Re: Another approach to OS migration
- From: Leon@xxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:54:03 -0400
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:51:21 -0400, "Arny Krueger" <arnyk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've been experimenting with what some may find to be a different approach
to migrating my audio and video work to Windows 7.
As an alternative to just installing the new OS and applications and making
a cold-turkey switch, or maintaining two audio workstations one old, one
new; I've been experimenting with migrating a complete audio production XP
system to a virtual machine running under Windows 7/64 bits. Thus one
physical computer can be both a Windows 7 audio production facility, and
also host a full-function clone of its predecessor that runs in a virtual
machine.
After a number of months struggling with the MS virtual machine offerings
for consumer use, I switched over to the VMWare alternatives which are
seemingly well-supported and freely downloadable.
VMWare's software has the advantage of being able to take existing
operational XP systems running on a wide variety of PC hardware platforms
and run it on a virtual machine. The two products that I've been using with
good preliminary sucess are VMWare's "VMWare Player" and "Stand Alone
Converter". These are free downloads. I also use Acronis True Image Home,
which is inexpensive and readily downloadable. There may be a free
alternative to the Acronis software that would work for this application,
but I had it on hand for cloning hard drives and it fits well into this
application.
I start out with an standard operational XP system on a hard drive from a
laptop or a desktop computer. I convert it into a VMware virtual machine by
using Acronis True Image 11 to back the hard drive into an Acronis .tib
(disk backup) file. Note that this can be done with Acronis running on the
system that is being virtualized, so there is no need to even crack the case
of the old computer. I could conceivably put the backup file on a flash
drive and walk away from the old machine forever.
I then use VMWare's Stand Alone Converter to convert the Acronis .tib backup
file into a VMWare Virtual machine which is just a file folder with a few
files in it. Virtual machines can be copied, shared and moved across
networks just like other file folders. Yes, the VMWare virtual machine
includes a file image of the occupied portions of the source hard drive,
which in my case ran about 40 GB per virtual machine. Since terrabyte hard
drives are now under $70, this is no biggie. These two conversion steps take
an hour or two for typical XP systems.
I then virtually boot the VMWare virtual machine from my Windows 7/64 using
VMWare's virtual machine player. It runs in a window. Note that all of the
operations I just described can be performed by, and execute upon a number
of different Windows and non-Windows operating systems, both 32 and 64 bit.
For example, I could have done this with a standard 32 bit XP system. As I
read VMWare's doc, it appears that either the host or the guest or both
could be *Nix sysetms. IME a fairly typical modern computer can host a
complete audio workstation that itself has typical performance for a new
machine.
The virtual XP system boots as usual in a window, if anything faster than on
than on the old computer. The host machine is capable of the usual kinds of
multitasking you may want to do while this is going on. Once booted, the
virtual XP system can multitask, share files, access a network, itself surf
the web, do audio playback and recording, etc. Once I click inside the
virtual machine window the mouse cursor is trapped there until I press
Ctrl-Alt to release it. I can even run multiple concurrent virtual
machines.
Thus I can work with audio on the virtual machine as I always have, and ease
into my new operational situation with the Windows 7 desktop and possibly
new applications on my own personal schedule with no duplicated hardware. I
could do this all on a laptop.
I understand that one version of Win 7 has an XP mode... is there a reason you
don't use that?
Also, why are you using Acronis? Do you need an original disc image to do this?
Could you install the original drive and get the same results? What about Norton
Ghost?
Can you just install the audio software in the virtual window without an
original XP drive (image)?
Thanks!
.
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