Yes, you need a separate firewall (or the one that comes with XP) and
AV on your VM's, as it's just like it's a separate PC and the host's
software doesn't protect it.

I'm trying to snatch a Windows2000 laptop and run it as a virtual machine on
a new Vista laptop, in order to access some of the legacy software that just
won't run under Vista.

So, I thought I did my homework. Installed VPC2004 as the "last supported"
version for the Windows2000 machine, and imaged the hard drive (there's only
one drive, one hidden manufacturer's partition in the usual Compaq style,
one primary/active partiton that the computer normally boots to with
Windows2000, nothing fancy) to an external drive for storage.

Then copied the .vhd file to the new Vista laptop, where I have VPC2007
installed.

I started up VPC2007, told it to make a Windows2000 machine, use the
existing .vhd file (which is now local on that machine) and....just can't
make it happen. The virtual machine session appears to start, with a black
window and white text, and the sum of the whole display (with omissions)
runs this way:

"Argon PXE Boot Agent v.2.00.....Client MAC
ADDR....GUID:....DHCP...(rotating unix-style csursor for maybe two
minutes)...
....
.....PXE-53 No boot File name received [at least I think that's the
message--it comes and goes fast]...

Reboot and Select proper Boot device

or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device"

And that's it, I'm left with a prompt to insert boot media someplace, which
is odd since the VHD image should be bootable the same way that the real
computer is bootable, no?

Am I missing "Something Simple, Stupid!" or what?

--Red