GuestPC: VirtualPC competitor?

[daveL]

I noticed that my Fedora C2 and Xandros 2.0 Linux images now crash regularly (Fedora on startup) since 'upgrading' to VPC 7.0.1

If I were running Linux, and wanted reasonable performance, I'd install Yellow Dog or some other PPC distro (G2, Suse) on a separate drive, say an external firewire drive. This keeps things nice and neat and fast. It's bad enough running win2k on VPC, on the few occasions that it necessary.

Just my take on it.

 

[goron]

If I were running Linux, and wanted reasonable performance, I'd install Yellow Dog or some other PPC distro (G2, Suse) on a separate drive, say an external firewire drive. This keeps things nice and neat and fast. It's bad enough running win2k on VPC, on the few occasions that it necessary.

Just my take on it.

Me too, generally, but I use Linux so I can do Java 5.0 development on my Mac - I like to run Intellij IDEA in the virtual Linux driving the Mac's native X11 display.

Performance of the virtual Linux is not so important in this case.

'course, once 10.4 is out we should have Java 5.0 natively

 

[goron]

Win2k BSOD on install

Did you manage to install Win2K in GuestPC? I find W2K is the best Windows to run in VMs, for both performance and stability.

Trying to install Win2k this evening... got quite far, then a blue screen (STOP error in file system handler).

I installed Win2k in VPC7 last week and the feeling is that GuestPC 1.0.1 is and half to a third the speed of VPC7.

And less than reliable

I'll keep trying with Win2k and try to get some benchmarks going.

 

[daveL]

'course, once 10.4 is out we should have Java 5.0 natively

Ya, I just got the latest seed of Tiger in the mail today, but I haven't installed it, yet. I believe it has developer preview (DP) 4 of Java 5.0. I haven't really heard anything concerning stability, at this point.

 

[goron]

GuestPC and Windows 2000

Have tried 3 times to install Win2k in Guest PC. BSOD problems all over.
Have managed to install two Win2k images in VPC7 in the same time.

Have to say... don't bother with GuestPC. If you need something like this, get MS VPC and swallow your pride.

 

[tutubibi]

Trying to install Win2k this evening... got quite far, then a blue screen (STOP error in file system handler).

I installed Win2k in VPC7 last week and the feeling is that GuestPC 1.0.1 is and half to a third the speed of VPC7.

And less than reliable

I'll keep trying with Win2k and try to get some benchmarks going.

Thanks goron.
So what's your opinion, if somebody needs PC emulator on Mac today, is it better to shell out 40 USD more for VPC7 (109 USD at Amazon.Com) then 69 USD for GuestPC?
I could live with some perfomace loss (half is too much) but reliability is what scares me. Hopefully GuestPC will improve in the near future, I see they already released 1.0.1 update.

 

[tutubibi]

Have tried 3 times to install Win2k in Guest PC. BSOD problems all over.
Have managed to install two Win2k images in VPC7 in the same time.

Have to say... don't bother with GuestPC. If you need something like this, get MS VPC and swallow your pride.

Thank you very much. That answers my question in the previous post.

 

[goron]

More GuestPC woes

Check out my other comments in this topic about GuestPC, but here's the last straw.

I started GuestPC today and tried to run the one virtual PC that worked. DOS.

The emulation started the the GuestPC window froze. Spinning beachball.

I could not switch to another app. My remote ssh connection from another box froze.

The fans in my G5 PM started spinning up, louder and louder. Eventually I had to hit the power switch.

I've never had any app hose OSX so badly as GuestPC.

I'm seeking a refund now. GuestPC is utterly unusable. Avoid.

 

[daveL]

Check out my other comments in this topic about GuestPC, but here's the last straw.

I started GuestPC today and tried to run the one virtual PC that worked. DOS.

The emulation started the the GuestPC window froze. Spinning beachball.

I could not switch to another app. My remote ssh connection from another box froze.

The fans in my G5 PM started spinning up, louder and louder. Eventually I had to hit the power switch.

I've never had any app hose OSX so badly as GuestPC.

I'm seeking a refund now. GuestPC is utterly unusable. Avoid.

Sounds about what I would expect. PC emulators are not a trivial thing.

 

[65505201]

I would rather persuade my friends to buy Apple computers. Maybe if the Apple marketshare becomes significant, many programs will come for both Windows and Mac. Just curious though, what programs do you guys want to run that isn't already released for the Mac? I think Apple has supplied us with ample amounts of apps and surely there are even more out there.

Ansys. I know that there are other software out there...but you can't beat being able to use industry standards!

 

[tutubibi]

Check out my other comments in this topic about GuestPC, but here's the last straw.

I started GuestPC today and tried to run the one virtual PC that worked. DOS.

The emulation started the the GuestPC window froze. Spinning beachball.

I could not switch to another app. My remote ssh connection from another box froze.

The fans in my G5 PM started spinning up, louder and louder. Eventually I had to hit the power switch.

I've never had any app hose OSX so badly as GuestPC.

I'm seeking a refund now. GuestPC is utterly unusable. Avoid.

Thanks goron,
Hopefully you will get that refund.

I guess it's VPC for me after all. I may try QEMU again to see if performance got any bettter.

 

[goron2]

GuestPC 1.2 is much better

(I am 'goron', by the way, I just forgot my original login details )

1.2 was released a day or so ago.
It is much better and much quicker too.
I managed to get win2k installed and patched in a fairly quick time. Comparable to VPC7.

 

[tutubibi]

(I am 'goron', by the way, I just forgot my original login details )

1.2 was released a day or so ago.
It is much better and much quicker too.
I managed to get win2k installed and patched in a fairly quick time. Comparable to VPC7.

Thanks for the update.
As I still didn't get VPC for my iBook, I will now consider GuestPC.

 

[duanemoody]

BLPE was reasonably good, but the developers were clear it would never run in Classic mode inside OS X. It also outlived most of its competitors, which should be a sign.

As a longtime BLPE user, I've been part of the beta program for GuestPC; they never told me it was safe to come out and talk about it (it came with an NDA only slightly less restrictive than the PATRIOT Act). Win95 and Knoppix 3.7 booted/installed just fine (as did the SLAX microCD). The trouble I had was with networking in W95, and I forget what dead-chicken waving seems to have fixed it. The trouble I had was installing W95: the opening screen requests your Windows serial number and it uses the 98 and later serial validation scheme. I think I ended up padding zeroes and it worked.

Most Linux liveCD distros run fine --probably because Linux does a more intense job of detecting hardware and dealing with it-- but like most emulators for most platforms, you do best with .iso images rather than regular CDs. Since Apple Disk Utility makes ISOs with no difficulty (regardless of the filesystem on the CD) there's no reason not to do this.

I started with Blue Label for OS 9, and they were cool enough to keep the updates free (I paid $25 for it back in 2001). In those days it could be set to run as a bootloader and ONLY ran in fullscreen mode.

GuestPC is not a mountain of suck like some people have said here, but I haven't tried XP on it yet. And you'd have to be an idiot to try gaming in an emulator regardless of host/guest platform. Mainly what I find it useful for is certain Poser file manipulation utilities which are only available for Windows. Then again, I work in an academic environment where I can buy a used Optiplex GX1 for $200 and XP Pro for $10, so my burning need to run Windows on a Mac is diminished somewhat.

This is coming from someone used to running Jaguar from PearPC on a Dell and Linux inside Bochs, so I'm used to emulator config hassles. Networking is the hardest part, usually. What I miss from Blue Label was the ability to do more configuration options; the version I have still has "Preferences" greyed out.

What you get for your money is the knowledge Microsoft isn't pulling strings somewhere to disable something useful. It may not be open source but trust me, it isn't a ripoff or something else rebranded.