Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Groover · Jun 2, 2005, 07:55 AM

I'm wondering about getting Virtual PC. I have had older versions in the past and rarely used it. Although I had virtually no windows applications and I was a student. I'm about to graduate and I'm buying lots of software for my soon to be mine PM G5. I know I'm still a student and I can't think of any software I need on windows. If I buy it I still will not have any windows applications for it. Is it worth it just to be more compatible with the rest of the world?

So if you have Virtual PC do you use it and if so what for?

albook · Jun 2, 2005, 09:46 AM

Not worth it!
I really cant see why you want to shelf out that money just to be "more compatible with the rest of the world".

mduser63 · Jun 3, 2005, 01:19 AM

It's not worth it unless you actually have some Windows software which you want to run and for which you can't find an equivalent for the Mac. I have VPC, and use it VERY rarely. When I'm in school, I might use it once or twice a week to run some engineering software that's not available for the Mac, but otherwise I have no use for it. I switched to the Mac less than a year ago, and other than that engineering software, I haven't found anything that I couldn't do on a Mac that I could do on Windows.

Maflynn · Jun 3, 2005, 07:17 AM

Unless you have a specific application I'd forgo the purchase. While the speed as increased its not blazingly fast and if have no real apps to use, it will sit there unused.

Mike

bseely · Jun 3, 2005, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by Groover

I'm wondering about getting Virtual PC. I have had older versions in the past and rarely used it. Although I had virtually no windows applications and I was a student. I'm about to graduate and I'm buying lots of software for my soon to be mine PM G5. I know I'm still a student and I can't think of any software I need on windows. If I buy it I still will not have any windows applications for it. Is it worth it just to be more compatible with the rest of the world?

So if you have Virtual PC do you use it and if so what for?

I think you've already answered your own question. If you don't have anything that you need VPC for... then you don't have any need for VPC.

I use it all the time because I have several apps that I must run on windows for work - and having VPC on my mac at home allows me to run those apps. This includes (idiodically) several web-based apps that only run on Win IE.

If you don't have any windows apps that you need... then you don't need VPC.

iluvmymactoo · Jun 3, 2005, 06:50 PM

The only reason why I use VPC is to test web sites I've designed under a Windows platform in IE.

I have no software installed, just the bare bones OS.

Sven G · 06:14 AM

Anyway, there's always the free option of using the QEMU emulator (which also supports Windows), with one of its 3 OS X graphical frontends: QemuX, Q, or JQEMU...

noktulo · Jul 18, 2005, 05:51 PM

I haven't used it yet, but the architecture program I'm going into had me buy a software package that included Adobe CS, Office 2004, and VPC with WinXP, so I assume I'm going to be needing it.

ranga · Jul 18, 2005, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by Groover

So if you have Virtual PC do you use it and if so what for?

I mostly use VPC for running different Linux distros (SuSE, RedHat, Debian) in order to test things out for work.

The only time I've actually installed Windows under VPC was when I wanted to play Curse of Monkey Island (the one that wasn't released for mac).

If you don't really have a need for VPC, I wouldn't buy it.

--ranga

discotronic · Jul 19, 2005, 12:30 AM

If you have the room just buy a cheapo PC. The cost is almost the same.