Interesting. MS Virtual PC 2004 is now free -
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx
MS bought Connectix in '03, renamed Virtual PC to MS Virtual PC, it sold for $129.
I've managed to get some Linux isos running and most will boot & run from CD (horribly slow).
There's a good comparison of MSVPC and VMWare in
ars technica from 2004 -
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/vm.ars/2 - essential reading.
They have a good tip - "However, it is possible to further tweak VPC by editing the .vmc file installed (by default) in \My Documents\My Virtual Machines. The .vmc file is actually an XML preference file for Virtual PC. Open it up in your favorite text editor and you can do things like edit the MAC address of your network adapter and make other tweaks not possible via the program itself."
VMWare obviously offers far more control and can be made compatible with most distros, which MSVPC can't, but when it works well it's outstanding - MEPIS (which works) runs almost at native speeds.
I'll probably get VMWare Workstation for Linux (I'll try Xen first) because it seems silly to run a proper OS like Linux under a VM on Windows, rather the other way around.
My "solution" to the Windows/Linux dichotomy is to run two separate machines at my desk - Windows has a dual monitor setup and I use a KVM switch to alternate the second monitor between Windows and various Linux boxen. The only real annoyance is that I can't cut and paste between machines.
I know that there are other alternatives, vnc, rdp and ssh and I'm tinkering with them.
Heyho
Hmmm. Got rdesktop working. I'm in fact writing this in an XP window on the SuSE machine. Only 16-bit colour, but I think that's the highest Windows will go on rdp. Can even cut and paste.
So it goes...
Got vncviewer working now with XP running a TightVNC server - kinda wobbly but works. Some fine tuning called for I think.