Question about Virtual Pc for mac.

[brun019822]

I just bought a macbook pro but I havent recieved it yet and I never owned a mac before, so i dont know much about it, today i went to compusa and I saw a program called Virtual PC for mac windows XP Professional, is that the samething that you guys are talking about here about booting booth mac os and windows XP on a mac?

[mad jew]

Yeah, it's one and the same but it won't work on Intel machines at this stage.

FWIW, it opens up a virtual machine in a window (or full screen) in the already running OSX. It is an emulator and is very slow. It has no 3D graphics support either, and therefore is a bit challenged by tasks as simple as drawing new Explorer windows in XP.

[brun019822]

Originally Posted by mad jew

Yeah, it's one and the same but it won't work on Intel machines at this stage.

FWIW, it opens up a virtual machine in a window (or full screen) in the already running OSX. It is an emulator and is very slow. It has no 3D graphics support either, and therefore is a bit challenged by tasks as simple as drawing new Explorer windows in XP.

I bought it already, do you think I should return it?

[MacRumorUser]

As mad jew say's it's very very slow. it's like having windows xp installed on a pentium 2, 300mhz with 4mb gfx and 32-64mb system mem... Unbearably slow and this is on a dual G5 2ghz, 2.5gb ram....

Utter Utter *****... If you need a pc box, seriously you'd be better off saving money buying virtual pc, and a copy of windows, and buying a second hand pc...

We can hope that Virtual PC 8 will offer full native intel support and finally get some decent performance, but don't hold your breath...

[mad jew]

Yeah, return it. I'm not even sure it'll let you install.

[brun019822]

Originally Posted by mad jew

Yeah, return it. I'm not even sure it'll let you install.

Thaks guys, I will return it tomorrow.

[strider42]

Originally Posted by brun019822

I just bought a macbook pro but I havent recieved it yet and I never owned a mac before, so i dont know much about it, today i went to compusa and I saw a program called Virtual PC for mac windows XP Professional, is that the samething that you guys are talking about here about booting booth mac os and windows XP on a mac?

Virtual PC is not the same thing as dual booting XP and mac OS. Virtual PC is an emulator. it uses software to create a virtual x86 machine and runs windows in that. As already pointed out, its slow, and doesn't work on intel macs anyway.

The intel macs have introduced the possibility of actual running windows on a mac with no emulation necessary. At this point, its been hacked onto intel macs. Windows doesn't natively support the logic boards apple is using. It may get easier and more practical in the future. Or perhaps virtual PC will be a tool we'll be able to use to virtualize (which is different than emulating as virtual PC does now) a windows environment.

[mrichmon]

Originally Posted by brun019822

I just bought a macbook pro but I havent recieved it yet and I never owned a mac before, so i dont know much about it, today i went to compusa and I saw a program called Virtual PC for mac windows XP Professional, is that the samething that you guys are talking about here about booting booth mac os and windows XP on a mac?

Virtual PC is not the same thing as booting windows XP on a mac.

Virtual PC is a x86 emulator that runs on Macs using the G4 or G5 cpu. VPC runs as an application in OS X much like the way Classic runs. With VPC you can install Windows XP (or linux, or any other x86 OS) and the result is that you have an application that you can launch that runs Windows XP inside the application. The main drawback is that Windows running inside VPC runs fairly slowly. It is usable, but not fast.

The current version of VPC will not run on an Intel based Mac.

Running Windows XP on an Intel based Mac (like the MacBook Pro, Core Duo iMac and Core Duo Mac Mini) has nothing to do with VPC. Since these new Macs use an intel CPU then it is possible to install Windows XP directly on the hardware --- replacing OS X, or alongside OS X so that you have the choice of booting into OS X *or* booting into Windows XP. At this stage it has only been possible to run Windows XP on an intel Mac for a few weeks. The install process for Windows XP on a Mac is tricky and at this stage there are still a lot of problems with it. Over time it will become more stable but its not ready for the average user yet.

[brun019822]

Originally Posted by mrichmon

Virtual PC is not the same thing as booting windows XP on a mac.

Virtual PC is a x86 emulator that runs on Macs using the G4 or G5 cpu. VPC runs as an application in OS X much like the way Classic runs. With VPC you can install Windows XP (or linux, or any other x86 OS) and the result is that you have an application that you can launch that runs Windows XP inside the application. The main drawback is that Windows running inside VPC runs fairly slowly. It is usable, but not fast.

The current version of VPC will not run on an Intel based Mac.

Running Windows XP on an Intel based Mac (like the MacBook Pro, Core Duo iMac and Core Duo Mac Mini) has nothing to do with VPC. Since these new Macs use an intel CPU then it is possible to install Windows XP directly on the hardware --- replacing OS X, or alongside OS X so that you have the choice of booting into OS X *or* booting into Windows XP. At this stage it has only been possible to run Windows XP on an intel Mac for a few weeks. The install process for Windows XP on a Mac is tricky and at this stage there are still a lot of problems with it. Over time it will become more stable but its not ready for the average user yet.

Thanks you made things much clear for me now!!

[jeffmac400]

Hello Mad Jew!
I was just wondering if you were able to speed up XP on VM-v7.0.2. It is so slow that it is a waste of H.D Space, and the program, along with a horrible version of "MS Office" cost me damn near 400.00 last year. I have adjusted every aspect of both Operating systems that I can without throwing off the delicate balance, but performance is still ridiculously slow on the XP side. O.S.X side is fine. Please Let me know if you know of any fixes that I may not have thought of yet. Thanks much!!
jeffmac400
Jeffreysantelli@mac.com

Originally Posted by mad jew

Yeah, it's one and the same but it won't work on Intel machines at this stage.

FWIW, it opens up a virtual machine in a window (or full screen) in the already running OSX. It is an emulator and is very slow. It has no 3D graphics support either, and therefore is a bit challenged by tasks as simple as drawing new Explorer windows in XP.

[drummerbooker14]

if you are geeting a macbook pro, but don't want to have a seperate partition for windows, i would HIGHLY recomend Parallels Desktop. it is like virtual pc, but runs WAYYYYYY faster

[mad jew]

Originally Posted by jeffmac400

I was just wondering if you were able to speed up XP on VM-v7.0.2.

It'll never be terribly fast but maybe try some of these tips to get the best possible configuration.