You can start up a specific VirtualPC virtual machine by double-clicking on its corresponding .vpc7 file. This eliminates having to first launch VPC then choose a specific entry from the Virtual PC List window. This can be helpful if you always find yourself opening a specific virtual machine session, or if you're trying to simplify the launch process for a less-experienced user.
Do the following:
Launch VirtualPC and open the Virtual PC List window (Window >Virtual PC List) or Command-L.
Right-click (or Control-click) on a virtual machine entry and select Reveal in Finder from the contextual menu that pops up. This will open up Finder window with the .vpc7 file that corresponds to that virtual machine.
For convenience, create an alias of the original .vpc7 file and copy it somewhere convenient, such as on your Desktop. You can double-click the alias of the .vpc7 file to open and begin running the associated virtual machine.
Notes:
Some may contend that this hint is so obvious that it really shouldn't qualify as a hint. I've been a heavy user of VPC since the beginning, but I was astounded that this method hadn't occurred to me sooner.
I don't know if this hint works with earlier versions of VPC (my guess is that it does). While the ability to create multiple virtual machines has been supported from as far back as VPC 3 (when it was still a Connectix product for System 9), I think it was only as of VPC 5 under OS X that virtual machine settings were stored in individual .vpc# files.
This hint is similar (but not identical) to the idea of changing PC Behavior settings in VPC's Preferences. That setting will allow you to restore all virtual machine sessions that were running the last time you quit, not just a specific one.
By default, VPC stores the .vpc7 settings files for each virtual machine in your Documents/Virtual PC List folder. You may see your VPC harddrive image (.vhdp) files there also. These are not the ones you want to alias. If you double-click these files, the Finder will attempt to mount them as disk-image volumes, and will not launch VPC.
This is actually a Mac VirtualPC-specific tip inspired by a similar one found in a blog entry by someone on the Microsoft VPC team (although not in the MacBU). While his tip only works in the Windows version, Ben's entire blog is a trove of VPC hints, insights and history.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060421043425227