Apple Archive

No Virtual PC for the G5? Try WinTel

A 'Best of Apple Archive' Article

- 2003.09.05

With the G5 shipping, we now have access to the new 64-bit machine that many have been hoping would come from Apple for quite some time. While I haven't had a chance to play around with one yet, I can be sure that OS X performance is greatly improved over even the G4.

This means that Photoshop will be faster, Word will open up faster, and Virtual PC will start feeling even more like a real PC, right?

Wrong.

Virtual PC doesn't even work on the G5, and now that Microsoft has bought it from Connectix, they have to deal with the users that will be complaining; saying they need it for their work. While I don't use it too often, preferring instead to use a real PC, I definitely would miss it if I couldn't use it.

While I don't have the latest version of Virtual PC, I would expect those just buying version 6 to be able to get an upgrade either for free (a free download, or something) or for a very minimal amount, as it would probably help sales for Virtual PC. Then again, most people buying it probably have G3 or G4 machines, and are planning to use it on them.

Thankfully, for those that have just purchased a new G5 and must run Windows applications - they aren't exactly in the dark. OpenOSX has just released WinTel 1.0.1, and it's completely compatible with the G5. It's basically a Mac OS X user interface for the bochs emulation software, which emulates a Pentium processor, and dual G4 processors can function as either one powerful Pentium or dual Pentiums.

In the same fashion as Virtual PC, files can be dragged from the PC desktop onto the Mac desktop. Wintel also carries a much lower price tag than Virtual PC - it's available on a CD for $30 including 10 open source operating systems (or just $25 as a download). Windows must be purchased separately (or you could always transfer a license from an old PC).

This provides a nice alternative to buying a new or used PC (Pentium II PCs typically sell for $50 or less). Having a software application on your Mac is much more elegant and less space consuming than having a whole separate computer on which to run a few applications, but a hardware PC still offers things that emulation can't, such as much better video performance and the ability to use PC-only PCI cards and other hardware.

Then again, much PC software has certain hardware requirements, and before long you'll be buying a Pentium 4 with 512 MB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive - right after you already spent $2,000 on a G5.

For what I use PC emulation for (mainly opening files that won't open on a Mac or visiting PC-only websites), I don't need to have a whole PC. The newly released WinTel emulator looks promising, but it seems that it's main selling point is that it runs on a G5 - for those who can't wait up to a year for Virtual PC to be updated.

Since Virtual PC runs fine on my PowerBook G4, I don't have any reason to get WinTel. I am curious, though, to see how well it sells.

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