Port blocked by Virtual PC

[Peter Johnson]

I have two laptops running Windows 7. On one I have installed XP Mode (XP running within Virtual PC). On the other I have VMWare Server with an XP client. As far as I can tell, the two XP setups are very similar with the same anti-virus and firewall software with the exact same configuration, and both are using IE 7 with the default configuration. Ditto for the Win7 systems - exact same security suite is in use with the same configuration.

There is a web site I use that runs an OpenLaszlo app within IE, and the site makes a call to a service via some port. That web site is configured to be a trusted web site in IE. In the XP Mode, the call is blocked, but with XP running in VMWare, the call is not blocked. (This is a high-level overview, I could provide the excruciating details if needed.)

Does anyone know of any information on Virtual PC blocking certain calls?

[Janeice DelVecchio]

Not completely sure, but the VirtualPC is a client software... the VMWare Server might have extra resources or ports enabled.

You might try making sure IIS is installed in the VirtualPC XP load, and manually adding the port to the exceptions list in the WinXP firewall (if that's what you're using).

[Peter Johnson]

No, the XP firewall is disabled. I'm using the corporate version of Symantec Endpoint Protection on Win7 and XP (on both machines), and unfortunately since it is a corporate version I cannot configure the ports by hand.

Not completely sure, but the VirtualPC is a client software... the VMWare Server might have extra resources or ports enabled.

I was thinking along the same lines, perhaps something with how the network bridge from the client XP VM to the physical network is handled. I know that VMWare provides different options for making such connection, I'll look into what Virtual PC provides. It's current set at NAT, I'll try one of the other options and see what that does.

[Janeice DelVecchio]

You should try, for S's and G's, to disable your Symantec and see if it fixes your issue. If it does, you might try a more configurable firewall.

I'll ask my boyfriend.... he knows more about this than I do.