Does a Mac really do Windows?

I have no personal experience with this so far, but I'll just say that I'd be a little surprised if it worked that well. Or, more specifically, I'd be surprised if it weren't deathly slow. Almost all emulation is like that. When they start releasing Apples with Intel chips, they may start to be able to run Windows programs in a reasonable way, but I'd be very surprised if they found a way to make them run at a reasonable speed before that point.

 

I've been running a Mac in a Macintosh hostile corporation for over 10 years. In fact my employer had been so successful in eliminating Macintoshes, the Macintosh is almost forgotten. Most people who see my Macintosh laptop think this is just another maker of Windows computers. Programs written to specifically exclude the Macintosh work fine in Windows 2000 on Virtual PC.

I've used Virtual PC on Mac since it was at version 5 and have lived with it up to version 7. All I can say is that Virtual PC with Windows is more robust than Windows running native on Intel. The level of Windows application compatiblity is very very high on Virtual PC. The only application that ever failed was one that we wrote that ran on top of a proprietary emulated Unix on top of Windows and was so intensive it brought the fastest Dell boxes to their knees.

Microsoft purchased the company that makes Virtual PC not so much to support things on the Mac, but I believe because they were actually interested in running Virtual PC on Windows. Running Windows on Virtual PC on Windows is actually more robust than native Windows, it's just a bit slower.

The only downside of Virtual PC is that it is quit a bit slower than running Windows native. If you can get it, I'd only run Windows 2000, not Windows XP. Windows XP is already sluggish running native and it can become quite painful under Virtual PC. Windows 2000 run's Office applications with a slight but very acceptable sluggishness. You can only buy Windows 2000 bundled with Virtual PC or by looking for it on Ebay.

 

Yes, but how well depends on what Windows OS you use. You not only have to install Virtual PC but also install a Windows OS.

I've always used Macs because that is the operating system I use at work and it doesn't make sense to use one thing at work and another at home. I don't play computer games and all of the software I need is available in a Mac version. I did install Virtual PC and Windows 98 two years ago just for ONE masters class I took. It worked fine and wasn't slow. But as a long time Mac user I just have to say some of the hoops I had to jump through were just plain stupid. Like ejecting a pen drive. On my Mac I just drag it to the trash and it's ejected. On the PC side...what a knightmare. Finding files, naming files, renaming files, everything was just awful.

I now have both a Mac and a PC at work and am learning to use Windows XP...but some things are still a pain compared to my Mac.

Some Windows OS work better than others in Virtual PC so do your homework. There are plenty of forums.

And check out www.versiontracker.com and read the reviews and they'll give you an idea of what freeware, shareware and commercial ware is worth the effort; you can learn a lot there from people who have used the stuff before you buy.

 

I have used Virtual PC on OS X but not on Tiger. It is limited. It works as a Intel pseudo machine or interpreter. All of that translating slows things down. Don't expect to play games. Not everything works fast enough on VPC. Anything that runs native on the Mac should be repurchased for the Mac. I have a VPN connection to the hospital that requires Windoz and that works well but it took a lot of talking with the previous owner of the program Connectix to get it to work as initially the remote VPN saw the Mac running VPC as two computers not one and that was a no no. There was a way to get it to work and it ran well if a bit slow because a graphics intensive real time monitoring program I needed to run. I did get the iQue software to work (Garmin is not Mac Friendly) but it took a long long time (9-10 hours) to compile the data base to transfer to the Palm device. Mark Space makes a utility to transfer it once compiled and ready.
The good news is that Apple is moving to Intel processors. Pay attention to the Keynote address at Mac World next week. Careful if you watch it on line you will fall under Steve's reality distortion field and you will be done for. I predict an new Mac Mini living room audio video design that will work as your HD audio and video storage device combined and uses your HDTV as a monitor and networked trough your cable box and cable modem. All down loadable to your video iPod and Airport and Bluetooth networked all over your house for viewing and listing. Just a guess. Intel based PowerBook at mid year.

 

I don't understand why you are even asking this question:

Virtual PC plus Windows XP Home Upgrade = $215 (you do know you need a legitimate copy of an OS to install, don't you?)

Brand new Dell PC with Windows XP Home preinstalled = $299 (that price includes a 17" monitor, or omit it and use the money for a KVM switch)

For $85 more, you have a solution that runs Windows software far better than through software emulation on the Mac. Do you value your time so little that $85 doesn't cover the increase in productivity that you'd experience in say, half a day?

 

WOW!
And I thought one of the main reasons people ran a Mac was safety.

Why would you want to install, not one, but two hazardous M$$$ products on your Mac?
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...&product=vpcmac

And with the very recent outbreak of this doozy (think rapidly mutating Bird Flu for the PC), I’d seriously reconsider!
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfi...xploit_for.html

"Infection rate
McAfee announced on the radio yesterday they saw 6% of their customer having been infected with the previous generation of the WMF exploits. 6% of their customer base is a huge number."
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=992

"This is a first: the Internet Storm Center is recommending trustworthy computing. They want you to trust that the unofficial patch for the Windows Metafile Volunerability that is currently being exploited by an IM worm. No patch from Microsoft at this time, and the exploit is arranged in such a manner that it cannot be detected by most intrusion detection systems (the snort rule will peg the CPU on your router) nor filtered by packet-inspecting firewalls (it spans two or more ethernet frames). Not really a whole lot of choice about this one."
http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/01/02/1153244...tid=201&tid=218

OMG!!! ISC is saying trust a third party patch for the Windows operating system and not to wait for Microsoft.
If that doesn’t give you an idea of how serious the situation is . . . then just go right ahead and blindly surf away with Internet Explorer and an "it won't happen to me" ignorance. Porn site computer STD anyone???

"* What versions of Windows are affected?

All. Windows 2000, Windows XP, (SP1 and SP2), Windows 2003. All are affected to some extent.
Mac OS-X, Unix or BSD is not affected.

Note: If you're still running on Win98/ME, this is a watershed moment: we believe (untested) that your system is vulnerable and there will be no patch from MS. Your mitigation options are very limited. You really need to upgrade."</span>
<a href=\'http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=994\' target=\'_blank\'>http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=994</a>

Me personally, I’d take priusenvy’s advice. Save the money and just get a separate Windows PC. If you wish to have better built-in safety for that Windoz machine, get it with an AMD 64 processor and Windows XP SP2. That way you will be immune from all of these buffer overflow threats.

<span style=\'color:green\'>" * What is DEP (Data Execution Protection) and how does it help me?

With Windows XP SP2, Microsoft introduced DEP. It protects against a wide range of exploits, by preventing the execution of 'data segements'. However, to work well, it requires hardware support. Some CPUs, like AMD's 64 Bit CPUs, will provide full DEP protection and will prevent the exploit."
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=994

 

I use Virtual PC on my PowerMac about once a week (running Windows XP).

The two important drawbacks to remember:

• Windows XP under Virtual PC runs fairly slow on a dual 2GHz PowerMac. This is because VIrtualPC is emulating an Intel processor on a PowerPC platform.
• You are having to maintain a Windows platform on your Mac, to some extent -- which is why a lot of people switched to Macs in the first place. Security updates, and maybe anti-virus software (depending on whether you're surfing the web or getting e-mail on your VIrtualPC/Windows XP session -- I'm not.)

One note: when the Intel-based Macs come out, the first issue will become fairly non-existant.

I think the big question is this: how many Windows programs that you use now must you continue to run under the Mac?

I think the switch to Mac is worthwhile -- but it will not be painless or instantaneous.

 

Note that VPC was technology not invented by Microsoft, but by Connectix. So at least it's core code was not written by Microsoft software engineers.

An interesting thing about running Windows on VPC on the Mac is that it seems to be more immune to attacks. At work all our native Windows computers get hit constantly with network attacks of some sort and this is behind our firewall. Because of this all Windows OS are required to have Norton anti-virus installed and a firewall software installed. I remember running a Dell computer thinking this wasn't necessary as long as I never read email on my Dell. And then without warning my Dell flashed a message that it was going to shutdown in a few seconds, it shutdown and could no longer get back up because the password was altered. Eventually someone restored my Dell and all was well.

Now for VPC on the Mac, I had no interest in running Norton antivirus or any firewall software. Norton already tends to bog down native Windows quite severely when it's scanning hard drives. So I elected to protect myself by making backups of my VPC virtual hard disks from time to time. The ability to make backups of VPC virtual hard disks is probably one of the biggest attractions of Virtual PC technology to Microsoft. This allows very convenient software testing environments where you need to repeatedly install test software on clean untouched PC's. With virtual PC you can test many PC software configurations on the same computer without having to resort to swapping hard disks or reformatting hard disks.

Anyway with VPC on the Mac in the midst of a network plagued with waves of attacks on Windows systems, I've never experienced an attack. I've been running the same VPC environment since version 5 came out. Now several computer upgrades later and now on version 7 there are no problems with the same environment. So quite possibly with the VPC behind the software router of the Macintosh (I usually do have the Mac firewall on), you get immunity to virus attacks. Oh yes, I do read email on VPC. My company pretty much forces us to use Lotus Notes to read email and the Macinctosh version of Lotus Notes is a bit buggy. So I'm running a plain vanilla Windows 2000 with no security patches, no firewall and no anti-virus protection and so after many years no problems. Windows 2000 on a Mac also seems to be more reliable than Windows 2000 running natively on a Dell laptop. Many of my coworkers frequently curse the crap out Windows hanging up on their Dell, but I tend to keep Windows 2000 on my Mac laptop running for weeks without need for a reboot.

Another point. Although with VPC things will be a bit slower, there is one exception, that is in boot up. With VPC you can save your environment which allows you to restore your Windows faster than it takes to boot up Windows. This is sort of like trying to have your lap top go to sleep and save itself to hard disk, except that it's reliable. Most Windows laptops don't do well going to sleep so most Windows laptop users always shutdown their computers when not in use.

Probably the key reason you would want VPC and it's sluggishness over an actual native Windows box is portability. If you only want to lug around one laptop and you really want to use Mac as your primary environment and only run Windows as a necessary "evil" to maintain compatibilit with many Windows only applications than running VPC makes sense. A secondary reason to run VPC on a Mac is that it's more stable and immune to attacks than running Windows natively.

 

PE makes a very good point here.
I'm an IT professional and have used VPC at work under W2k and it is a useful tool for configuration management.
However, you should have a compelling reason for using it at home and I'm not convinced this is a good solution for the original poster unless he's looking for a new hobby, configuration management. B)

 

If you want to play it conservatively than you should always buy a Windows machine. If you're interested in something you might like better than you should consider a Macintosh. If you want to play it conservatively than you should get something like a Ford Focus instead of a Toyota Prius. If you're interested in trying something that you might like better than you should consider a Prius. The Prius has neat things like "stealth mode" and smart key entry and start. But who needs these new fangled kinds of stuff. The Ford Focus is much less expensive and is a normal sensible vehicle. After all we just want normal, inexpensive and sensible. Right?

More seriously, if you're at the cross roads and considering switching to a Mac, but have got cold feet, then I'd consider getting an Mac mini. This could be a drop in replacement for your current PC box and you don't have buy a monitor and keyboard. Or better buy the new Dell and stick the Mac mini behind the monitor. You can then get a switch box for the keyboard and monitor. This way you don't end up using up more desk space.

I would then leave the Mac mini to be dedicated to web browsing to protect my new Dell from constant network and virus attacks. You could also use the Mac mini as you iTunes computer. For all Mac applications except for professional video software you won't notice much difference between the slowest Mac mini and the fastest multi-processor G5. Of course that does bring up another point if you are ever interested in doing videos the Macintosh will be way ahead of what you can do on Windows. As you get used to the Macintosh OS you'll start to find subtle and neat features that you never knew you would like but are not to be found on Windows. If after a couple of years you don't like what you see on a Mac, no biggee as that's the typical life expectancy of a Windows machiine before you want to replace it. If you do like the Mac than you can consider upgrading to the new Intel based Macs.

FYI: A few years ago someone took pictures of a truck load of Apple Macintosh G5's being unloaded at Microsoft and posted them to a industry newsletter. Microsoft has been making efforts to make Windows run on G5 processors. This is partly done to remove dependency on Intel. This is mostly to support their Xbox game machine. To allow early developers to start developing Xbox games a version of Windows was ported to run on the Apple G5's This version of Windows was restricted only to Xbox developers.

 

hyo silver: what are the two Windows apps that you can't do without?

That -- and how you need to use them (i.e., would they need to be running all the time your Mac is on) would be a major factor re: switching to a Mac.

 

Apple will have Intel based Macintoshes in the next few months. This might make for a very nice OS X, sometime windows OS solution in one box, without as much a speed penalty as VPC currently suffers under PowerPC.

 

i have to agree with getting a cheap winbox... of course that is easy for me to say since i have 5 computers...need to get rid of at least one (2 XP boxes... no need anymore)

 

Are these exact apps required for your job or do you just need an accounting and tax application?

There is Quicken and TurboTax for the Mac. I'm sure there are other accounting and Tax applications as well.

PCs are great if you're really into gaming.

MACs are strong if you do a lot of graphics work.

While you may not find the exact application for both, you can usually find something that does the same thing, I.E. accounting, tax, webdesign, spreadsheet, database, whatever. There is Office for the Mac too.

 

A rumor site that has a good track record, and several other sources have indicated that the first MacTel machines will be announced at MacWorld in the next week or so. The leading possibilities appear to be the iBook and Mac Mini.

Indications from the developer seed units are that they can run both Mac OSX and Windows.

 

gee i was hoping for a combo cellphone/ipod with the ability to download on demand music and video. so instead of paying 99 cents a song, you can just $20 a month and have unlimited access to all the itunes library.

**EDIT** cellphone service and access to download would of course be EXTRA...

 

The phone rumor is also a bigie right now. My sources are positive on that one. Video ipod, phone and possibly PDA. Remember Apple was one of the first with a pen PDA the Newton. Still have one.