correctly. (Luckily I figured this out about 3 seconds before my Webinar today, and was able to get the VPC running!)

Revolutionize Your Business With Generative AI

From product design and software development to virtual agents, content creation, and reporting, GenAI is transforming business. Our AI experts help you unlock GenAI’s full potential and drive growth.

Let’s Get Started

The solution is to manually update C:UsersyourusernameAppDataRoamingMicrosoftVirtual PCOptions.xml [Vista] or

C:Documents and SettingsyourusernameApplication DataMicrosoftVirtual PCOptions.xml [W2K3, XP]
to have the correct values.

My values (after correction) are:

– <<window>

– <<console>

<<height type="integer">256</height>

<<left_position type="integer">0</left_position>

<<top_position type="integer">0</top_position>

<<visible type="boolean">true</visible>

<<width type="integer">367</width>

</console>

HTH,

Tom