VS 2008 VPC images expiring
We interrupt this blog for an important public service announcement.
Microsoft has been telling folks that the Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPC images are going to expire on November 1, 2007. The VS 2008 install doesn't expire, but the base OS does. That's even more serious. If you are using the VPC image for your VS 2008 testing, you should back up all projects, VSTS database, etc. before this coming Thursday. (Of course, you should probably be running backups on anything important, but that's another story.)
You can learn more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffbe/archive/2007/10/25/vs2008-beta2-vpcs-expiring-prematurely.aspx and here http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffbe/archive/2007/10/27/update-on-expiring-vs2008-beta2-vpcs.aspx The second one is particularly useful. Jeff has done some testing by simulating the timeout on one of his machines. He discusses several workarounds to get your data, etc. off the image.
Also note: None of this affects you if you have been running the installer for VS 2008 yourself (either on real hardware, or a VPC you built yourself.) It's only an issue if you've been using the VPC images from the MSDN download center.