Virtual PC 5.0 for Windows

CNET editors' review

• Reviewed by:
  Gregg Keizer
• Reviewed on: 09/16/2002
• Updated on: 11/12/2009

Granted, Virtual PC for Windows appeals to a relatively small audience--tech-support types, developers, and businesses running several operating systems, to name a few--but it's still the best PC emulator out there. The $229 program, like its Mac counterpart, lets you emulate any number of fast computers--in other words, create a faux computer within a real one--equip them with nearly any operating system that runs on a PC, and switch among them with a mouse click. Plus, version 5.0 works faster than before and can now run under Windows 98 and XP (previous versions required Windows Me or Windows 2000). Home users should stick to dual-booting (running two operating systems on separate hard drive partitions) if they need more than one OS, but anyone who needs to switch between operating systems on the fly should choose Virtual PC for Windows 5.0.Granted, Virtual PC for Windows appeals to a relatively small audience--tech-support types, developers, and businesses running several operating systems, to name a few--but it's still the best PC emulator out there. The $229 program, like its Mac counterpart, lets you emulate any number of fast computers--in other words, create a faux computer within a real one--equip them with nearly any operating system that runs on a PC, and switch among them with a mouse click. Plus, version 5.0 works faster than before and can now run under Windows 98 and XP (previous versions required Windows Me or Windows 2000). Home users should stick to dual-booting (running two operating systems on separate hard drive partitions) if they need more than one OS, but anyone who needs to switch between operating systems on the fly should choose Virtual PC for Windows 5.0.

Ersatz computers
Virtual PC works by emulating a PC's hardware--the microprocessor, the hard drive, the video card, and the network card--onto which you install an operating system, applications, and files. Virtual PC for Windows 5.0 requires a PC running Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000, or XP but will itself build a virtual machine that runs any Microsoft OS--including DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98/Me, NT, 2000, and XP--as well as Solaris, OS/2, and virtually any edition of Linux.

Bring a beefy system
Thanks to a slick wizard, installing Virtual PC takes only 10 minutes. Once you've installed the emulation environment, you must drop an OS onto your new virtual machine (VM). For that job, Connectix sells OS Packs, which are preloaded operating system disc images that you "mount" on your VM; you can get Windows 98, Me, XP Home ($149 each), and 2000 and XP Pro ($199 each). Sadly, unlike the Mac version, Virtual PC for Windows doesn't include any OS packs out of the box. You can also use your own OS setup CDs--say, if you already own a copy of Windows 95--which we did. Two hours after we tore off the shrink-wrap, Virtual PC was running two VMs--one with Windows 98, the other with XP Home--on a machine that used to run just XP Pro.

To run two OSs on one PC, however, your real hardware must be up to the challenge. Running Windows 98 in a VM on an XP Pro system requires 500MB of extra drive space and at least 196MB of RAM (64MB for Windows 98, 128MB for XP Pro). Want to run two VMs simultaneously? You'll need even more space and memory. (Check out the requirements yourself here.)

Faster fake PCs
Virtual PC 5.0 adds a few under-the-hood features to what was already a solid program. This version now emulates a 10/100MB Ethernet card, rather than a slower 10MB card; you have more control over the CPU (you can assign preference to the VM, rather than just split the CPU's time between real and virtual machines, as in the past); and 5.0 lets you dedicate up to 1GB of RAM to a virtual machine (earlier editions topped out at 512MB). The emulated video card has also doubled its RAM, from 4MB to 8MB, for faster screen redraws. Continue reading

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