.exe woes

You could try another emulator that is cheaper than VPC, but basically no.

 

IIRC, MS is now giving away VPC.

Edit: never mind - that was the Windows version of it, apparently.

 

you could buy a macbook

What is the specs of your iBook, and what kind of .exe are you trying to open? If your computer isn't powerful enough, and your exe is too complex, there wouldn't be any point in using an emulator.

 

Without buying a version of VPC, you're very unlikely to have any joy. It was the best of the PPC emulators for x86 and it still wasn't particularly quick if what you're trying to run is at all complex. VPC was bundled with the pro version of Office - not sure if it's available separately.

If you tell us what you're trying to run, someone might have a Mac PPC substitute that you might be able to use instead.

 

Very safe, they are like normal applications, the window's part could get a virus but it wouldn't affect the Mac side, we should know what application you want to run, as Applespider said there might be a Mac/Unix version after all, which would run better...

An emulator will be very slow if you have an old Windows 98 PC it will be faster...

 

What program are you trying to run? No matter how esoteric a type of program I've needed to run I've always been able to find a Mac equivalent if I could not run the suggested program.

 

I have the same problem as the original poster-- have an ibook g4, hoping not to have to buy virtual PC (both because of $ and how slow I've heard it is).

In my case, I'm looking to run Pajek and/or StocNet. These are both social network analysis tools. My searching has not turned up any way to run these on a Mac, but I figured someone here would know if there was a way!

Thanks.

 

Virtual PC was really slow. The alternatives to Virtual PC were even worse.

 

You have to have a Win32 environment to run a Win32 app; ergo, you have to be running Windows to use a Windows program. What everyone else said here is true and accurate, so I'd suggest buying the cheapest PC you can get your hands on to run the app in question, since it would probably be cheaper for you to spend $200-$400 on a PC than almost the same money for VirtualPC + Windows XP, and moreover it would run at a normal speed, whereas anytime you use an emulator, you take a MASSIVE performance hit.

 

If the apps are not resource hungry, just do what I did when I had to view some online videos that would not stream on a Mac: buy a super cheap PC on ebay and just use it. I paid $50 or so a while back for a 1.9Ghz Pentium 4 (from 2001). Sure, its junk compared to modern computers, but for my purposes, it works great.

Oh, and you DO NOT WANT TO INSTALL VPC. First, the performance is so slow it will shock you. Second, it will likely mess up your OS. It did mine anyway.

 

what would owning a macbook have to do with it? i own a macbook and i cant open .exe files...

 

Macbooks are intel.

Macbooks can run Windows.

 

so i need a copy of windows on here b4 i can use software cds that are only for windows?
cuz i own "the ipod killer" the creative zen vision m. and the cd wouldnt run on my macbook. the .exe wouldnt be recognized either.

 

If you have an Intel MacBook (well...the MacBooks are Intel only...), you can use BootCamp to dual-boot into Windows. You will need to buy a legit copy of Windows XP, or Vista (on a MacBook, I'd recommend XP).

So, yes, in order to run Windows programs, you will need to run the Windows OS. Just the same as you can't run MacOS programs on anything but MacOS.

 

what bcooper0125 said!!!!