Stopping a Virtual PC image from synchronizing the date with your host OS

“What will happen if the date/time on a machine is reset or is in a different time zone?” is a question that we sometimes run into, particularly from professionals whose documents are particularly date/time sensitive. Fortunately, this question can easily be handled by setting up one or more virtual machines.

Having said this, out of the box, Virtual PC virtual machines synchronize their date with the date of the hosting operating system. This means that no matter what control panel you alter in the guest OS, the date/time reverts back to the host OS settings, which can be really frustrating. To prevent this default action from occurring, you can add the following XML section to the .VMC file for the image that you’d like to desynchronize:

Sciosoft Systems is a Canadian web design & development company based in Muskoka, which is in central Ontario. We provide ASP.NET website & Windows Server application development services to small and medium-sized business, as well as local government and not-for-profit groups. If you have a website project you’d like to discuss, please visit us at www.sciosoft.com.