>Hi,
>>If you're trying to transfer an installation of Windows you'll have to copy more than that (and the critical files aren't going to be directly accessible from within Windows). Basically you need to effectively do what you'd do with actual harddisk:
>>A. take the harddisk from old computer and install it in new computer
>>B. image the old harddisk and make duplicate on new harddisk that is installed in the new computer.
>>once you've got the harddisk into the new computer, you boot and go through the configuration process. For a VM, the "harddisk" is actually a file that represents the contents of the harddisk (the format depending on the particular VM system you're using) -- meaning that option A isn't really availble.
>
>If the VM can load a ROM based linux, he can block-copy from the old disc to the VM-"file" disc I beleive.

Well, once you've configured the a VM, then you could boot from any OS in the VM, then use that to image the old harddisk. This requires you physically open up the old PC to extract the harddisk first (so you can connect it to the "host" computer).

>>This means you have to use some program to image the original harddisk, then transfer the image to the VM. Let's say you're using Acronis TrueImage, you'd do the following:
>>1. boot the "old" computer using special boot disk
>>2. Image harddisk, send image to external harddisk
>
>On my versions of Acronis the special boot disc is only needed for restore to crashed systems, not backup.
>System files are handled by Acronis - dunno how, but they are.

The main reason for why I was suggesting using the boot disc is so that the image would be created without installing TrueImage on the old PC, nor opening up the old computer to extract the harddisk. Of course, if the old computer is still working, you could always use that old computer you could simply use the old system rather than transfer stuff to a VM. The downsides to older system would generally be:
1. it is probably slow
2. You'll need spare keyboard, monitor and mouse -- or use a KVM switch (if you don't already have these, you'll need to get it)
3. When hardware failure occurs, there might be a chance you won't be able to find replacement (I've already run into that with ATX power supplies. some older motherboards require -5V rail which newer power supplies don't have).

>
>>3. Prepare the VM, and configure it to boot from CD
>>4. "capture" the special boot disk so it boots from it
>>5. Attach the external harddisk to which you copied image in step 2
>>6. Use image and restore into virtual harddisk
>>7. When copy is complete, detach the CD from VM session, reconfigure VM to boot from (virtual) harddisk
>>8. Follow through with the reconfiguration of Windows
>>
>>If the above process seems too complicated, then perhaps starting from "scratch" with a fresh install (provided you have install CD) might be more straightforward.
>
>There are also tools available for building a VM from exisiting pysical machine - will look at those end of month myself.

That'll work too. One of the other reasons I was suggesting to image the harddisk is that in doing so, you'll be creating a backup of the old system. Of course, even after successfully transfering image of harddisk image of old (physical) system to the VM, you're still left with task of reconfiguring the copy of the OS within the VM (because you changed the hardware as far as the guest OS is concerned). Dealing with that part might prove to be too much of a hassle (especially in situations where the old system was one was a "name-brand" system with Windows already pre-installed -- in many cases that copy of Windows only works on that brand of computer, so unless the VM can be configured to "look" like a particular brand of system, you're out of luck with the transfer of OS).

>Can those VM files be run under linux when on the same machine ? Licensed host Win OS for that machine is installed,
>and having totally different files for XPMode and VirtualPC sounds counterintuitive.

IIRC VirtualPC is available to Windows 7 Home users, but the XP Mode VM (that is for VirtualPC) is only available to Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate. Both the VirtualPC and XP Mode VM can be downloaded for free (at one time there was a bit of confusion as Win7 Home users could download the VM -- only to find out that the installation would not work). As far as the VM files working under Linux -- is there a Linux version of VirtualPC?

One hassle you might run into when using VirtualPC is that if the host system has a multi-core CPU, some older OSs won't run at all as a "guest OS" within the VM (e.g. Windows 95 and WinXP prior to SP1/SP2).