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MS Office and Virtual PC 6.1

Question to any developers that might be reading: how supposable is it to run Virtual PC (on, say, a current 12" G4 Powerbook, 640MB RAM), run a Windows-based compiler (Visual Studio, or maybe something "lighter"), and develop Windows applications?

I have a PC with a WinXP partition that I can always build milestone builds on, but I'm wondering how possible it is to do the work on a Powerbook through Virtual PC and compile & test builds?

I never expected to be able to do this, but boy it would be a boon for me if it was reasonably possible.
 
Re: Re: DaveL

Originally posted by BWhaler
Virtual server is dead. It's the whole reason behind the acquisition, and MS would of paid any amount of money to ensure it never sees the light of day.
Click to expand...


Why would they bother with this if that was true?

Email by Microsoft

Virtual Server:
Microsoft is approaching final stages of development with plans
to ship Virtual Server in Q1 2004. If you would like to
participate in the Virtual Server Customer Preview, you can find
more information at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/trial/virtualserver.mspx
Click to expand...

As for my windows licence I still use the windows 98 that came with a pos PC I owned 5 years ago. Ended up binning the pc and keeping the os cd's
 
Originally posted by LegionCSUF
Question to any developers that might be reading: how supposable is it to run Virtual PC (on, say, a current 12" G4 Powerbook, 640MB RAM), run a Windows-based compiler (Visual Studio, or maybe something "lighter"), and develop Windows applications?

I have a PC with a WinXP partition that I can always build milestone builds on, but I'm wondering how possible it is to do the work on a Powerbook through Virtual PC and compile & test builds?

I never expected to be able to do this, but boy it would be a boon for me if it was reasonably possible.
Click to expand...
You can do it. It will be slower than my TiBook, since you don't have L3 cache, which benefits VPC. I guess you're maxed out on RAM, so nothing you can do there. Just realise it's *not* going to be as fast as a PC. Software builds, if they are big ones, will take longer, no doubt. I think it's really a tradeoff between time and portability. With VPC, you have everything on one, small, portable. Any other solution requires another system. To me, the price in performance for PC apps under VPC is well worth the convenience and portability I gain.
 
Re: Re: DaveL

Originally posted by BWhaler
Virtual server is dead. It's the whole reason behind the acquisition, and MS would of paid any amount of money to ensure it never sees the light of day.

Exchange server running on Linux? Not a chance in hell.
Click to expand...
You are correct that Virtual Server was the whole reason behind the acquisition. However, you are dead wrong about M$'s intentions. M$ bought Virtual Server because it needs Virtual Server, not to kill it

Virtual Server is a partial solution to a serious M$ problem. The problem is that its enterprise customers don't trust M$ products. It is common for businesses to wait one or more generations to implement a particular mission-critical M$ software title. That is because they feel that they have to use M$, but the want other poor saps to iron out the bugs before entrusting their businesses to the software. In the current economy, this has taken a major hit on M$ sales.

M$ feels that Virtual Server may save the day. With it, businesses can implement the latest M$ software on more or more virtual machines, which are in turn hosted by an OS that the customer trusts. In this way, the customer "gets the advantage of" the latest M$ offering, while protected by the security blanket of an OS that he trusts. After the customer is satisfied that its new software has been thoroughly field-tested, then he can move it from the virtual machines to the hardware.

The bottom line is that M$ bought Virtual Server because it feels that VS will help it sell more crappy M$ software.
 
I think legally, Microsoft would have a really hard time explaining to the E.U. (since the U.S. justice department has their heads up their asses) how buying Virtual PC and killing it is not a bad business practice. It would basically be buying a product and killing it to destroy a competitor.

On the other hand, Microsoft would be stupid NOT to continue development. After all, it sells windows licenses to mac users. My fear is that it becomes bloatware like the rest of their software. With this plan, because Virtual PC is slow, people will assume their macs are slow and may go out and buy PC's. I think this is really Microsoft putting a short leash on Apple saying "gain too much marketshare, and we'll pull the plug."

I think that Real PC (I think that's the name of the other MS emulator) should donate their code to the FSF and opensource it. MS won't let them sell it anyway so why not? That way we can ensure emulation will be availible no matter what Microsoft decides to do.

I personally have no need for Virtual PC. If I needed windows that bad, I'd probably just buy a cheap PC.
 
Originally posted by NavyIntel007
I think legally, Microsoft would have a really hard time explaining to the E.U. (since the U.S. justice department has their heads up their asses) how buying Virtual PC and killing it is not a bad business practice. It would basically be buying a product and killing it to destroy a competitor.
Click to expand...

Why would they need to buy it first? Microsoft signed a licensing agreement with Connectix to allow the thing in the first place. If they wanted to kill it, they should have just not signed the agreement!
 
I read a post from a VPC user today that said he had talked to a technical support representative at Microsoft who said that VPC was not compatible with the PowerMac G5. That report may or many not be true, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that VPC would not run on the G5 given the many architectural changes in the hardware. In any case, it will be interesting to see how long it takes Microsoft to update VPC for the G5. My guess is -- don't hold your breath (it may be a long time).
 
or vice versa

Originally posted by MisterMe
With it [Virtual Server], businesses can implement the latest M$ software on more or more virtual machines, which are in turn hosted by an OS that the customer trusts. In this way, the customer "gets the advantage of" the latest M$ offering, while protected by the security blanket of an OS that he trusts.
Click to expand...


This is meant to work the other way - the customer runs the latest Windows system (with the latest hardware support) on the hardware.

Applications which need older versions can be run inside the virtual machines with the older O/S versions.

It's not that people don't trust the new software - it's that for some reason or other some of their important software hasn't been updated to the new features.

But the key thing is the "Virtual Server on x86, not PPC" idea - any VPC sales to Mac users is a bonus to the MacBU. Running Virtual Server on top of Windows Server 2003 is the primary mission.

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/trial/virtualserver.mspx
 
Originally posted by daveL
You can do it. It will be slower than my TiBook, since you don't have L3 cache, which benefits VPC. I guess you're maxed out on RAM, so nothing you can do there. Just realise it's *not* going to be as fast as a PC. Software builds, if they are big ones, will take longer, no doubt. I think it's really a tradeoff between time and portability. With VPC, you have everything on one, small, portable. Any other solution requires another system. To me, the price in performance for PC apps under VPC is well worth the convenience and portability I gain.
Click to expand...

Well, my requirements for use are being fast enough to use the UI, and building successfully. I don't like typing and having a huge delay in onscreen response, or clicking a menu and waiting for something to happen. Can I deal with longer build times? Sure, no biggie. I don't have a PC laptop, so what's faster: building through VPC or not doing it at all when not at my desktop (and booted into Windows, which my desktop usually is not)?

Sounds like I will give it a shot. I wanted VPC anyway for smaller apps, and I already have Visual Studio, so doesn't hurt to try.
 
Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Why would they need to buy it first? Microsoft signed a licensing agreement with Connectix to allow the thing in the first place. If they wanted to kill it, they should have just not signed the agreement!
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. All this talk about MS wanting to kill VPC is frankly just nonsense. There is a market for a Windows emulator on a Mac. If MS doesn't own the software, someone else will step in to fill that niche. It's basic supply and demand and MS wants a hand in it to not only control it (can you say spyware) but to profit from it as well.

There will always be some sort of PC emulator software for the Mac as long as 95% of PC's are Wintel boxes. The demand will always be there for a product like this.
 
Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Why would they need to buy it first? Microsoft signed a licensing agreement with Connectix to allow the thing in the first place. If they wanted to kill it, they should have just not signed the agreement!
Click to expand...

yeah but they were making money off the agreement.

Alone with having to ship a windows CD w/ VPC they also had to pay a fee!



Anyway this better have speed improvements or someone will be hurting... um it should be out for the east coast already... wtf.

:mad:
 
did anyone check out http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ recently?
on the front page, it says "Free training when you purchase Microsoft Office v. X for Mac from June 15 to August 31."
why would anyone purchase Office X after office 11 comes out? they could call this Office v. X (version 2) or something and the X would just show that it's for OS X. i guess we'll find out soon enough.

EDIT: nevermind, i see that macrumors was just saying that it's a discount on office x, not an upgrade to office
 
A couple thoughts and questions. The first pertains to upgrades. Does anyone know if I contacted MS if I could somehow trade in or upgrade my copy of Office XP Special Edition to Office v.X or whatever next version is coming down the pipe? I REALLY don’t wanna shell out more cash on a full blow copy of office if I don’t have to.

Secondly with Virtual PC MS has Apple on a leash with this thing. It’s the whole damned if you do damned if you don’t. Tell me what possible repercussions could occur if Apple’s market share somehow starts climbing again? 5%? 10%? The cash cow, read Windows, ALWAYS overrides secondary software like Office and VPC for Mac. If MS feels threatened they could pull an Internet Exploder with VPC or even Office. This was why I was always an advo for breaking up MS but that’s another discussion.
I’m sorry but I think it was critically stupid on the part of Apple for not actively perusing the purchase of VPC from Connectix. This app is the life blood for anyone who wants to switch and not flush the software investment they made in Windows software. I personally have several thousand in Windows software that I do not want to leave behind.
 
Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Secondly with Virtual PC MS has Apple on a leash with this thing. It’s the whole damned if you do damned if you don’t. Tell me what possible repercussions could occur if Apple’s market share somehow starts climbing again? 5%? 10%? The cash cow, read Windows, ALWAYS overrides secondary software like Office and VPC for Mac.
Click to expand...

Each sale of VPC is also one sale of Windows, thus negating your argument.
 
Originally posted by daveL
I wouldn't be surprised if MS drops Mac-specific software developement and just sells x86 products running on VPC.
Click to expand...
Isn't this the real longterm purpose of this whole VPC move - sell what is effectively the entire windows package, with office, explorer et al, all running in XP, with OSX an invisible background app????

Microsoft makes exactly as much money off you as they would if you bought a PC, your computing experience is actually worse as its all an emulation, and the office trolls out there need never even be aware that a whole other superior OS is lurking behind.

And this is good for the Mac exactly how?
Isn't this potentially a giant step backwards for Mac Software?
 
one thing i want to find out is why is everyone raving on about open-source. i think it obvious that it is a good alternative and cheaper but come-on they take a lot longer to add features.

the opensource programmes that i think are just crap after however many years of people helping to make it. Bochs emulator, this is well slow after all this time. a student at manchester university managed to make a emulator that emulates any os on any chip at about 70% of its speed but no major company (ms/ conn/fwb) still run slower programmes.
also the opensource community which has been working on it for absolutely ages since different os came about still havent got a programme that even emulates at 1/2 the speed.

i was which other opensource emualtor is any good onmac osx
 
Originally posted by mvc
Isn't this the real longterm purpose of this whole VPC move - sell what is effectively the entire windows package, with office, explorer et al, all running in XP, with OSX an invisible background app????

Microsoft makes exactly as much money off you as they would if you bought a PC, your computing experience is actually worse as its all an emulation, and the office trolls out there need never even be aware that a whole other superior OS is lurking behind.

And this is good for the Mac exactly how?
Isn't this potentially a giant step backwards for Mac Software?
Click to expand...

I second that! The only app that crashes on my mac is Office (thank god to OSX it doesn't drag everything else down with it) - if they can't even make one of their flagship software work properly then how am I to esuppose to trust their emulation efforts?
 
well how about that...M$ actually followed up on that customer survey think secret wrote about awhile back. i wonder if the timing is just to clear out inventory before v11 comes out
 
I agree with those who said MS will make VPC faster and faster.

There must be a way for them to rewrite parts of Windows to run as native Mac binaries. They'll just pick the bottlenecks and rewrite them.

If MS wanted they could integrate the desktop too.

As a sidenote - has anyone used IE 5.5's remote access to Windows XP Professional? If so how about connecting to XP on VPC? Is it faster this way than a standard VPC screen?

Greg
 
Box graphics

Not sure if it is new with this version or has been around since os x, but did anyone else notice that the graphics on the box have changed from being interlocking pieces of a puzzle, top some sort of multiplying amoeba like blobs?

If we get this thing is it going to start spawning new microsoft software at an exponentially increasing rate and rapidly take over our machines?

I just wanted some productivity apps that fit together nicely, not Malthusian space blobs!

http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/nimages/ms_0812_office_sm.gif
 
I'm always amazed what a big deal VPC seems to be for a lot of people. I don't see the point of it at all, and certainly not as long as it's so horribly, so unbelievably, so frustratingly *slow*. If you really need to run x86 software, get a cheap PC box as a second computer and that's that. But don't forget to hide it when expecting guests...
 
Originally posted by the future
I'm always amazed what a big deal VPC seems to be for a lot of people. I don't see the point of it at all, and certainly not as long as it's so horribly, so unbelievably, so frustratingly *slow*. If you really need to run x86 software, get a cheap PC box as a second computer and that's that. But don't forget to hide it when expecting guests...
Click to expand...

I think the majority of it is for office situations. MS Access is a big thing in our office, and so if I needed to work from home with a Mac, I would need VPC.

The other key is that some people aren't ready to switch 100% right away. Heck, I've been running Linux as my desktop for 4 years and I have yet to find a mail program I like as much as Eudora-- thankfully Eudora runs well under Wine.

(And when I get my PowerBook I'll be switching to a Mac mail app-- any advice on how to convert years of Eudora Light mail to a standard format?) :D
 
Re: Pro Office for Mac

Originally posted by jaedreth
That's essentially a price reduction, and a new high end product added.

Wow. Never expected the Spanish Inquisition...

With VPC added, the price of Office is IMHO worth it.

Jaedreth
Click to expand...

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANSIH INQUISITION!!!!!



:eek:)



149 student for 3 computers? it is enough to get most to give up pirated versions...

in fact, i think i might go out and pick up a copy in a little while...

matt
 
Originally posted by the future
I'm always amazed what a big deal VPC seems to be for a lot of people. I don't see the point of it at all, and certainly not as long as it's so horribly, so unbelievably, so frustratingly *slow*. If you really need to run x86 software, get a cheap PC box as a second computer and that's that. But don't forget to hide it when expecting guests...
Click to expand...
Hard to carry a cheap PC box on an airplane :)
 
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