[jkwuc89]

Ever since buying a 20" G5 iMac for my wife to replace her Windows desktop, I've been eyeballing a migration myself from my current Gateway Centrino notebook. Before making the plunge, I need some information/advise:

1. There are some Windows apps that I must be able to run. How is Virtual PC 7 performance on the PowerBook? I loaded Windows XP Pro with Virtual PC 7 on my wife's iMac and the VPC environment is workable with the apps I need to run. Performance is not great. Would going to 1 GB of memory help?

2. How much memory should I get? The stock configuration is 512MB. In addition to VPC, I'll be running MS Office, iLife stuff, Apache and MySQL. Is there a significant performance boost when going to 1 GB?

3. I would prefer not to take too much of a bath so to speak when selling or perhaps donating my current Windows notebook. Any tips? I am certainly open to donating it.

Thanks in advance for the information.

[KenDallas]

I had been in your situation for quite some time before I decided to take the plunge into the MAC world and ever since doing so I have been nothing but extremely happy.

Moving over from the PC I had certain bits of software that I had to have which made VPC a necessity. I personally preffer the performance of Windows 2000 Pro over the "cool-factor" of Windows XP Pro. Besides, the applications that I was looking to move over did not require Windows XP.

The initial configuration of my Powerbook included 512mb of ram, and quite frankly VPC with Windows 2000 Pro was functional to say the least. I decided to purchase third party ram and added 1gb. So now I have 1.5gb ram on a 1.67mhz processor and everything works wonderfully. VPC is much snappier than it was before and all my PC apps work without of problem.

As for applications, I use everything you have on your list with the exception of Apache and things work fine. I would definitely consider getting the extra RAM considering how inexpesive RAM has become in recent months. I paid a little less than $200 from outpost.com and would highly recommend them.

[driven]

I'm in a similar boat to KenDallas.

I upgraded my 1.67 to 1.5GB RAM. I took the 512MB Stock, and added another 1GB. It cost me about $140 for the RAM + Shipping.

VPC now runs fantastic. I'm using to run exactly two applications: MS Money & Visual Studio.NET.

I'm so happy with this laptop that I can't express it. The funny thing is that my mother talked me into buying this laptop, but she passed before I could show it to her. :-( Anyway: Go for it! The 1.67 works great with VPC, just get enough RAM.

[junebug630]

Driven,
first sorry to hear about your loss.
I do have a question concerning the performance of Visual Studio .Net on your Powerbook. I have just started to play around with it on my Windows machine, just some simple programs and could not believe how slow it seemed on Windows XP with 1GB ram 2.5 GHz. Does it lag a bit like on Windows ? Thanks.

[driven]

It shouldn't be THAT slow on your Windows machine. I'm typically developing on machines that are 1.6 - 1.8 Ghz with 512MB - 1GB of RAM on Windows XP.

On the Powerbook I have VPC set up with 512MB of RAM on Windows 2000. It's certainly slower than a dedicated Windows box, but it fits the bill when I need it. (It's certainly usable)

Oh yes: THANK YOU for your condolences.

[amazing]

David Coursey wrote a helpful guide, no longer in print but available used from amazon.com

"Mac OS X for Windows Users: A Switchers' Guide by David Coursey"

The book mentions move2mac which appears to be still available, though it doesn't move email groups. Never used it, so ??

http://www.detto.com/move2mac/

You'll want the most RAM you can get. Some reports show that VirtualPC actually slows down if you assign more memory, go figure. Current version has limited compatibility with Tiger, so consult macintouch.com for details on what's problematic.