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Virtual PC

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Microsoft Virtual PC
Developer(s)Microsoft Corporation
Stable release
2004 SP 1 (Windows)
7.0.2 (Mac) / December 2, 2003 (Windows)
June 28, 2005 (Mac)
Operating systemMac OS (deprecated), Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows
TypeEmulator, Virtual machine
LicenseProprietary
Websitefor Mac (version 7)
for Windows (version 2004)

Virtual PC is an emulation suite for Apple Mac OS X, and a virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows operating systems. The software was originally written by Connectix, and was subsequently acquired by Microsoft.

Virtual PC emulates a standard PC and its associated hardware. Thus, it can be used to run nearly all operating systems available for the PC. However, issues can arise when trying to install uncommon operating systems that have not been specifically targeted in the development of Virtual PC.

Virtual PC emulates a Pentium II with MMX processor (virtualizes the host processor on Windows versions) with an Intel 440BX chipset, a standard SVGA Vesa graphics card (S3 Trio 64 PCI with 4 MByte Video RAM, adjustable in later versions), a system BIOS from American Megatrends (AMI), a Creative Labs Soundblaster 16 PnP and a DEC 21041 (DEC 21140 in newer versions) Ethernet network card.

Not all programs are guaranteed to work because they can use undocumented features of hardware, exotic timings, or unsupported opcodes, although overall compatibility is considered excellent.

It also uses some guest calls traps (especially when using the guest extensions) to accelerate emulation.

Virtual PC has been successfully used with software to get around expiration periods.

Version history

The first version of Virtual PC was developed for the Macintosh and was released in June 1997. Four years later in June 2001, the first version of Virtual PC for Windows, version 4.0, was released. Connectix sold versions of Virtual PC bundled with a variety of operating systems, including many versions of Windows, OS/2, and Red Hat Linux. As it became clear that virtualization was important to the enterprise, Microsoft became interested in the sector and chose to acquire Virtual PC and an (at the time) unreleased product called "Virtual Server" from Connectix in February 2003.

Version 5.0 was ported by a third party for running with OS/2 as host. This version also included guest extensions for OS/2 guest, that can be used with Windows, OS/2 or Mac OS X hosts using Virtual PC versions 5, 6 or 7. A new version of the guest extensions were included with Virtual PC 2004.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 is the current version for the Windows operating system. Its equivalent on the Macintosh platform is Virtual PC for Mac version 7.

On January 18, 2006, following Apple's shift to Intel processors, Microsoft issued a statement saying that "The Mac BU recognizes the need for the product and believes it is the best virtualization solution for PowerPC users, so it is committed to providing Virtual PC to new and existing PowerPC customers. However, Microsoft is still discussing with Apple the feasibility of bringing Virtual PC for Mac to Intel-based Macs in the future and has not made any announcements about if/how the product might work on the new machines". [1]

However it is becoming increasingly less likely with of the release of Boot Camp by Apple [2] that Microsoft will release a version. Boot Camp allows user to install Windows XP and the upcoming release of Vista on a Mac with Intel cores.

Boot Camp is also going to ship as standard with the next release of Mac OS X 10.5 code-named Leopard thus decreasing the need for an Intel version as it will ship as a core part of the new O/S


See also

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