>>You are right - it did not occur to me at the time. I shall consider doing so this coming weekend. Perhaps a good reason to make the move to Linux. The laptop is "beefy" enough; 8Gb RAM, 2.5Ghz CPU, Lenovo Thinkpad T520 model.
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>There is some interesting reading if you Google [lenovo banned].


In Linux use VirtualBox (open source) for all Windows machines. I have run WinXP, Win Server 2003, Vista, Win7, in 32-bit and 64-bit modes. I assign two cores, 2GB RAM, and use a growing VMDK disk of 200GB.

Works wonderfully. Also, once you run the machine full-screen and resize guest, press Ctrl+C to enter scale mode. Is great for using 1920x1200 on laptop with lesser resolution.