Customer Reviews

Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac 7.0 [Old Version]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I wasn't sure when I bought this item. I have been a Windows user for ever, but bought an iBook a few years ago, and got hooked on the iPod, iTunes, and you name it in the Mac world. I have been pretty happy, except of course, for the fact that there were a few programs that I could not use on the Mac.

The Virtual PC was one option, or I could own both a Windows PC and a Mac. The last thing I wanted to do was have my stuff distributed between 2 computers, so I figured I would give the Virtual PC a try. After reading the mixed reviews, I was not expecting the best.

Well, its not bad..! Its slow, but then, so is Windows. Actually, in some regards, my Microsoft Money program works faster in Virtual PC than it did in Windows XP!

I use it on a Powerbook with 512MB of Ram. Like I said, not bad. Dont expect the stars - if you want to play games, why do you need to do it in Virtual PC?

Based on the negative performance reviews - I almost didn't give Virtual PC a chance.

I'm a recent convert to Mac, having spent the last 14 years in PC/UNIX environments. Doing graphics and web development now, I had hoped the move to Mac would be fairly painless - and it has been, with one exception. Two programs that I use significantly are PC-only, and after months of searching, there's just simply not anything on OSX that has the comparable functionality.

And, when testing browser compatibility it's just as arrogant for Mac designers to ignore testing on the PC browsers as it is for PC designers to ignore the Mac browsers.

So, I was faced with three choices: 1) have a standalone PC for these programs, 2) have a PC but going through a KVM so I could use just one keyboard/mouse/monitor to switch between, or 3) use Virtual PC.

Number 1 was out because I just don't want a completely separate setup - and don't have the room. But I was heavily leaning towards #2 simply because it seemed "right" to have my two Windows programs running on a Windows box. Plus most of what I had read on Virtual PC made it sound like it would be unusable - it was just too slow.

(Un)fortunately, my #2 option above was proving to be a costly affair. A new PC, plus either a DVI switch or a new dual-input monitor was looking to be in the $500+ range. And there were limitations with that too - like no direct interaction between the two machines, not being able to use the Mac and PC at the same time, etc.

So, for $129 I decided Virtual PC 7 was worth the shot (I already have a Windows 2000 license from a previous system). The complete setup on my Dual 1.8 G5 (2GB Ram) took about 2 hours. And I was skeptical at best - I've used emulators before and they suck.

Wow, was I pleasantly surprised! Not only does stuff (like networking, shared folders and printing) just seem to work, but the performance is perfectly fine for what I'm doing. I can see where someone who was expecting true "Windows" top-level graphics performance would be upset, because you don't get instantaneous screen redraws all the time, and after a heavy graphics-laden screen redraw the cursor may be slow to move for a second. This could definitely make things like game-play and Photoshop problematic.

But for most programs, and if you're only running 1 or 2 at a time, the VPC responsiveness is pretty impressive - especially considering it's an emulator. It is definitely very usable - typing has no delay - and it never really feels sluggish that I've been able to tell. On average, VPC seems to take about 25%-30% of CPU resources when I'm doing something in it, but if it is sent to the background, it only takes about 1-3%. That's nice.

If your goal is to use VPC to run Windows on a Mac, you may well be disappointed. If your goal is to use VPC simply as a way to run a needed PC program on the Mac, then I think you'll be impressed.

One note. Once you've got your VPC up and running, copy your VM document somewhere as a backup. That way if you ever need to "reinstall" your Windows OS in VPC, you can simply drag this copy in for a clean "install" without having to go through the real 1 hour + OS install.

As web designers who work exclusively on the Mac platform, we have found it difficult sometimes to view the way designs behave and appear to a PC user since we do not have access to a PC. With limited desk space and resources it doesn't seem practical to purchase a PC, Virtual PC 7 for Mac has helped solve this issue.

We run G5s here in the studio and this program is a savior. Not only does it free up room from extra hardware it allows us to view our work as 95% of the world would see it.

Though at times it's not as lightening fast as I would hope it to be, it is quick enough, does what we need it to do and makes our job much easier.

I would recommend this product to any G5 user looking to add Windows to there Mac environment arsenal.

Robert Pfeifer | Creative Director
http://www.effusiondesign.com

I've been using Virtual PC for about six months now and I am satisfied. I use Virtual PC to run Microsft Money and QuickBooks on a G5 with 1GB of RAM, of which 700MB is allocated to Virtual PC.

Using an emulator can be slow. But I've found that if you use one program at a time, it responds well. In other words, if you stay in Quickbooks and don't swap over to AppleMail, Safari, etc, the program running in the emulator works reasonably well.

Surprisingly, I haven't run across any Windows issues. Installation of Virtual PC and Windows XP, Money and Quickbooks all occurred without any concerns. I have not experienced any BSDs (Blue Screens of Death) or any other hang ups.

When running Virtual PC, the G5 will not go into sleep mode. So, if you leave your G5 running all day and night like I do, the energy savings mode will not kick in.

If you need to run more complex programs in Virtual PC, I suggest that you max out the RAM at 2GB and devote as much as possible to the Virtual PC.

One minor annoyance is that when swapping between programs, sometimes it take Virtual PC a long time to respond. So say you are working in Safari and you then move into Virtual PC. It can sometimes take 15-20 secs before Virtual PC responds.

UPDATE One annoying issue that presents itself too often is this: buttons go black. By buttons, I mean things that you click to get the program to respond. Once the buttons go black, they still operate (i.e. click on one to, say, maximize a window, and it does. The only way to get this to stop happening, is to restart Windows. Usually, this only happens after having Virtual PC running for a while. But, it is incredibly annoying because restarting Windows and Quickbooks probably takes a full ten minutes.

I purchased MS Virtual PC 7.0 w/Windows XP about six months ago for use on my 1.33 Ghz G4 iBook.

Setup was relatively easy and took about an hour and a half to complete. Unfortunately, it was all down hill from there.

My main reason for buying Virtual PC was to run MS Money 2005 Deluxe on my Mac (Quicken for Mac is terrible, but that's another story). It took about 5 minutes to open my Money file. This was followed by an endless series of painfully long wait times between key strokes. Eventually it locked up completely. After about six more attempts I gave up.

I tried playing several games like Rise of Nations and Age of Empires but they were just as tedious and often locked up during the initial loading. I strongly recommend against attempting to play and games on Virtual PC!

One main problem with this program is that Virtual PC does not allow your computer to use its onboard video card. Instead it attempts to emulate an old 16MB S3 Trio video card with software only.

Additionally, the maximum amount of System RAM Virtual PC will allow you to allocate is limited to 512 MB despite the fact that I have 1.25 GB of RAM available.

Hopefully the next version removes the RAM limit and allows your system to use its video card instead of the painfully slow emulator. This program promises so much, but disappoints at nearly every junction. It's just far too tedious for everyday use in it's current form.

Had someone suggested to me last year that I would be giving Virtual PC a five-star rating, I would have told them that they were nuts. But as a long-time Mac user who has to run a couple of PC financial programs, I have to say that for my purposes, VPC7 has finally hit the sweet spot.

Even before I upgraded to a 2 gig Dual G5 (2.5 Gb RAM) from my 733 Quicksilver G4 (1.13 Gb RAM), I noticed a speed and features improvement from VPC6 to VPC7. The thing has been rock-solid, with much improved printing, file sharing, and saving options. On the G5, Windows and Windows programs are (gasp!), dare I say it, positively zippy. This is true not only for Win98SE, but also for XP Home, which I am using straight out of the box, with no slimming down or disabling of services. I am at last freed from PC hardware lust when working in my Windows apps. Suprisingly, I am even finding for the first time that things are running faster in XP than in 98.

A warning: In scanning the VPC7 reviews here on Amazon, I am somewhat dismayed at questionable "expert" advice, especially from those who go on to complain about various perceived deficiencies with the program and its performance. In particular, be wary of those who suggest allocating increasing amounts of memory to VPC as you add more memory to your machine, and who suggest large allocations in the first place. Most of the real experts advise against this, suggesting instead capping VPC memory at 225 megs and 340 megs at the very most, even as you add more physical RAM to your Mac. This is somewhat counter intuitive but is based on the physics of running a virtual machine within OS X as opposed to a real PC box. For more info on this, as well as many other Mac VPC issues, I strongly suggest visiting the Mac VPC newsgroup: http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.virtualpc
Here is another great resource site, maintained by Steve Jain, one of the regular experts from the newsgroup: http://www.essjae.com/VPC/

I am somewhat mystified by all the problems and mediocre performance reported here and elsewhere by others running this version on a G5. Although I do not pretend to be a VPC expert, I believe at least part of my success is due to the diligence with which I maintain my system and hardware: regular OS X maintenance (permissions, etc.) , disk maintenance with DiskWarrior, and use of plenty of high-quality RAM from a single manufacturer. However, as they say online, your mileage may vary.

I've owned previous copies of Virtual PC for a couple of Macs that I have had through the years. I bought Virtual PC for Mac 7.0 to use on my new iMac G5, because I need a Windows solution for a couple of programs that I need to use. I didn't want to have a separate PC lying around for the few times that I need, so this was the best option.

This program runs great and is actually very fast if you take care of a few things beforehand.

Number 1, I would recommend Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 as the optimal Windows OS to use with Virtual PC. Windows 2000 has fairly low requirements, and runs much faster than Windows XP. If you must use Windows XP, be sure to turn off all the eye candy that comes with XP. Use the menu settings to have Windows XP look bland like Windows 2000, and it will save on processor usage.

Number 2, install the guest Windows OS on an external Firewire or USB hard drive. Most of the time when any OS is running slow, it is because disk access time is holding things up - not because of a lack of processing power. Keeping data flowing to and from the processor through separate channels vastly speeds up regular usage. If you have Mac OS X and Windows running from the same hard drive the two operating systems are constantly fighting for disk access in the background, slowing things down. By keeping Windows on a separate hard drive, the Virtual PC program has exclusive access to a fast hard drive. When using a separate Firewire disk for my Windows 2000 installation, my 2.1 Ghz G5 processor does just fine running Windows. I find that the Windows program runs just as fast as any other PC I have used.

I made the switch to a Mac G-5 OS X about 13 months ago. I added the Virtual P.C. 7.0 on my Mac, because I had some Microsoft only programs that I could not afford to replace in the Mac equivalent or didn't have time for the learning curve.

I am on a 80G hard drive with 512 mb of ram... so it's a pretty powerful machine.

The Virutal P.C. 7.0 is "o.k." It does what I need to do and that's about it. The software runs about as good as it does on a p.c. (and that's not saying much). It's slow, printing is horrendous (don't even bother printing from the Virtual P.C.) and crashes just like on a p.c.

I think Microsoft would have done better to create Mac versions of their software (like they did with Office) (i.e. Frontpage and others) rather than try to pacify Mac users with Virtual P.C.

I give it about a 5 out of 10. It's o.k., does what you need it to do if there are no other options, but other than that, I'm saving my money for Mac software.. (i.e. Dreamweaver)

Anyone who says Virtual PC for mac is a good bit of software MUST be a plant. My experience has been a total time-wasting excercise. My problems are the same as many others I've read. First, the packaging is misleading. I picked (correction...was handed!) the "stand-alone" version, only to find it required a separate copy of windows. Returned it. Got the bundled version. Installed it. Kept getting a "reboot" error message everytime I tried to start it up. Re-installed it. Got a creative-brand webcam and installed it (this was the reason for my purchase, so I could access an online language course site with PC only software). Turns out, the camera (which is supposed to run on both PC and MAC will NOT run on virtual PC). I was in disbelief. There's a website that lists supported hardware for Virtual PC. The number of unsupported cameras, printers, etc. is nothing short of astounding. Does anything run on this program? Now I'm out $200 and stuck with software that can't be returned cause the package is opened. BEWARE! BUY AT YOUR OWN RISK!

It takes forever to get this to work. I couldn't get XP Pro to run at all, but regular XP worked eventually. After that, there's the song and dance about registering the Windows software with Microsoft, which took about 5 tries, but eventually did work. (I was using the software that came with my Dell; I have no explanation for why I had to keep entering the same data over and over before finally I got a product code that Microsoft's robot would accept.) After that, I run only the simplest of programs-some high school educational stuff-but it works fine (if you don't mind wading through a couple of error messages on startup that say everything isn't fine but don't worry about it). Bottom line: it's probably better to buy a cheap PC if you really need a PC, but if your need is occasional, and you love installing software, this is fine. NOTE: I have Tiger but haven't upgraded Virtual PC (there's an online upgrade at microsoft) since what I have runs fine.