Virtual PC 7.0 delayed until at least October

You know what, screw Microsoft. As a G5 owner, I have waited long enough with my worthless Virtual PC installer discs.

There must be some other company ready and willing to create a rival to this vaporware. It's not like it would be hard to compete against nothing. And, hey, they probably have 2 years to do it, at the rate Microsoft is going.

Whatever . . . It's not like you are going to be able to play Doom 3 or Half Life 2 on through it.

Yeah. right.

What does SP 2 for XP have to do with it?
From AppleInsider:"citing a rolling Windows XP SP2 time-line that is now directly affecting the product launch"

Are these the same progammers?
I thought this app would be made by the MacBU developers. I can't imagine them waiting for a SP 2 release of XP before launching this highly anticipated app.
Is VPC 7 only available with XP as the "guest OS"? Or do the lower-end Macs get the (highly debateable) pleasure of using a Windows OS a little less of a burden on their current config: Win 2K, or better stil: 98 / NT...?

Some little voice inside of me says:
"Hey, had Connectix been the maker, then VPC 7 would have been out on or before the WWDC 2004".

grmbl.

Laslo Panaflex said:

Whatever . . . It's not like you are going to be able to play Doom 3 or Half Life 2 on through it.

Click to expand...

Well Doom 3 will be coming natively to OSX, so why would you want to play it through VPC? Hopefully you will be able to play Counter-Strike with a Dual 2.5 GHz and VPC 7, and get decent frame rates. Thats all I hope for...

This is a bummer.

Making a cheap PC (under $400 as an option for Mac users).

This is why I think not being able to curse on MacRumors is lame, for if one could, I could post how and what I feel about this. Instead I have to post "oh fiddle-de-deee!"

its not xp sp2...its that microsoft needs to make sure you cant run linux or unix on vpc

instead of waiting until when ever it comes out, download and run Darwine. It has the wine part working so that open source programs can be recompiled and work on os x, but have just got the emulator part (QEMU) working also, so now you can install linux or windows as a guest os just like vpc, at comparable speeds (25% of the native speed i think it mentions). Now they just need to combine the QEMU and Wine to get it so they can drop windows and translate the windows calls to a native wine implementation, making it much faster than VPC as all the library and ui code will be native. But as it stands, something comparable to VPC already works...i think.

http://darwine.opendarwin.org//

screenshot of OS X running Mandrake linux as a guest os under QEMU

You can't run windows under wine in mac os x. Or office. Or any other "real" applications. Only open source applications which usually have a real port to Mac OS X.

Wine is only handy on Linux on a x86 machine because THEN you can run Windows apps. But not a PowerPC machine.

VirtualPC emulates an entire PC, including the processor. Wine just simulates the windows environments for apps to work in. But they'll never execute on a non x86 processor.

OK, I was thinking, and I am probably wrong

BUT doesnt microsoft make money only on selling their software, right?

SO why don't they make VPC the fastest it could possibly be? Then they would sell more copies, and make more money. They really shouldn't get hounded by PC makers, because clone PCs are still cheaper.

Maybe I'm just crazy though

Bendit said:

You can't run windows under wine in mac os x. Or office. Or any other "real" applications. Only open source applications which usually have a real port to Mac OS X.
Wine is only handy on Linux on a x86 machine because THEN you can run Windows apps. But not a PowerPC machine.

VirtualPC emulates an entire PC, including the processor. Wine just simulates the windows environments for apps to work in. But they'll never execute on a non x86 processor.

Click to expand...

yes but if you read it first..you'd notice darwine is not just wine, but wine with QEMU, whic is a full emulator and that part works now. Check out the site it tells you about what they have working and not working. WINE is NOT an emulator but QEMU is.

I think it is interesting that they mention that a standalone version will be available contrary to some rumors. Perhaps they realized that tight integration of XP and VPC probably wouldn't go over very well.

I especially liked this part:

Virtual PC 7 with Windows 2000 and the Standalone and Upgrade versions will be available a few months after this debut.

I'm sorry? What's that Microsoft? You mean the copy of Virtual PC that came with Office STILL won't work when the new version comes out. I have to wait an additional "few months" for an upgrade version? Why? What does that even mean?

Whatever. I'm sure I can find a $300 crapola PC on Ebay to run the one Windows programs that I need - Homesite. It's the only program that I haven't found anything comparable to on OS X. BBEdit doesn't touch it, and Macromedia's implementation of it into Dreamweaver is ok, but cumbersome.

Thankfully, I'm not a gamer - so I don't give a crap if PC games play on my Mac. I don't even give a crap if Mac games play on my Mac.

Clearly, another Micro$oft tactic to annoy ex-pc users. First it hogs (remember the 34 processes on a pc?) the Mac cus of how rubbish it is. Now, they are delaying so all the Mac users who are ex-pc get fed up and return to PC.

Its a great idea in theory, but a windows will never run properly on a mac. If you really need a pc too. Then buy one.

rickvanr said:

doesnt microsoft make money only on selling their software, right?
SO why don't they make VPC the fastest it could possibly be?

Click to expand...

You see, Bill is thinking ahead here. If he sells a defective product to a guaranteed market, then he could easily get us "hooked" on updates and upgrades; Just like Windows users. He's clearly digging into the Mac market.

Did anyone really expect anything less??

Really, when was the last time that Microsoft released something on time??

They haven't even gotten Windows XP SP2 out much less Longhorn, so I doubt that VPC is even on the radar for them.

Give up the whole idea of VPC and just buy a cheap PC with Windows, and use Remote Desktop Connection on the Mac, and you will have your VPC!!

party

Capt Underpants said:

Well Doom 3 will be coming natively to OSX, so why would you want to play it through VPC? Hopefully you will be able to play Counter-Strike with a Dual 2.5 GHz and VPC 7, and get decent frame rates. Thats all I hope for...

Click to expand...

i think thats why everyone wants VPC 7, just to play counter strike, i mean seriously, this is probably the only game that Mac users would kill to get it. as for DOOM 3 on VPC 7, wtf...if its comming out natively on Mac OS X why would anyone want to run it on VPC 7, probably counter strike is the only game that would really really attract mac users into buying VPC 7

seems like they want to make sure WinXP w/ SP2 works well with VPC 7. so sence SP2 has been delayed, they had to delay VPC 7.

and BTW, that "upgrade" version, is probably the version people who have VPC 6 can buy for cheaper (like the Windows OS "Upgrade" versions)

GoodJob Microsoft!


I mean delay it, hold it back, say its about the new windows software.


Boo Hoo, you disappointed me again, errrr.