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Opinions pls. on Virtual PC

2K views 19 replies 16 participants last post by  VertiGoGo 
#1 ·
I'm curious to hear what people have to say about VPC, especially version 6.0...or ever 6.1 (the new MS-branded version). Any thoughts? I seem to recall that version 5.0 was criticized for being dog slow...did they address this in version 6?
 
#2 ·
Depends on the speed of your machine -- and your operating system (both Mac and PC). Unless you have something close to a 1Ghz G4 it's probably not worth it. Especially is you're already running OS X -- which just barely runs at about 500 mhz -- running Virtual PC, which is another memory-intensive operating system, you'll slow your computer to a crawl.

I've demoed versions of 5 and 6 to run on my souped-up G3 (500 Mhz G4, 512 RAM) and the computer nearly choked. It's the most memory-hogging program I've ever tried to run which is why I figure at least double the power is necessary to make it passable.
 
#3 ·
I've tried Virtual PC 6 on my 1ghz iMac and I find that the Windows XP environment to be very slow. Moving the cursor around seems to be fine, but doing anything but that tends to slow the system down.

Keep in mind also that Virtual PC not only emulates the OS, but it also emulates the hardware as well. These two factors contribute to the slowness.

My advice: I wouldn't rely on Virtual PC for programs that you absolutly have to use. if you want to use it for P2P programs, then you'll get by with it, but any thing else where you have to do some work forget it.
 
#4 ·
:rolleyes: I second everything you said. I've had to use it (VPC 5) in the past and wasted hours getting things done. I now have a new, very fast G4 with tons of memory and it kinda sorta looks useable.

My advice is to stick to Mac based applications if you can.
 
#10 ·
There are ways to keep the slowness under control, number one among them to not run anything above Windows 98. On a reasonably fast G4, and using only Windows 98 (and fiddling with the settings revolving around memory and such), it's not too bad. But it's only for things you absolutely, positively can't live without. Otherwise it's pretty much a waste of time.

Maybe on a G5?
 
#12 ·
Maybe this was one of Microsoft's less-than-smart acquisitions.
M$ didn't acquire VPC so they could continue selling it to Mac users. They picked it up so they could get their virtual server technology.

I've always been impressed by VPC, it's a remarkable piece of SW. The fact that it works at all should impress anybody around here that writes SW... Having said that, it will almost always be cheaper/faster to simply buy a cheap PC for PC duties. Blasphemy!
 
#15 ·
I have VPC 6 on my iBook 600 and it is slow but useable so long as you don't do anything more intense than say MS Office XP. It helps that I am running Win98SE in it instead of Win2k or WinXP.

I had a curious problem though, MS recently released a service release (VPC6.1) that basically rebranded the software from Connectix to Microsoft, and when I tried to start it up again it asked for my serial number. When I tried to enter my serial number it said it was invalid. I have yet to receive a response from MS Support.

Grr.

--PB
 
#16 ·
Now that I've got my 800 MHz processor upgrade, VPC 5 finally runs Win98 at a respectable speed. It is perfectly all right for MS Office tasks, which is the only real reason I bother with it. If I need to do any serious Windows stuff (seldom happens, fortunately) I have a real Athlon box with Win 2000. I don't have it hooked to a monitor, I just run it through the Mac via VNC, which is free.

Cheers :-> Bill
 
#19 ·
I have VPC6 running on my 700mhz 640mb iBook with win98SE and it is very slow. All I need it for is connecting to my Sony NetMD player but it doesn't even do that right (something about bugs with USB devices, coupled with Sony's absolutely HORRIBLE software). Stupid Sony. I'm going to try the RealPC software and see if it works with that.
 
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