Using Virtual PC to Evaluate EEE PC

For a while now I have been eyeing off the Asus EEE PC. I liked the look of it and wanted to get one as a 'mobile email client' to use at Microsoft.  However there were two significant issues for me.  The first was that it only supports a display of 800x480 - and I wasn't sure if I could actually use Outlook at that resolution.  The second was that it only has 4GB of storage.

I spent some time trying to find some hardware that I could use to try this out - and soon found that none of my computers would support this resolution.  But in a moment of inspiration I realized that as Virtual PC supports arbitrary resolutions once Virtual Machine Additions are installed, I could use Virtual PC as a test:

A little while later I had a virtual machine with a 4GB hard disk and Vista running at 800x480.  Thanks to this I was able to confirm that yes - the EEE PC was a good option for me.

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 05, 2008
  What did you use for your CPU/memory settings on that virtual.  I've heard that putting vista on the eee is to aggressive. also, you know the new one  with the 9 inch screen is coming out very soon at a 700$ price point (same form factor). I'd hold off.

• Anonymous
  March 05, 2008
  Vista is history, i'am running the EEE 4G on XP and Outlook 2007, works great. Upgraded it to 1 Gb ram, and added a 4 Gb SD card for storrage. With a bigger power consuming screen, what will the battery time be ? More info would show up on eeeuser.com

• Anonymous
  March 05, 2008
  How did you cut Vista for only 3.72Gb space usage?

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2008
  Excellent idea Ben. It would be fantastic if you would explain how you managed to install Vista onto such a small drive? The Vista installer kindly informs me that I am unable to install Vista onto a drive with less than 7GB of space. Many thanks, Morgan

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2008
  To answer some questions: Yes - I did use vLite to get Vista installed.  Yes - I did buy an EEE PC and am running Vista on it now quite happily. Cheers, Ben

• Anonymous
  March 07, 2008
  Many thanks for the reply Ben. I was hoping there was an "official" way to cut Vista down. Unfortunately vLite cannot be used for commercial purposes :(

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2008
  Client of ours is running XP on the EeePC.   Ram was bumped up to 2 gig I think with an 8 gig card.   But tempted to get one myself and do the Vista thing on it... :) The Wifi range on that tiny little thing is SO impressive!

• Anonymous
  April 02, 2008
  Nice kit, isn't it? I use it in my stone cottage - and it is the only thing that can pick up wireless signals in there. The walls are largely 3' thick stone - so whether it's bounce or scatter I don't know.