Have you ever wondered why Microsoft has yet to release a 64 bit version of Virtual PC? I suppose it’s a question that most of us ask ourselves when we’re setting up an environment to develop code and we’re not too keen on paving our hefty notebooks to run Windows Server 2008 x64 with HyperV to install other VMs on top of it in support of our SharePoint 2010 instances.
Interestingly enough, Microsoft states that the Virtual PC software is more to assist small businesses…
Does Windows Virtual PC support 64-bit Windows XP as a guest operating system?
No. Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode was designed to help small business with application compatibility from Windows XP to Windows 7. The majority of business applications currently run on 32-bit versions of
Windows XP.Source: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/faq.aspx
And yet, so many small businesses are adopting SharePoint, wouldn’t it seem like the natural fit to release a software package that can allow for 64-bit virtualization? And I bet that they could write a memory management module that would allow to go beyond what the 32-bit software operating system is typically bound to similar to Windows Server 2003 x86 Enterprise Edition’s ability to see up to 32 GB of RAM and address it as well.
I wonder if they did if it would look something like this:
I guess since it’s not yet available, we’ll go with the next best thing… 🙂
The Tech Blog of Dan Usher 