Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac 7.0 Upgrade Description:

Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac 7.0 Upgrade review:
1 stars (No Windows 98 support) - Beware...this "upgrade" drops support for anything less than Windows 2000. The system requirements mainly pertain to the Mac side of things and even Microsoft's site simply states that a "licensed copy of Windows" is required. Well, my copy of Windows 98 is licensed but doesn't work. Others have apparently migrated Win98SE but I had no such luck and met with disaster (thank gooodness for backups). So...It's great that it works on my G5, but unfortunately its useless unless I go out and buy WinXP or 2000 and go through the pain of migrating my PC info.
3 stars (Really meant only for a G5 ...) - It works pretty well, but (as other reviewers have stated) VPC is an absolute BEAST on your systems resources. You have to keep in mind that you're (basically) running two operating systems at the same time; and, unfortunately, both Win XP and OS/X are rather demanding on your system's RAM and processor speed.



Again, VPC works well and I'd have no problem recommending it, but MAKE SURE you have at least a Gig of RAM and a G5 processor. Anything less and (although it may still work) you'll be so displeased with the performance that you'll want to put your head through a wall.
2 stars (ssssslowwwww......) - I purchased MS Virtual PC 7.0 w/Windows XP about six months ago for use on my 1.33 Ghz G4 iBook.



Setup was relatively easy and took about an hour and a half to complete. Unfortunately, it was all down hill from there.



My main reason for buying Virtual PC was to run MS Money 2007 Deluxe on my Mac (Quicken for Mac is terrible, but that's another story). It took about 5 minutes to open my Money file. This was followed by an endless series of painfully long wait times between key strokes. Eventually it locked up completely. After about six more attempts I gave up.



I tried playing several games like Rise of Nations and Age of Empires but they were just as tedious and often locked up during the initial loading. I strongly recommend against attempting to play and games on Virtual PC!



One main problem with this program is that Virtual PC does not allow your computer to use its onboard video card. Instead it attempts to emulate an old 16MB S3 Trio video card with software only.



Additionally, the maximum amount of System RAM Virtual PC will allow you to allocate is limited to 512 MB despite the fact that I have 1.25 GB of RAM available.



Hopefully the next version removes the RAM limit and allows your system to use its video card instead of the painfully slow emulator. This program promises so much, but disappoints at nearly every junction. It's just far too tedious for everyday use in it's current form.