
- Windows 2000 emulator for mac for mac#
- Windows 2000 emulator for mac mac os x#
- Windows 2000 emulator for mac mac os#
- Windows 2000 emulator for mac install#
- Windows 2000 emulator for mac upgrade#
Virtual PC is much more flexible, making it easy to set up and use multiple independent boot “drives,” each with a different OS or application set. Blue Label offers only limited provisions for accessing files on Mac hard drives.īlue Label’s configuration interface is also highly modal and nonintuitive. Virtual PC has numerous functions for sharing data between Mac and PC environments, including shared folders, drag and drop, andnew in this versionthe ability to use AppleScript to launch and interact with PC applications.
Windows 2000 emulator for mac mac os#
If you’re running under Mac OS 9, Virtual PC lets you use PC USB devices, including those with no Mac drivers. Virtual PC lets you run PC software inside a Mac window or full screen Blue Label offers only the latter option.
Windows 2000 emulator for mac install#
Blue Label forces you to install your own copy of Windows. You can buy Virtual PC 3.0 in versions that include either DOS only or Windows and DOS. However, the differences between the two packages are stark. Connectix’s Virtual PC 3.0 and Lismore Software Systems’ Blue Label PowerEmulator 1.5 both run PC software on a Power Mac, but otherwise they are very different pieces of software.īoth packages use software and the PowerPC’s processing muscle to create a fake PC, tricking Windows applications into thinking they’re running on a real 80X86 machine. However, for many common applications - particularly office tools - Virtual PC remains a perfectly usable alternative to an expensive investment in new hardware.Sure, PCs are dirt cheap these days, but do you really need another computer? Even if you occasionallyor regularlyuse PC applications, PC-emulation software for your Mac can save you from purchasing a beige box or Windows laptop. Connectix says that the OS is so new that it hasn't yet had time to implement the optimisations that it has built into the OS 9 version, and says there's a 20 to 30 percent speed difference. Connectix has eased some of the pain by optimising basic system functions like drop-down menus and application launches, but on processor-intensive applications like Photoshop the speed is so slow it's difficult to bear. The main disadvantage of all this is performance, which still feels sluggish. There are a few other useful new features with version 5, such as OS X multi-processor support, optimised user interface speed and the ability to revert to a saved Windows state - which could be useful if you're doing software testing or working in a school computer lab. The applications we tested, including Microsoft Office tools, all worked fine. Virtual PC shares the Mac's Internet connection and supports the popular PC network protocols, allowing you to access corporate data and printers, for example. When you roll the mouse pointer into the PC space, it becomes the PC mouse. Control of hardware like CD-ROMs and networking is accessed through icons around the margins of the PC window. The PC environment is seamlessly integrated with the Mac, allowing you, for example, to cut and paste or drag and drop files between Mac and PC environments. Once you've got Virtual PC running - it runs as a window on the desktop, or takes over the screen if you tell it to - Connectix's clever design comes to the fore. Virtual PC does much of the ugly work for you, and since the hardware is simulated, there aren't any problems with recognising graphics cards, networking equipment and the like. Installation is surprisingly painless, given that you are performing the equivalent of a clean Windows installation. However, Connectix says that the OS versions are different enough that each version of Virtual PC is tweaked to make that particular Windows software run faster. Each comes with a complete Windows CD, but we were able to install non-bundled versions of Windows without any trouble.
Windows 2000 emulator for mac upgrade#
Virtual PC 4 users can upgrade for about £69. The DOS version costs £69, the Windows 98 and Windows XP Home Edition versions are £139, and the Windows 2000 version is £179. Each version of Virtual PC comes with a preinstalled OS.
Windows 2000 emulator for mac mac os x#
The biggest advance with Virtual PC 5 is the addition of Mac OS X support, which is combined into a hybrid installer that works natively in either OS 9 or OS X.Īt its core, Connectix Virtual PC isn't a Windows emulator rather, it's a PC emulator, which means it runs almost any Pentium-ready operating system, including Windows and Linux, on your Mac.

However, performance issues are still a concern.

The software is easy to use, stable, cleverly designed and runs different versions of Windows, including XP.
Windows 2000 emulator for mac for mac#
Connectix's Virtual PC for Mac is an inexpensive and effective way of running those essential applications that just haven't made it to Apple's platform, and version 5 now supports OS X natively.
