Mister Vista

I'm installing build 5270 of Windows Vista [beta 2] on a virtual PC upstairs, as per the instructions here. So far so good. I tried to install it on VPC/Mac but it borked on lack of ACPI support in the BIOS: a real shame as the Mac has lots more RAM than the PC.

Installing a virtual PC via Remote Desktop is a real challenge: because Remote Desktop doesn't support relative mouse coordinating until Virtual Machine Additions [add-ons for VPC like shared folders from the host OS] is installed, the mouse behaves really strangely: capture takes minutes, and subsequently every tiny mouse movement correlates to a giant leap on the screen. The Windows Vista setup supports keyboard shortcuts almost completely: the "select partition" screen doesn't seem to support shortcuts for each partition. It's been a general trend for installations to ask fewer questions: Vista asks for a product key, a partition to install into (this may be the problem with build 5270 in VPC, if the technique in the link above doesn't work for you try this one) and a NetBIOS name, and then off it goes. I will have to wait to tomorrow to see if it worked though..

Edit: sort of. Running 5308 now which nearly works even better.