Speed issues...

[drmacintosh]

Just recently I have installed the update to Virtual Box 4.2.12 r84980, VirtualBox 4.2.12 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack and Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Editions 4.2.12 r84980. As the Host Machine I am running Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 32-bit edition and inside it I am running Windows Virtual PC which runs Microsoft Windows XP SP3. The computer in which I am running this on is a Late 2012 Mac mini 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, 16GB memory, 500GB hard drive and Mountain Lion OS X.8.3. My broadband Internet connection is a cable connection of 30 Mbps down/4 Mbps upload. In going through the Microsoft Updates to Windows Virtual PC running Microsoft Windows XP SP3 I notice that there are 101 updates and they are downloading & installing quite slowly. Are there any reasons for this? What can be done to improve on time?

[Perryg]

nested virtualization is not supported and you see why. Even if you get it to work it will be slow, not to mention other issues.

[mdurisseau]

Silly question, but is there any reason you need to run Virtual PC? What it seems you're doing is using an emulator with an emulator...that will inherently be slow...You could install Win XP and let it run in VirtualBox.

[loukingjr]

I agree trying to run an emulator inside a VB guest won't run very well. But to answer your question, downloading and installing updates for any version of Windows is a slow process no matter if you are running on hardware or in a guest. It probably has to do with the zillions of Windows machines trying to update.