Apple Archive

How Microsoft Could Improve Virtual PC

- 2003.02.21

People have complained about the performance of Virtual PC on the Mac for quite some time. While it isn't fast, it does allow you to do things on your Mac that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.

And now it's going to be owned by Microsoft.

Microsoft's made some great products in the past. Word 5.1 for the Mac was an excellent word processor. It was fast, relatively small, pretty stable, and had the features that most people wanted. For those who've used some recent Microsoft software, Word 5.1 seems very "un-Microsoft-like." Unfortunately, the next version required a significantly faster computer, and many users, disappointed because the application wouldn't run well on their year-old Mac LC II, complained.

Recent Microsoft software has only seemed to increase in size. Office X is quite slow if you don't have a fast computer to run it on, and Internet Explorer, while it does have some nice features (like the auction manager), it isn't the best browser available.

While most people reading Low End Mac aren't going to admit to liking Windows, I don't mind saying that Windows 2000 Professional was a pretty decent operating system. It had features, stability, and was even pretty speedy - for a Microsoft product.

Windows XP, while not my first choice in PC operating systems, is also decent. It's a huge improvement over previous consumer Windows versions, since it's no longer based on DOS, but on Windows NT instead.

Microsoft is very capable of making a decent product. I'm looking forward to see how they can improve the performance of Windows on the Mac with the acquisition of Virtual PC. The first thing I think they will work on is speed. I've heard a number of complaints that Virtual PC runs very slowly, and while it's not as fast as Windows on an actual PC, it's still tolerable. However, it could be better, and I think now that Microsoft will be able to develop Virtual PC software to better suit Windows, they could really make it run much better on the Mac.

The current issue with Virtual PC seems to be graphics. The actual speed (installing files, opening applications, etc.) isn't too bad. Unfortunately, the fact that Windows doesn't directly use your video card - Virtual PC fools it into thinking you have a generic card - really cuts performance. If Microsoft could fix that one thing, Virtual PC would be a whole lot faster.

The next thing I see them doing is cutting out the versions of Virtual PC bundled with operating systems older than XP. Microsoft wants to promote it's new system, and selling Millennium, 98, and 2000 as well lets people not only not buy the latest version of Windows, it also makes the product lineup more confusing. I also expect to see the Linux version removed from the shelves. (Editor's note: Virtual PC with Red Hat Linux has already disappeared from the Connectix website.)

Overall, I think Microsoft buying out Virtual PC is something that will ultimately benefit Mac users, although I wonder what Connectix will have left to sell, now that RAM Doubler is pretty much dead and some of its other earlier products are of absolutely no use to people with OS X (like CopyAgent and Double Talk).

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