• Virtual PC has three different ways to connect a guest to the network.network connection image by stresskiller from Fotolia.com
  
  Virtual PC is a desktop virtualization software program by Microsoft. Virtualization software allows you to run one or more operating systems (guests) from your desktop (host). Choose the type of networking access your guests have, from limiting it to communicating with the host, to give it full access with its own IP address.
  
  

Local Only

• A local only connection will limit the communication between the host and the guest. That type of connection is often used to create tests servers that should not be accessed from outside the computer but needs to communicate with the host and each other. The host has two IP addresses, one to communicate with the real network and one to communicate with the virtual network of guests. It is not necessary to be physically connected to a network for the guest and hosts to communicate with each other.
  
  

Shared Network With NAT

• When configuring a shared network with NAT (Network Address Translation), your guests use the same IP address as your host. From the network, your guests are therefore invisible to other computers and all the communication is seen as coming from your host computer. It is used when the guests need access to the network but you do not need or want users to access those machines from the network.
  
  

Virtual Networking

• Virtual networking allows guests to have their own IP addresses on the network. The guest machines are totally independent from the host. Users can access them; they can be on different branches of the network if the switch is configured to allow it. The host needs to have an active network connection for the various guest machines to communicate with each other.