[Powerbook]

A buddy of mine might be forced to do some Office and Java work with Windows software. Please post some real world experience of VPC on the new iBooks (preferably the 1000MHz model).

Regards,
PB.

[rhansen_x]

What Operating System? XP or 2000?

[Weezer]

Originally posted by rhansen_x:
What Operating System? XP or 2000?

I use 98 SE, and it runs OK enough..I use it to play the Party Poker software, so I'm not doing anything that demanding. Using XP will be suicide for your ibook.

[Randman]

I'd suggest Office for the Mac over the Windoze version. I run XP from my G4, 1GHz, when needed. It's a bit sluggish but does the job. Give it as much ram as you can afford (I don't do labor intensive stuff in XP so I give it half my ram, 320). I also minimise other apps on OSX, no running Safari, Mail, VLC, ITunes and PhotoShop at the same time.

[Powerbook]

Originally posted by rhansen_x:
What Operating System? XP or 2000?

The fastest, I'd say. So 2000.

PB.

[va3uxb]

I've got the G4 12" 800MHz (384MB ram), with VPC/Win2000Pro.

I use it to test / use some Windows-only network software we're developing for our not-yet-enlightened customers.

It runs Ok on the 800MHz machine, there are some delays now and then. I also use it for Internet Explorer, to see how our websites look in the Windows environment. It performs acceptably there too.

The only thing it doesn't do well for me is run Fury3, the only computer video game I ever really loved. (snif)

-Stephanie

[rhansen_x]

Just received iBook 12" 1 Ghz for work. I will install both XP and 2000 and get back to you on what I find.

Nice to have a Mac again. Used to have a 17" TiBook, switched jobs and got a Dell. It does the job for what I need it to do (network administration and PBX programming) - but it is not as friendly a machine as the mac.

[jyee]

i've got a pbook 12" g4 (rev1-867mhz) and VPC w/ xp pro.

there are a few things you can do to speed up vpc (although it's still rather slow and you'd be better off NOT buying it and using the money to buy a cheap p3 or celeron... of course if you warez'd it that's another thing entirely).

1. put the vpc virtual drive on a seperate physical HD (not partition) from your mac boot HD.
2. give VPC lots of real ram (i'd give it 384mb+). turn off memory paging in windows. memory paging allows windows to use the HD as swap space... since it VPC is running off of a virtual drive, this swap space tends to be really slow.
3. if using xp, turn off all the fancy schmancy graphics (look under the hardware profile and you'll see vpc mimics an s3 trio video card. these are crappy in real life... do you think a virtual one is better?). you can do this by going to system preferences > advanced > performance. set windows for highest performance.

[Kenh]

So much depends on what software you will run on VPC.

I have a 700 mhz I-book, 720 ram, Virtual PC 5.04, had Windows 98 for a year, too many crashes, have had XP for two years, slightly slower,but crashes far less than Windows 98.


All applications are a lot slower on opening than on a Windows machine, but once open, the differences are much less significant, certainly not to the extent that I would rule out VPC.

If I needed state of the art speed, I would get a cheap Windows machine and run it off the Mac using Remote Desktop. Heard a lot of good things about it. But would keep VPC on the laptop.

[PubGuy]

Well, this may not help, but I've got an original PowerBook G4-400 with 384 MB RAM. and OS X 10.3.4.

I'm running VPC 6 with drive images for Win98, 2000 Pro and XP Pro.

The best overall performance is on the 2000 Pro drive image. Connectix used to have a paper on their web site explaining how to optimize 2000 for VPC.

The performance is sufficient for me to do some Access/ VBA development in. Plus, the "Undo Drives" feature is great for being able to reset your Windows back to a known state each time.

[megasad]

Originally posted by Powerbook:
...Please post some real world experience of VPC on the new iBooks (preferably the 1000MHz model).

Don't have such an iBook, but on a 1.25GHz eMac, with 1GB of RAM, and on a 1.33GHz 12" PowerBook, with 768MB RAM, Virtual PC 6.1.1 runs Windows 98 well enough for me to be able to play Grim Fandango very smoothly. Also, instead of having to put the actual CDs in the drive, I've made disk images of them that Virtual PC can mount and present to Windows as if they were real CDs. Is good for the Grim Fandangoing on the PowerBook.

[macboyx]

I have a PowerBook g4 12" 1GHz with 768MB RAM.

I use VPC6 and XP (i think its quicker than 2000 on VPC6) to connect to my email for work (I can't use a Mac at work) and it works great. I mean peformance is a subjective thing. For me it's either take 2 laptops with me when I travel, leave my precious PB at home and take only my ThinkPad or use VPC and get to take my Mac.

The only way he'll know if it works for him is to try it. For me it's quick enuff and better....it works!

[mac freak]

Man, all these new users with their VPC impressions!

I used to run VPC on a G4/DP450, and the only OS that ran at a comfortable speed was Windows 95

Of course, that was back in the days of VPC 3 as well.

[smezjj]

Originally posted by mac freak:
Man, all these new users with their VPC impressions!

I used to run VPC on a G4/DP450, and the only OS that ran at a comfortable speed was Windows 95

Of course, that was back in the days of VPC 3 as well.

I guess if you want to go there, I used to use SoftWindows, I believe made by Insignia, running Windows 3.1.1 on a 75mhz Performa 5215....

Oh, and did I mention it installed on 12 or 13 floppy disks?

[x user]

I'm using VPC5, so thats probably part of my problem. But it really drags with 98SE. Anyone know when VPC7 is coming out? I need that one!

[ginoledesma]

Originally posted by mac freak:
Man, all these new users with their VPC impressions!

I used to run VPC on a G4/DP450, and the only OS that ran at a comfortable speed was Windows 95

Of course, that was back in the days of VPC 3 as well.

I still maintain the Windows 95 is the most responsive Windows OS when run under VPC. That was the case with my PowerMac G4/400 (even with 1.5GB RAM) and that is still the case with my iBook G4/800.

Granted, it doesn't officially support USB and the later technologies, but to run the simplest Windows programs, it works well. I'd skip Win98 and would not touch WinME with a 10 foot pole.

I've installed VPC6 with Windows 2000 on my iBook G4/800 (640MB of RAM). Performance is comparable to that of a Pentium II-450, I'd say.

Powerbook, is there a particular "real world" test you want performed (quantifiable)?

[foxxlet]

I have an ibook g4 12" 800Mhz. I bought office pro which has vpc 6 included.

It runs pretty well, I use it because I sometimes need to run ms frontpage. I suggest using XP because VPC seems to have some speed ups when using XP. I've tried Win 98 which should be fastest (but less reliable crash wise) but its actually slower in many ways than XP. (especially viewing web pages)

I have a few suggestions to anyone using XP on VPC on an ibook...

1) (as mentioned above) Turn off the XP special effects, right click on desktop or go to display in control panel, under themes, choose 'windows classic'. This is the best way to get more performance out of XP even on a real PC.

2) Under sounds in control panel choose 'none' under sound scheme.

3) Under folder options in any explorer window choose 'windows classic folders'

4) Turn off any backdrops under display contol panel (see 1)

5) Update windows XP using windows update until its completely updated. This will also keep you safer from viruses etc.

6) Always save the state so you don't need to waste time booting up everytime you use the machine

7) Install as few programs as needed to get by

8) The ibooks hard drive is slow, try to run it on another drive.

9) You installed VPC additions right?

There are loads more little windows tricks to get things faster but those are the main ones I can think of right now!

Hope it helps someone somewhere!

Richard

[caleach]

I have a somewhat related question. I am trying to connect to our server at work and there is one program that only runs on a PC so I need to be able to connect to a terminal server. I am assuming that VPC 6 with Windows 2000 includes a Client Access License, but does VPC need to be running to be able to use the license or is there a way to validate it and not have to launch VPC?

[Powerbook]

Thanks, folks. Got some good input!

Originally posted by ginoledesma:

Powerbook, is there a particular "real world" test you want performed (quantifiable)?

Hmmm... most important would be:
MS Office 2000/XP (Access etc...)
Java Development tools (basic tasks!)


PB.

[BkueKanoodle]

Originally posted by caleach:
I have a somewhat related question. I am trying to connect to our server at work and there is one program that only runs on a PC so I need to be able to connect to a terminal server. I am assuming that VPC 6 with Windows 2000 includes a Client Access License, but does VPC need to be running to be able to use the license or is there a way to validate it and not have to launch VPC?

You would have to actually be running the windows 2000 client to use that license. However there are some other angles to attack this.

Is the Windows 2000 server running in Remote administration mode, or is it being used full time as a terminal server. If its only being used in remote admin. mode you do not need the license to connect to it with Microsoft RDP client.

Is there a spare XP machine at work? You could use MS RDP client to connect to that and run the app on that machine.

If you haven't bought VPC yet, it's much cheaper to just spend the $129 dollars to get a terminal server license for your mac.

Hell even if you do already own VPC , $129 for a ts license is worth the time you'll save not having to boot up VPC and worrying about keeping your Windows Images patched and working.

[rhansen_x]

After testing both 2000 and XP (painfully slow installs), I decided to dump them both and use my Dell D600 for Windows work. I have no patience for how slow these two operating systems worked in my iBook.

I will maybe test VPC on my dual 2Ghz G5 at home. Maybe. Not sure if I want to ruin my shiny new mac with a Micro$oft operating system....

[greenamp]

Originally posted by rhansen_x:
After testing both 2000 and XP (painfully slow installs), I decided to dump them both and use my Dell D600 for Windows work. I have no patience for how slow these two operating systems worked in my iBook.

I will maybe test VPC on my dual 2Ghz G5 at home. Maybe. Not sure if I want to ruin my shiny new mac with a Micro$oft operating system....

VPC doesn't run on the g5 system does it?

[Randman]

What are VPC additions?

After adding more ram (1.12GB), and changing the XP setting to 512, it still runs pretty slow.

[galarneau]

Try Windows NT4 workstation.

I run it on my 12" iBook 1GHz, and it flies. Way faster than 2k or XP was. Takes much less RAM as well.