Windows 7 knows it is in a Virtual Machine

Today I did a Windows Update on Win7beta to get Tuesday's patches from Microsoft. There was at least one.

Then I saw a link in the start menu for games. Cool. So I opened it up and saw the usual games plus three that I don't recall seeing the past: Internet Checkers, Internet Backgammon and Internet Spades. I'll be trying those out soon. What was more interesting for me was the area on the right where it said "This computer's Performance Information has not been created."

OK, so let's create it -- I clicked on "Rate this computer", then again on the "Rate this computer button" on the next page and got a somewhat surprising message "Unable to run an assessment inside a virtual machine. WinSAT can not obtain accurate measurements inside of a virtual machine. Please try again running directly on the native hardware." DARN! -- but cool nevertheless. It knew it was running inside Virtual PC 2007. Maybe I should find a spare hard drive to put this on in another machine...