>Hi Al. Thanks for your very informational response. I'll try to amplify my situation and respond to your questions.
>
>>If you're just doing one simple thing, ask someone with a Win7 box to test it for you.
>
>Unfortunately, I don't know anyone other than this one client who has Windows 7. They are 1200 miles away at the moment, and no one there would be savvy enough to provide the information I hope to gain from these tests. They only have 2 workstations at present and are waiting for me to finish my testing before deploying more. Ironically, when I explained to them yesterday that I'd run into problems and the deployment would be delayed yet again, they volunteered that it was OK, because "everyone hates Windows 7 anyway" and won't use those workstations unless no other ones are available :-) I think there is a huge learning curve to move from XP to Windows 7 and it's a real productivity hit for companies. Microsoft never seems to fully appreciate the effect such a major reorganization of features and functionality in the OS will have upon users for whom productivity is critical. Heck, I've had Word 2007 since it came out and I'm still nowhere near as productive with it as I was with Word 2003!
>
>> A few general pointers about VirtualBox and virtualization in general:
>
>>- there is good information on supported host and guest OSs in the user manual, available at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads . Loading a Win7 guest on an XP host is supported.
>
>I did notice that the OS combination is supported, and it MAY have worked if I had let it run for several more hours. Even the partially installed OS tried to boot as I restarted my workstation. That scared me because I thought I'd overwritten the host OS, XP! With Microsoft's Virtual PC you have to start the virtual machine before you can start the OS but somehow, this install was set up to boot the virtual machine upon restarting the workstation--possibly a choice I made somewhere along the line, not knowing the implication of it!
>
>>- make sure you're trying to install a 32-bit Windows 7 guest OS rather than 64-bit. While you can install a 64-bit guest OS on a 32-bit host with VirtualBox, it requires a 64-bit CPU with hardware virtualization support, which I'm guessing you don't have
>
>You are correct: this is a 32 bit machine and did choose the proper version. That installed easily. It’s the OS that causes problems.
>
>> - you may need to enable virtualization support in your computer's BIOS. This feature, if available with your CPU and motherboard, is often, if not usually, disabled by default
>
>I hadn't heard about this and will check to see--if I try this again.
>
>>- are you absolutely positive you've specified the VHD file to be where there's lots of free space?
>
>Yes. It took 2 tries to figure out how to do that. Even then there is confusion during the install of the OS because 3 target 'drives' are shown even though I only created 1 VHD file. In my situation, only one of the targets had sufficient space. I expected to see only one drive available--the one on which the VHD had been created.
>
>>- are you desperately low on free disk space on C:? If so, and you have a fragmented swap file and not much room for other temporary files, that's going to cause lots of problems in the Windows host, and therefore in any guest VMs as well. I consider less than 10% free dangerous, less than 5% free desperate.
>
>There is about 10 GB free on C:\. (approximately 18%) and 35 GB free on D:\ (60%)
>
>>- how much RAM is in use on the host after you open VirtualBox, but before you start the VM? If it's already using close to 2GB that's not going to help. Allocating 1GB for a Win7 guest is adequate as long as it's not doing a lot of stuff.
>
>I didn't check RAM before starting the install. The host was using 2.5 GB during the install.
>
>>Virtualization works best with a current 64-bit CPU and at least 6, if not 8 or more GB RAM, and tons of free disk space.
>
>Well, if I could provide that I'd probably have a Windows 7 machine :-) I suspect the lack of RAM is the problem. Although I checked the system requirements before downloading each product, we all know those are the minimums. It comes down to what you as a user can tolerate for speed. My threshold is something way less than 8 1/2 hours for installing an OS.
>
>>It's too bad you've had a bad experience, that's probably left a bad taste in your mouth about virtualization. With adequate hardware, it's a godsend for testing; when you get it working you'll wonder how you lived without it. Hardware is cheap; get a 64-bit CPU and mobo, lots of RAM and disk, load up Win7 64-bit as a host and you're well set for virtualization.
>
>Actually, the bad taste isn’t for virtualization :-) I might actually consider getting a beefier machine if it weren’t for the fact that it would come with Windows 7--and the fact that this machine is still under warranty. I just don’t see enough (any?) advantages to the OS upgrade to make it worth the huge hit in productivity during the protracted transition. Much of the software I use every day would no longer run. For a couple of critical programs, there is no upgrade path since the publishers chose not to support Vista/Windows 7. For others, the software upgrade costs are substantially more than the computer itself. I know I'll have to address this at some point, but for now, I just need to concentrate on getting work done. I know I should embrace new technology but my clients are very conservative too. Until more of them move to Windows 7, there's just not much of an incentive for me to endure the pain. However, I just ordered a new Dell notebook as a gift for my daughter. She's a writer and isn't anxious to have Windows 7 and Word 2010 but needs a new computer. Her gift may be every-so-slightly used by the time she opens it on December 25th!

For my own use, I've been using Win7 Ultimate 64-bit since February. I also still extensively use XP at various client sites. Win7 is the better OS, no doubt about it. At the simplest level, it has numerous UI tweaks that improve productivity, like the search box above the start button, getting window previews by just hovering over the task bar buttons (without having to switch to them), Aero Flip working with TS/Remote Desktop sessions where Alt-Tab doesn't, etc. etc. I can't think of anything I regularly do that is easier or better in XP.

So, as they say, jump in - the water's fine.

As for installing Win7 in a VM - in general, Win7 installs faster than XP, there's no way a Win7 install on a VM should take hours. If you have 3GB total RAM, and you've allocated 1GB to the VM that will be hosting Win7, you should make sure that after VirtualBox is started, but before you start the VM, that RAM usage on your system is significantly less than ( 3GB - 1GB = 2GB ). If it's more than 2GB before you start the VM, your system will be continuously paging to disk and performance will be brutally slow.

If you're still interested in virtualization, one arrangement you could consider would be to get a new Win7 computer, and install one or more XP virtual machines on it (use VirtualBox rather than Win7 XP mode, it's better). That would let you get accustomed to Win7 at your own pace, while still giving you access to XP for either your own use or for developing and testing for your clients who are still using XP. I think you'd like using VM snapshots for testing, the possibilities are endless. By getting some exposure to Win7 now, you'd be ahead of the curve vis. your clients, and you'd be in a position of knowledge when, not if, they have to upgrade to Win7.