After attending Sasha's talk at the Adelaide SQL Server User Group yesterday, it inspired me to get the ball rolling in preparing for my own presentation, which is pencilled in for August.

Figuring it would be appropriate to try and use as many of the "2008" products as possible, I planned to install Windows Server 2008 and then plonk Visual Studio 2008 and the just-released SQL Server 2008 on top.

I downloaded Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (which was updated to support Server 2008) and then ran the installer.

To my surprise, a dialog appeared saying "You are not running on a supported operating system".

Hang on, I'm running Windows XP with SP3. Double check the system requirements, and yes, it does list XP SP3.

Now I used to run Virtual PC just fine before I reinstalled the OS a few months ago, so what's changed?

Ah ha! I was running Windows XP Professional before, and now I'm just running XP Home - that's what's different! While it doesn't explicitly mention "Professional" on the web page, it is more specific in the installed help file:

Windows Vista™ Business; Windows Vista™ Enterprise; Windows Vista™ Ultimate; Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition; Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows XP Professional; Windows XP Professional x64 Edition; or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

But having said that, when they say "not supported", at least they don't appear to mean "doesn't work".