Virtual PC: Accepting the Inevitable

[Schiffi]

I am looking into getting VPC soon. I have my own copy of Win2000 so I'll be buying the DOS version of VPC and installing win2000. How does VPC work? Will I have to repartition a drive into NTFS? If it runs from an image, how much space does it take up? and how fast does it start? Things like that.

I'll be using it mostly for getting videos to work under Windows and maybe playing some old, old 2D games. And possibly running Flash. Thanks.

[AppleMatt]

It runs from an image on your hard-drive, which looks just like a normal file.

Looking at my images, Win 2000 is currently at 3GiB, but they dynamically adjust their size according to what you have on, and I've got quite a bit of junk.

Performance is acceptable, you need L3 cache and you need to keep on top of Microsoft Service packs. Also disable virtual memory within Windows. Windows 2000 performs the best out of all the Windows OS's with VPC 6 however.

Startup and shutdown is slow, it's best to save state, that's faster but uses more of your HDD space.

AppleMatt

[FredAkbar]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
Also disable virtual memory within Windows.

How do you do this? This has come up in a couple other Virtual-PC-related threads, but no one has actually said how to do this.

--Fred

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by FredAkbar
How do you do this? This has come up in a couple other Virtual-PC-related threads, but no one has actually said how to do this.

--Fred

Disabling Virtual Memory in windows is not a good idea unless you have at least 128MB for win95 or 98 and 512MB for win2000 or XP. However Win2000 and XP both need 1GB to work properly.

Anyway to do it right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'. Then select the 'Advanced' tab and it will be ether the 'Virtual Memory' or 'Performace' button, depending on your version of windows. Then set the swap file/v memory to 0.

[AppleMatt]

It is a good idea in VPC.

AppleMatt

[FredAkbar]

Okay, thanks guys...though I think I'll keep virtual memory on, since I only have enough RAM to give my PCs 256 MB.

--Fred

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
It is a good idea in VPC.

AppleMatt

Only if you are not running apps that require a lot of memory.

[ZildjianKX]

Wow, you really need 1 gig of RAM to use win2K properly with VPC in OS 10.2? I was kind of hoping it would be okay with 512 MB of RAM...

[FredAkbar]

Speaking of RAM, is speed affected by how much VRAM (video RAM) I give my Virtual PC? I always give it as much as VPC lets me (16 MB). It always just says that the amount of VRAM affects how high of a resolution you can have it at in 32-bit color mode, but does it affect screen redraw speed, and such, in general as well?

--Fred

[daveL]

I tried setting VM to 0 on Win2K-SP4 and when I rebooted I got a error message saying I should change the VM settings to the recommended values. VPC also seemed slower to me. When I went in to change VM back to the original values, I got another message saying that a temporary paging file of 20 MB had been created at boot time, and I should change the settings to the recommended values.

I guess that, at least on Win2K, you cannot disable VM, you can only cripple it :-) BTW, I've run VPC and Win2K with both 192 MB and 256 MB of RAM with good results. I have 1 GB total in my PB.

VRAM settings only affect the display resolution and color depth; performance is not affected. I have mine set at 4 MB, and I can still do full screen on my TiBook with "millions of colors".

I find the "save and quit" feature is fast and works well. I've also kept VPC up and put my PB to sleep without problems.

However, even Connectix states that VPC is not recommended for heavy duty graphics applications, such as 3d games, graphics modeling, etc.

All in all, VPC6 on my TiBook does everything I need, and I'm very pleased with it. For the few WinDoze apps I need to run, it's great to not have to maintain a separate machine.

HTH

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by hvfsl
However Win2000 and XP both need 1GB to work properly.


The same could be said for OSX...

;)

[ibookin']

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
The same could be said for OSX...

;)

OS X runs beautifully on my machine with 384MB... and on my machine with 512MB.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by ibookin'
OS X runs beautifully on my machine with 384MB... and on my machine with 512MB.

The same could be said for Windows 2000 and XP...

;)

[Lanbrown]

You would need to define "run" and "beautifully" first.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
You would need to define "run" and "beautifully" first.

My point exactly.

[tjwett]

vpc sucks big and hard. i've found it unusable on any machine with any OS installed. it is just a slug, period. what is the attraction with running this horrid piece of noveltyware?

[daveL]

Originally posted by tjwett
vpc sucks big and hard. i've found it unusable on any machine with any OS installed. it is just a slug, period. what is the attraction with running this horrid piece of noveltyware?
What are the details? What version of VPC? What Mac OS? What HW? On my TiBook 1Ghz, 1 GB, OS X 10.2 it works great. I've used it during consulting gigs to run MS client SW that doesn't exist on the Mac with unqualified success. If you're trying to play your favorite 3D WinDoze game, then it isn't going to work very well, but then the vendor told you that to begin with.

[tjwett]

Originally posted by daveL
What are the details? What version of VPC? What Mac OS? What HW? On my TiBook 1Ghz, 1 GB, OS X 10.2 it works great. I've used it during consulting gigs to run MS client SW that doesn't exist on the Mac with unqualified success. If you're trying to play your favorite 3D WinDoze game, then it isn't going to work very well, but then the vendor told you that to begin with.

i don't know. i was issued VPC 5 to run on a dual gig Power Mac with 1.2 gigs RAM and i could barely enter text in Notepad. it was just a nightmare. i've come to terms with the fact that i am willing to give up any Windows software as long as i never have to touch VPC again. sounds like you've had better luck than me. glad it's working out for someone.

[Juventuz]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
Startup and shutdown is slow, it's best to save state, that's faster but uses more of your HDD space.

AppleMatt

I've found a considerable increase in the starup and shutdown of VPC in Panther.

Overall I've found a considerable increase in speed on my TiPB 867 with Panther.

I wouldn't recommend using XP in VPC unless you have a top of the line mac. 2000 runs slow enough as it is.

[Schiffi]

Another question, has anyone gotten a Windows only webcam (usb) and used it successfully under VCP and using MSN Messenger?

[FredAkbar]

Originally posted by Juventuz
I've found a considerable increase in the starup and shutdown of VPC in Panther.

Firstly, are you talking about just the launch time of the VPC application, or the launch time of the actual Windows PC when you "start it up"?

And secondly, when you say "increase," do you mean it starts up faster, or that it takes longer to start up? The rest of your post seems to indicate that Panther makes things faster in VPC.

[Juventuz]

Originally posted by FredAkbar
Firstly, are you talking about just the launch time of the VPC application, or the launch time of the actual Windows PC when you "start it up"?

I'm talking about the launch time of VPC AND the launch time of the actual Windows PC.

And secondly, when you say "increase," do you mean it starts up faster, or that it takes longer to start up? The rest of your post seems to indicate that Panther makes things faster in VPC.

When I say increase I mean is starts up quicker. I'm not referring to the applications in VPC, rather VPC itself seems to boot faster.

[FredAkbar]

That's good news, then...yet another reason to look forward to Panther!

Thanks for the Panther performance info, Juventuz.

[Juventuz]

Sure thing.... Any other q's about Panther just ask.

Overall, I'm content with VPC6 for what I do. I wish there was something that was better, but for what it is it's ok.

[stingerman]

I got VPC running with XP Pro and Win2KPro. My mac is an AGP 500 with an ATI 8500, and OS X 10.2.6, QE enabled. The main issue with XP and Win2K even on Wintel PC's is RAM. I recommend for both the Mac and Wintel PC's at least 384KB and personally reserve 512KB for my set up. Win2K seems faster than XP Pro and this is true on my Dell as well. I can't emphasize the importance of RAM and RAM is cheap.

Make sure after installing XP or Win2K on VPC that you turn off all of Windows eye candy stuff, such as shadowing, the Luna interface on Win XP, dragging windows and Windows (Not Macs) anti-aliasing. These features bog down even my Dell. You can get to them by right clicking on the Windows desktop and selecting properties.

Also do not use any of win2k/XP's services, such as firewalls and sharing if you could help it. You may want to go to this link which will show you how to turn off other Windows services, that simply are using up memory and processor time. http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/winxp_services/

Finally, Although it may take you up to 6 hours on a DSL link, make sure you run Windows Update ( and run it a number of times after each re-boot) until all the critical updates are installed. As I said earlier this may require up to 6 virtual reboots and upwards of 6 hours. This is the same issue every Wintel user goes through.

[stingerman]

Just to clarify, My Mac has 896MB, I give VPC 512MB. This seems to work great and Win2K performance is fine. OS X continues to perform very snappy even with VPC running. I am very impressed with the set up. My next upgrade will probably RAM to 1.5GB (3 512 DIMMS, I currently have 1 512, 1 256, 1 128) and the new Gigadesigns 1GHZ since it easily overclocks to 1.3GHz and they still warranty it. It should be interesting how well win2k performs at those levels. Maybe I will be able to run multiple VPC sessions well in that configuration. (I'm thinking a Win2k AS with IIS and SQLServer, and a Win2kpro with VS.Net for development. With the network option set to virtual switching, each VPC will appear as a seperate host on the network.

[buckysf]

I use VPC throughout the day to access my company's VPN and the Exchange Server. Frequently XP Pro restarts by itself for no apparent reason.
Of course windows then runs the disk check and reports that there was a serious error and asks if I want to send it to MS. I'm running it on a 1GHz TiBook with 1GB RAM. 512MB allocated to the VPC. Does anyone else have this problem? I usually run MANY other OS X apps at the same time as VPC, but I always launch VPC first.

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by buckysf
I use VPC throughout the day to access my company's VPN and the Exchange Server. Frequently XP Pro restarts by itself for no apparent reason.
Of course windows then runs the disk check and reports that there was a serious error and asks if I want to send it to MS. I'm running it on a 1GHz TiBook with 1GB RAM. 512MB allocated to the VPC. Does anyone else have this problem? I usually run MANY other OS X apps at the same time as VPC, but I always launch VPC first. VPC is only an application running on MacOS X. It plays in its own sandbox and should have no effect on anything else save a possible performance hit. The disk error that XP Pro reports is on your VPC disk image, not on your entire Mac disk.

[cubist]

I use VPC with win95 and win98, and they seem to work pretty snappily.

For the original poster: Yes, get the version with dos, but don't use the dos. Instead, get a *bootable win98 cd* (or bootable w2k cd) and put it in your cd drive, and then just install that way.

W2K is, of course, the best Windows, and not just for VPC, it's the best on real PCs too. But it does need gobs more memory than 95 or 98.

(edit) and BTW, I have had VPC 6 get into a "crashy" mode where it seems like it leaves some "residue" behind and won't work properly - rebooting X fixes it, but that seems harsh.

Then again, I also have a problem on my Cube where iTunes 4.0.1 kernel-faults when I try to rip a CD...

[buckysf]

Thanks MisterMe. I got the OS X thing. My concern is that XP "reboots" itself for no apparent reason several times during the day. VPC does not quit, nor does it report any errors. I'm at a loss to determine what could be causing it. Usually only Outlook is running in XP. I was just curious if anyone else had that same problem.

[Horrortaxi]

I haven't had that problem in VPC but I used to get it in real life PC all the time. The default action of XP when it hits a serious error is to automaticaly reboot the computer.