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CmdrLaForge said:
Question: I already own Windows 2000. Can I just purchase Virtual PC without a copy of Windows and install then from my original CDs ?

Thanks

Yes - you can use your copy of windows 2000.

We use virtual pc at work for support and pre sales. Basically it is alright but it runs like an absoloute dog. If you think about it it has to emulate every piece of hardware that a computer has with software, obviously this is going to be very inefficient.

A very viable option, and the option that i will be taking when my 12" ibook arrives is to use Remote Desktop Connection (as has been mentioned).

If you have ever used terminal services on a pc, this is just the mac client for connecting to your pc. Basically it just means that the output from the pc is been duplicated on your mac, and the input from your mac is sent to the pc. As long as you have a decent connection (even 15kb/sec works absoloutely fine for me) then the speed will be almost as good as if you were on the pc itself! Very handy if you work in a pc environment.

I'm working part time and studying full time, it means that when at uni i can access our servers at work over the wireless network and access all our applications for support :)

I appreciate that this isn't an option for those with a mac or two at home, but otherwise definatley worth trying! you won't be disappointed.

note: the download of the client is only 1mb!!
 
A very viable option, and the option that i will be taking when my 12" ibook arrives is to use Remote Desktop Connection (as has been mentioned).

This is a RDC from the Mac or from the Virtual PC? I take it from the former?

Does this require much "Mac-friendly work" on behalf of the PC network administrators or will it just "plug & play" if you know the server & login details you're trying to connect to?

d
 
aswitcher said:
Does VPC cop issues with spyware and viruses, just like real windoze, or does the emulation frag any such infections when it shuts down VPC?
VPC makes your Windows (or DOS, or Linux) installation into an image, so to the Mac it just looks like 1 file. I think of VPC like an ant farm. Anything bad that can happen in Windows (spyware, adware, viruses, trojans, bad user experience) can happen in your emulated Windows environment. However, none of it can spread to your Mac.
 
Remote Desktop Connection/ GoToMyPC

There has been some mention in this thread of the Remote Desktop Connection-- does anyone routinely use a Mac to log in to a Windows network? How well does it work? How about GoToMyPC? Can you log in to a GoToMyPC account on a PC at work from a Mac at home? Fear of compatability problems with Remote Desktop and GoToMyPC has (in the past) stopped me from getting a mac for home-- I use RDC to log into my business network at home; my wife uses GoToMyPC to log into hers....
 
Horrortaxi said:
VPC makes your Windows (or DOS, or Linux) installation into an image, so to the Mac it just looks like 1 file. I think of VPC like an ant farm. Anything bad that can happen in Windows (spyware, adware, viruses, trojans, bad user experience) can happen in your emulated Windows environment. However, none of it can spread to your Mac.



Is there no option for a safe / protected mode that keeps everything in RAM and when you shut it down nothing is saved?
 
rosalindavenue said:
There has been some mention in this thread of the Remote Desktop Connection-- does anyone routinely use a Mac to log in to a Windows network? How well does it work? How about GoToMyPC? Can you log in to a GoToMyPC account on a PC at work from a Mac at home? Fear of compatability problems with Remote Desktop and GoToMyPC has (in the past) stopped me from getting a mac for home-- I use RDC to log into my business network at home; my wife uses GoToMyPC to log into hers....

I use RDC to connect to some Win2k server and XP boxes at work and have done so from home with pretty good results. And it's free. :)
 
aswitcher said:
Is there no option for a safe / protected mode that keeps everything in RAM and when you shut it down nothing is saved?
You're in luck - the latest VPC has a feature called Undo Drives, which basically saves any changes made to the image during your VPC session to a changes file, and only merges the changes when you tell it to. You can also tell it to revert to the last merged state, thus ignoring all your changes. This feature makes VPC pretty well sandboxed - not only can PC viruses/trojans/spyware not affect your Mac, but the changes they make can actually be rolled back, as if they never happened. I used this feature when I had VPC; I don't need it anymore.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
You're in luck - the latest VPC has a feature called Undo Drives, which basically saves any changes made to the image during your VPC session to a changes file, and only merges the changes when you tell it to. You can also tell it to revert to the last merged state, thus ignoring all your changes. This feature makes VPC pretty well sandboxed - not only can PC viruses/trojans/spyware not affect your Mac, but the changes they make can actually be rolled back, as if they never happened. I used this feature when I had VPC; I don't need it anymore.


Thanks. Undo drives is great news. I wont need to splash out on virus software as well. It would be even better if they allowed multiple states to be permanently kept.
 
even better

darraghsmyth said:
:mad: I'm in exactly the same position - I'm looking in to buying a 12" PB for primarily MAC stuff. I intend to use MS Office for Mac as much as I can but I just know that occasionally I will need to use VPC for work-related stuff (cause they don't support mac's ...).

sympathies.

Visual Studio is a pretty hungry app, which I use myself. I'd limit that to a windows box, if possible.

Can you use the VPC to remote-desktop-in to a *real* PC that runs your Visual Studio?

d

Even better, Microsoft has a remote desktop client that run in OSX that will let you remote into your Windows desktop, and its free.

The RDC is really a Terminal services client (admins out there know what I mean), which means that you have to install Win2k Admin toolkit on the Windows boxes you what to control, if they are Win2k Pro; Win2k Server has these services built in. WinXP is built in too.

The only thing keeping me from using a Mac for work is that I can't VPN because our firewall requires Sygate Personal Firewall service to be running on the desktop and they don't make a Mac version of that. I could use Virtual PC but from the other posts in this thread, I don't think my G3 900 will perform well enough.
 
mactastic said:
I run AutoCad on my TiBook. It beats buying a PC for home, but I do most of my work on a PC in the office so VPC is a stopgap for at home and in the field work. It does that ok, but it's not fun to do any major work on it.


Mactastic-

How has it been working with Auto Cad? I would be using it for architecture and rendering and I didn't know how the performance was on the Mac. Considering Vector Works is not an option at all for me I'd be interested in knowing about the performance of Auto Cad, especially for the Mac and if you had any insight to offer.

As far as the question related to the thread regarding Virtual PC, I had stated it in a previous post and basically after reading everyones post above mine, I think their perspectives are very much in line with my own. I thought getting Virtual PC to handle MS Office tasks was my remedy. I didn't even want to do any research because I was such a recent "switcher" and I was getting frustrated learning more and more about how excellent my Mac really was. Needless to say and to sum it up quickly, I was talked out of it by the guy at the Apple Store here in Houston. Several customers overheard me and to my luck they took part in the discussion I was having and said Virtual PC was not the way to go due to how it slows down your Mac. I am grateful for their insight and I think anyone through this site has valuable and very knowledgable information to deplore on your behalf.
 
goodwill said:
Mactastic-

How has it been working with Auto Cad? I would be using it for architecture and rendering and I didn't know how the performance was on the Mac. Considering Vector Works is not an option at all for me I'd be interested in knowing about the performance of Auto Cad, especially for the Mac and if you had any insight to offer.

It pretty much sucks for AutoCad work. It's slow, and VPC doesn't access the video card so rendering times are slow and there is no dual-monitor capability. I wouldn't want to do production work on it. I use it because AutoCad is the only program I use on a regular basis that I can't get for the Mac OS.

Having said that, it works for the times I want/need to do some revisions to drawings on the road, or at home on the weekends. It beats carrying around a PC notebook in my opinion. I may buy a PC desktop for home if I start to do a lot of design there, but I'll never buy a PC laptop. (My bag is heavy enough already!) VPC is certainly functional enough to do what I need it to do in a pinch. Hopefully one of two things will happen someday - either Autodesk will get around to porting their stuff to OS X, or VPC 7 will vastly improve the speed and ability to adress the video card. Personally I'd rather see AutoCad running native in OS X, but I'm not holding my breath waiting.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions that I haven't answered here.
 
I use VPC running XP regularly to remote in to a couple of servers. I couldn't get the Mac RDC to see both servers on the network, but the XP RDC doesn't have any issues at all. I get reasonable performance as well.

17" PB, 1GB ram (512 of it going to VPC!)
 
aswitcher said:
It would be even better if they allowed multiple states to be permanently kept.

You can just duplicate a Virtual PC to "keep" a state. The downside is that it will copy the entire hard drive image, including the whole installation of the operating system.

You can also choose to mount disk images as harddisks, so if you just need to keep states of your data, you can use these.
 
darraghsmyth said:
This is a RDC from the Mac or from the Virtual PC? I take it from the former?

Does this require much "Mac-friendly work" on behalf of the PC network administrators or will it just "plug & play" if you know the server & login details you're trying to connect to?

d

the RDC is from the Mac.

It requires NO "mac-friendly work" on the pc network admins. As for as they are concerned it is just another terminal services client!
 
This is a little imprecise, admittedly, but I would say that VPC is usable with a G4 with plenty of RAM but not with a G3 (I don't know what kind of iBook you have). On a G4, it's not a lot slow, but it is a little slow. Just enough to be unnerving. If your needs are occasional, VPC is a better choice than a supplemental PC laptop. If you will be using Windows often, you should get a PC.
 
Awimoway said:
This is a little imprecise, admittedly, but I would say that VPC is usable with a G4 with plenty of RAM but not with a G3 (I don't know what kind of iBook you have). On a G4, it's not a lot slow, but it is a little slow. Just enough to be unnerving. If your needs are occasional, VPC is a better choice than a supplemental PC laptop. If you will be using Windows often, you should get a PC.

I only need to run Windows apps. occasionally. I have a desktop PC at home but carry the iBook with me when I travel. Mostly I just use it for collecting my work email when on the road - but once in a while I have to edit a Powerpoint presentation or tweak some Windows C++ code. I have an 800MHz G4 iBook.

I think I'll go into my Mac dealer and ask for a VPC demo.

Thanks everyone.
 
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