Virtual PC on Windows 7 Home Premium?

I've recently been trying to get Diablo 1 to work on my Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium. But when I try to run it, it stays at the black screen of doom. If I play music, the music stops. I can tell that the game crashed my system, so I have to hard restart it. So I've been thinking of getting the Windows Virtual PC for my system. It says that only Ultimate and some others can use Virtual PC, but I've read that people using Home Premium actually got Virtual PC to work. So does anyone know a way to get Diablo 1 running, or a way to get Virtual PC to work?

theres nothing to stop you running a virtual machine and installing windows xp on it. Microsoft provide a free download of a virtual PC package with windows XP on, it is this package that only works on windows 7 professional or ultimate.

So the Microsoft one won't work. So if I used a third party Virtual Machine, I'd have to get Windows XP seperately, right?

yes, and you'd have to install it as if you were installing it on a real computer.

I probably could do all that, but I'm terrible at deciding how much RAM and things to allocate to my Windows XP. Oh well.Thanks alot.

512MB is a realistic minimum for xp to function properly.

Okay, what if my PC has around 4GB RAM. If I allocate 1GB of RAM, my Windows 7 will only get 3GB of RAM? Isn't the minimum for Windows 7 4GB?

I recommended getting VMWare player though, it can easy install Windows XP by itself, without having you to do things.

Is VMWare Player free?

Replying to #9

Yes, if you google it.Filehippo's result has the official installation file. Other downloads have a false one (asking for offers and such).Just google "VMWare Player".
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Here:http://www.filehippo.com/download_vmware_player/VMWare Workstation is not free so don't click "Upgrade to VMWare Workstation" when it is installed.

I got it from the official VMWare website.

Replying to #11

You need to register for downloading from there right?Anyway, I think the download will be the same.Put in your Windows XP CD or capture the ISO (you can choose from the installer disc or ISO image when creating the virtual machine).Enter your serial number, name and (optional) a password, and VMWare player will install it for you.

Thank you Yoshi. This seems easy enough. But how much lag will I get from running Windows XP and 7 at the same time?

Replying to #13

I get (with Windows Vista Business) almost no lag.Yes sometimes a little bit, but not too often.

So if I give my Virtual machine 512mb, then my Windows 7 gets 512 less MB, so around 3.5Gb. Is that okay for Windows 7?

Replying to #15

Yes.With 4 GB of RAM you can even give it 2 GB to make it faster!Windows 7 needs 1 GB of RAM to run, so I recommended leaving 1.5 GB of RAM to the host (Windows 7) because VMWare player needs a little RAM by itself too.

I allocated 512mb to my Virtual machine. Can I change how much RAM to allocate even after it's finished installing Windows XP?

Replying to #17

Yes.After it's installed shut down the virtual machine ( just like you shut down a real computer) and select the virtual machine's name. Then click settings. From there you see a tab called "RAM", there you can slide a bar up and down (or click on the numbers) to allocaote more/less RAM to the virtual machine.You can also expand the virtual disk from there (in an other tab of course). For example if you selected 40 GB on the installation screen you can make it 80 GB. To do this select "Hard disk", then the button "Advanced", then "Expand".

I see. A few more questions. If I shut down virtual machine, my windows 7 will get the full 4gb RAM, but when I DO turn on Virtual machine, xxx amount of RAM will go to the Virtual machine, right?

Replying to #19

Yes that is true.VMWare player takes the amount of RAM it needs to run, and will add it back to Windows 7 when you shut down.