cannot install vista beta 2 virtual pc

Because of the bad news I heard about Vista, I decided to only install it on a Virtual PC. I don't have an empty PC I could play with anyway.
Ok, I created a new Virtual Machine with the Wizard and the default settings. - First, attaching the iso-image didn't work. Probably Virtual PC only supports images for CDs and not for DVDs. Ok, I burned a DVD and attached the DVD device to the Virtual PC. - Then blue screen in setup (well, actually black background): some cryptic error code and a message with something like "couldn't create ramdisk" or so and "because too few memory". Ok, default memory of 128MB for a virtual machine is obviously too low. I increased memory setting (I think to 256MB) and tried again. - I got further and received a colorful background image. But after waiting for a long time, nothing happened. Then, I tried again to do something in the VM and - suprise - when moving the mouse pointer, a window appeared. But only where the mouse has moved over. So some kind of refresh problem. After wiping over the entire screen I could see a window where I could enter Installation language, Time format and Keyboard layout. - After selecting Installation language (only english available), and Time format (cannot remember what I selected there). The selection for Keyboard layout was disabled. Ok, so I pressed Next anyway. Then an empty error message box appeared. And Installer freezed. Even moving the mouse didn't work anymore. Ok, I increased memory to 512MB and tried again. - This time I got further. I could select the three comboboxes now and got to a screen where I could enter the Product Key. I entered it and deselected the checkbox for auto-activation. After clicking on Next, I received an error message saying that "Setup failed to open the Windows image file". This is the only time I got so far. - The next time (in the VM setting I have undo disks enabled and never saved anything, so every time a clean retry) I booted and receive a bluescreen (actually black background) displaying some error message. Before I can read it, the system reboots again. This repeats always. I cannot get beyond this point now. - Report an Issue says it needs the two files setupact.log and setuperr.log in the directory $WINDOWS~BT\sources\panther\, but I don't know how I should get them from the VM.
Side information: I downloaded the image from MSDN and it should be ok. When burning the DVD, I made a verify, so the disk should be ok too.
Questions: Anybody had similar problems and ideas about how to circumvent them?
Eric

Virtual PC is not a recommended Virtualization solution for Vista right now, try VM Ware, Virtual Server 2005 R2 or install on a logical partition. -- -- Andre Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
"Eric" wrote in message

Because of the bad news I heard about Vista, I decided to only install it on a Virtual PC. I don't have an empty PC I could play with anyway.
Ok, I created a new Virtual Machine with the Wizard and the default settings. - First, attaching the iso-image didn't work. Probably Virtual PC only supports images for CDs and not for DVDs. Ok, I burned a DVD and attached the DVD device to the Virtual PC. - Then blue screen in setup (well, actually black background): some cryptic error code and a message with something like "couldn't create ramdisk" or so and "because too few memory". Ok, default memory of 128MB for a virtual machine is obviously too low. I increased memory setting (I think to 256MB) and tried again. - I got further and received a colorful background image. But after waiting for a long time, nothing happened. Then, I tried again to do something in the VM and - suprise - when moving the mouse pointer, a window appeared. But only where the mouse has moved over. So some kind of refresh problem. After wiping over the entire screen I could see a window where I could enter Installation language, Time format and Keyboard layout. - After selecting Installation language (only english available), and Time format (cannot remember what I selected there). The selection for Keyboard layout was disabled. Ok, so I pressed Next anyway. Then an empty error message box appeared. And Installer freezed. Even moving the mouse didn't work anymore. Ok, I increased memory to 512MB and tried again. - This time I got further. I could select the three comboboxes now and got to a screen where I could enter the Product Key. I entered it and deselected the checkbox for auto-activation. After clicking on Next, I received an error message saying that "Setup failed to open the Windows image file". This is the only time I got so far. - The next time (in the VM setting I have undo disks enabled and never saved anything, so every time a clean retry) I booted and receive a bluescreen (actually black background) displaying some error message. Before I can read it, the system reboots again. This repeats always. I cannot get beyond this point now. - Report an Issue says it needs the two files setupact.log and setuperr.log in the directory $WINDOWS~BT\sources\panther\, but I don't know how I should get them from the VM.
Side information: I downloaded the image from MSDN and it should be ok. When burning the DVD, I made a verify, so the disk should be ok too.
Questions: Anybody had similar problems and ideas about how to circumvent them?
Eric