What are the differences between Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual PC 2004?

The main difference is purpose. Virtual PC is designed primarily for running desktop operating systems & applications in interactive mode for testing purposes. Virtual Server is designed to run in non-interactive (daemon) mode for production purposes.

That’s not to say that Virtual PC can’t run server operating systems – It certainly can. It’s just that Microsoft won’t support you doing that in a production environment.

Other differences:

Virtual PC supports sound. Virtual Server does not.
Virtual Server provides support for SCSI disks (guest drives). Virtual PC does not.
Virtual Server exposes a COM API (with .NET PIAs) for extensibility. Virtual PC does not.
Virtual PC supports shared folders with the host. Virtual Server does not.
Virtual Server supports running the guest OS without an interactive session (daemon). Virtual PC does not.
And there you have it.

Paul Eddington
 

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