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Virtual PC is a PC-compatible virtualization platform by Microsoft. Originally developed by Connectix Corp as Connectix Virtual PC, it was acquired by Microsoft on 19 February 2003. The Mac version of Virtual PC is an x86 emulator compatible with PowerPC Macs, while the Windows version is a native x86 hypervisor utilizing dynamic recompilation and hardware-assisted virtualization. The latest version of Virtual PC supports up to Windows 7, but can additionally run on x64 editions of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 with an unofficial patch, and x86 editions of Windows 10 without a patch.

Virtual PC 7 with the latest version of Office for Mac. “Compatibility is key to Mac users,” said Scott Erickson, group product manager of Mac BU at Microsoft. “Virtual PC 7 allows Mac users to run PC software with more speed and simplicity than ever before. And now that Virtual PC 7 is compatible with the G5, Mac users will be able to. Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac 7.0 is a Windows emulator. The last time I used Microsoft Virtual PC was with versions 4 and 5. I lost interest when many of my grandchildren's games would not run, performance was slow, and I couldn't print documents.

The core platform technology from Virtual PC was later used in the development of a cut-down version known as Windows Virtual PC, mainly intended for use with Windows 7's Windows XP Mode. It was installed as an optional update package found on Microsoft's website, unlike its predecessors which were installed via an installer. It was succeeded by Hyper-V.

History[edit | edit source]

Under Connectix[edit | edit source]

Connectix Virtual PC[edit | edit source]

Connectix Virtual PC is a PC-compatible x86 emulator targeting the Intel Pentium, including emulated features such as MMX, FPU, MMU, and Protected Mode. Virtual PC 1.0 supports PowerPC Macs running Mac OS 7.5.5 and comes pre-installed with a choice of either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. A later version was also bundled with PC-DOS. Additional operating systems can be purchased separately for use with Virtual PC, such as Windows NT, OS/2, and OPENSTEP.

Virtual PC 2.0 adds support for DirectX and UXGA resolutions as part of an emulated S3 Trio card.

Virtual PC 3.0 supports Mac OS 8.0 and comes bundled with Windows 98 while supporting existing Windows 95 installations.

Virtual PC 4.0 supports Mac OS 8.6 on a PowerPC G3 processor or higher, but certain features require Mac OS 9. It adds support for dynamic disks (up to 127GB) and comes bundled with Windows 98 SE or Windows ME.

Virtual PC 5.0 is the last version from Connectix, supporting both Mac OS 9.1 and Mac OS X. It comes bundled with a choice of Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98 SE, or PC-DOS.

Connectix Virtual PC for Windows[edit | edit source]

Virtual PC 4.0 is the first version of Virtual PC to support Windows. It runs x86 user mode instructions natively, and dynamically recompiles kernel and real mode instructions as necessary. It supports Windows ME, 2000, and NT 4.0 as host operating systems.

Virtual PC 5.0 drops support for Windows ME as a host operating system, opting to support only Windows XP, 2000, or NT 4.0.

Under Microsoft[edit | edit source]

Virtual PC for Mac[edit | edit source]

Virtual PC 6 is the first version of Virtual PC published by Microsoft, supporting only Mac OS X. It comes bundled with Windows XP, 2000, or 98 SE, but is also available in an upgrade-only edition.

Virtual PC 7 is the last supported Mac version, as it was never updated to support Intel-based Macs.

Virtual PC for Windows[edit | edit source]

Virtual PC 2004 is the first version available free of charge from Microsoft.

Virtual PC 2007 adds support for hardware-assisted virtualization, including AMD-V and Intel VT-x. Additionally, it supports multiple monitors and Windows Vista as a guest (with limitations). Windows 7 and early builds of Windows 8 are also available as a guest unofficially.

Supported guest operating systems[edit | edit source]

A list of officially supported OSes that can run on it.

• MS-DOS and compatible operating systems
• Microsoft Windows versions up to Windows 7 (including Windows 8 build 7850)
• OS/2 (OS/2 1.0 to 1.30.1 however requires patching in order to run)

Gallery[edit | edit source]

• About Windows Virtual PC

• Windows Virtual PC Settings

• New Virtual Machine Wizard seen in Virtual PC 2007

• Console in Virtual PC 2007

• About Virtual PC 2007

References[edit | edit source]

I've been playing with Microsoft's new Virtual PC 7, which promised massive speed increases over previous versions. While I never got a chance to benchmark the previous version, I was actually quite surprised at how much faster Windows 2000 seemed - it is now fast enough for general-purpose use. (XP performance is still barely tolerable, even at low settings with all of its bloat disabled.) And the CPU results surprised the hell out of me.

The testing platform was my Powerbook, a standard 1.33 GHz G4 model with 1 GB of RAM.

Windows software

I ran some subjective software usability tests first. The usual culprits (IE, Office XP, Transport Tycoon for DOS) all worked flawlessly with no noticeable sluggishness. I chose not to test Office 2003 for two reasons: I didn't have it, and if you're that much of an Office fan, you probably just have Office 2004 for OS X (which I'm really not a fan of - but that's a topic for another review).

I installed DeLorme's Street Atlas USA 9.0, a slightly old mapping/GPS program that's far better than every other mapping program I've tried, including the impressively-mediocre Microsoft Streets and Trips 2004. It ran extremely well - it performed just as well as my real PC. I wasn't expecting this at all, since it draws and redraws incredibly complex maps constantly as you pan and zoom.

Overall, general Windows performance seemed noticeably faster.

Benchmarking

I decided to benchmark the virtual Windows 2000 installation with SiSoft Sandra 2004, a synthetic benchmarking suite that's good for testing raw number-crunching power.

Note: The comparison platforms are not identical across tests because some platforms' results weren't available in some tests. In these cases, I chose the nearest match available.

This was surprising. In generic arithmetic, the virtual CPU absolutely dominated, almost reaching the performance of a 2 GHz Athlon. I imagine that there's another factor here, such as a smart caching or precompilation system, that performs well for synthetic-benchmark code (which probably just repeats a small block of similar instructions).

This seemed more reasonable. The 'Multimedia' test pushes a bunch of difficult math down the pipeline, using MMX or SSE where available. The virtual CPU performed at half the level of a 500 MHz Pentium III on floating-point operations, and evenly between the 500 MHz and 1 GHz CPUs on integer operations. I'm guessing that since Virtual PC is targeted mainly at office applications, they probably haven't done any particular optimizations for these extended instructions.

I'm not sure what this vaguely-named test actually does, but it didn't tell me much. The low 'Speed Factor' makes sense - cached instructions shouldn't run noticeably faster than instructions in memory, since the virtual CPU's cache is probably implemented in the host platform's main memory anyway.

The virtual platform's memory bandwidth lands just behind the original nForce chipset with its dual-channel DDR. Not bad, considering the Powerbook itself is only using PC2700 DDR.

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The Powerbook's G4 CPU, like Intel's Pentium M, dynamically adjusts its clock speed to conserve battery power. Amazingly, while Windows and Sandra reported different clock speeds every time I checked, the benchmark results never fluctuated by more than 3-5%, regardless of how often I tested it and whether it was using AC or battery power. The G4's speed adjustment must be extremely effective, giving any percentage of power on demand.

Gaming

With these impressive CPU numbers, I figured I'd give gaming a try. Virtual PC emulates an S3 Trio64 video card and a SoundBlaster 16. There's no Direct3D support at all, but DirectDraw and DirectSound work.

Transport Tycoon (DOS): Works extremely well. Not surprising, since it worked extremely well on my 486.

Total Annihilation (DirectDraw, 1997): Runs, but not proportionally well to the CPU benchmarks. It's comparable to playing on a 200 MHz Pentium MMX - you can do it, but I wouldn't recommend playing on a large map with a lot of units. Interestingly, the performance improved greatly when I disabled sound, leading me to believe that DirectSound is a major performance issue in Virtual PC.

Moonbase Commander (2D DirectX 8, 2002): Runs, but only at about 75% of full speed. The interface is choppy and laggy, making it difficult to fire accurately. I bet it would run significantly better if I could disable its Miles Sound System music and sound, but it doesn't offer that option and refused to launch when I disabled the sound card in Windows. It's a shame, because I absolutely love this game and would play it frequently if it worked well.

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Conclusion

Run PC games on PCs.

But for the Mac user who wants to run a few general-purpose Windows applications, Microsoft's Virtual PC 7 isn't a bad choice.

Features

Nothing noticeably different from previous versions.

Performance

Gaming performance is poor, but that's not what Virtual PC is optimized to do. Windows 2000 and application performance is excellent. Unfortunately, Windows XP performance is still poor.

Run Virtual Windows On Mac

Value

Virtual PC alone is $129, or you can get it with a bundled Windows 2000 or XP license for $249. This is therefore limited to the business market and piracy. Unfortunately, it's priced out of the range of most hobbyists and tinkerers, who would probably get the most enjoyment out of it.

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Overall

It's a solid product for its target market. I just wish its target market was widened to include older, low-end games.