VNC for Joggler

Using Chicken of the VNC on OS X and TightVNC on Windows XP, connecting to Joggler is very straightforward. See System Tools (I think) / Remote Desktop and enable things in there.

However, don't see the desktop or the UNR menus, but everything else seems to work as I'd expect. Think it's probably configured to run without transmitting the desktop, to save bandwidth?

Toning down Kaspersky

Kaspersky's avp.exe process was hogging resources and causing windows to act like a dog. I turned off things like

anti-phishing
anti-spyware

and also changed so scans and on-access checking was a lot less aggressive, for example not checking every file, and only checking files when opened. I set it so that it paused while OneNote was starting up.

Getting Windows to recognise increased Parallel's Virtual Disk size

A week or two ago I increased the size of the virtual disk image that Windows XP was using - from 9 to 20 Gb - using the Parallel's image tool. Actually, I changed it from Expanding to Fixed size as well, as I found hints that it would improve performance, which is a bit slow in Windows.

Today I got Low Disk Space warnings, and found that C: was only 9Gb. I tried using these instructions to expand the NTFS partition up to the whole space available.

I also got into the Virtual Machine settings in Parallels and changed it so that it was using Shared Networking (VM and host appear on same IP), and Shared Folders for My Documents = Documents. Now My Documents is my Mac's Documents folder, which is much better than having to access a network drive (X:).

Getting Advent 4211's original disk moved over

The original disk image has XP Home on it, and there's a COA on the base. I tried to install XP Pro and unsurprisingly it didn't like the key from the COA for XP Home (also XP Pro is SP2, whereas XP Home is for SP3, don't know if it makes any difference).

Interestingly the MSI forum is full of people having problems with the backup of the restore partition. The Advent box comes with instructions on how to back up this partition, which I'll need to do one way or another.

I copied everything from the XP partition to the HDD of the Mac, but then can't get it into a Parallels virtual disk because you don't seem to be able to just create one. Probably it wouldn't work anyway. Then I found this post:

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/06/24/parallels-virtual-disk-dance-of-pain/

You have to create a disk image using VMware's free Converter tool, then use the Parallels Transporter to 'migrate' the image. Here goes...

Oh, it's a Windows program. But maybe you can run it on itself. Looks like you can, but maybe not on XP Home. Will swap HDD tomorrow and try it out.

Installing Parallels on Mac OS X to get Windows XP Pro going

When I first started up Parallels after installing it, it seemed to find the My Boot Camp virtual machine. I'm not really sure where it came from. I tried to run it and at hung up, trying to 'start from hard drive'. Anyway, I deleted it (seems to be just a 4kB file somewhere in my Documents folder).

I ran Parallels Desktop again, and this time it did what the Quick Start guide said it would - offer to make a new VM. Good. The 'more options' section has the very useful option to Share virtual machine with other Mac users, which forces you to put the VM in /Users/Shared/Parallels - this is good I think, means other people could use Word and Excel and so on.

I was also able to tell it to install from the XP Pro image I had made as a backup on my desktop - neat.

However, it seemed to try to boot from various devices then said non-system disk or disk error. Oh. I selected Devices->CD/DVD 1 and told it to use the hardware DVD drive and it worked after that. Hmm.

Unlike the last time I had this going, I haven't had to create a separate partition. There is a file called winxp.hdd in the Parallels folder for the VM, and it keeps getting bigger as the copy/install happens. That's great - it was awful having this unnecessary partition last time. Only I made such a partition already, thinking I would need it!

Coherence doesn't work like it used to - seems to say I have to install the Parallels Tools. I do this from Parallels menu Actions -> Install Parallels tools. That works much nicer now, and has, as promised, linked up my Desktop and other folders.

Also do Actions -> Install Kapersky Internet Security which I bought as part of the Premium edition of Parallels (since I was so impressed)

Installed my favourite Firefox addons:

Ad Blocker

Gmail Manager

Download Statusbar

CookieSafe

dragdropupload

Had problems with an update error in Windows Update.

Got Office 2007 Home and Student edition installed - now I'm up and running for the project that's kicking off very soon.