This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz
by Mark Harrison.
Original Post: Virtual PC - demo quick start
Feed Title: Mark Harrison
Feed URL: http://markharrison.co.uk/blog/xml.aspx
Feed Description: .NET Portals, Collaboration and eBiz
Great thing about doing demonstrations with Virtual PC is the ability to delete any changes and revert back to the VPCs demo starting state, so that the demo can be repeated later from the same known position.
With Office 12, I am now using two VPCs - one with O12 Server/Client and another with AD/Exchange/Live Communications Server. Starting both of these from scratch can take many minutes.
In order to quick start my VPCs I have created two batch files:
1. This is used to save the state of the VPC at the start of the demo ... it assumes that there is a folder called 'Reset' located in the directory of the VPC image. Start the VPC and allow all the services to start and hit various web pages to get the various databases opened and caches loaded - get to the start of the demo then close the VPC but ensure you elect to Save State (optionally commit changes to the virtual hard disk). Then invoke the following:
save.bat
del reset\*.vud del reset\*.vmc del reset\*.vsv copy *.vud reset copy *.vmc reset copy *.vsv reset pause
2. The following is used restore the state of the VPC to the start of the demo - as soon as this has executed, invoke the .VMC file ... the VPC will quickly load at the demo start.
restore.bat
del *.vud del *.vsv copy reset\*.vud . copy reset\*.vmc . copy reset\*.vsv . pause
The .VUD file stores changes to enable the UNDO facility. If when you turn of the VPC you commit any changes back to the virtual hard disk then this file will not exist.
Previous Topic
