Duplicate company in AX 2012

The Duplicate Company function in AX 2009 is deprecated in AX 2012, and the reason is "The organization model represents a paradigm shift in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012", said by Microsoft. To copy a company in AX 2012 for demo or test, now you'll have to

1. create a definition group
2. export the def group from old company
3. import the def group to the new company

When you create def group, go to Include table group tab and make sure you've selected the tables you want to bring into your new company. When you import, go to the Advanced tab and select/deselect the Include shared tables checkbox as it's needed. Microsoft has a very detailed tutorial on this process:

Use Microsoft Dynamics AX to transfer (export and import) data [AX 2012]

Error when launch AX 2012 in VM using non-admin user

If you've tried to launch AX 2012 RTM in the VM using one of the enabled regular users (instead of admin, you probably have seen the error message: Logon Failure: the user has not granted the requested logon type at this computer. Remember the OS in the provided image is Windows Server 2008. Of course it doesn't allow local access by a non-admin user! The workaround is to go to Active Directory Users and Computers, select the user, double click to bring up Properties, click Member Of tab, and assign Domain Admin to the user. You don't want to do this in a real world but good enough to get AX in the VM going.