Virtual PC: Let your Mac run Windows (and Unix...)

COMMENTARY--Apple's latest ad campaign focuses on getting Windows users to switch to the Mac. Scathing deconstructions aside, that effort is completely in line with Apple's newfound pragmatism. The company knows that growing market share means converting customers, not just winning over first-time buyers.

Whether you're a PC user contemplating that switch, or you're a longtime Mac user, the ability to run PC apps on the Mac is critical. That's why Apple should thank its lucky stars that Connectix's Virtual PC (aka VPC) exists, is solid and stable, and continues to evolve and improve.

FOR EXAMPLE: Over the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with a bunch of different firewall devices. A number of them require Windows-based software, either for management or for software upgrading. (Which makes me question whether or not Linux is really making inroads in the hearts and minds of IT managers...but I digress.)

Most of these firewalls can be talked to via a Web interface. But there's invariably some function or other that requires a Windows app. The same goes for my Lucent/Agere 802.11b access point, which only wants to be managed and upgraded from Windows.

When faced with such platform intransigence, I launch VPC , fire up my WinME disk image, and away I go. (Disk images, aka "soft partitions," are simply large files containing everything a real disk would: partition maps, file systems, etc.)

VPC uses such disk images to create faux C, D, and E drives, saving you the hassle of actually repartitioning your hard drive to accommodate the pseudo-operating system. I can also configure the virtual PC to use an IP address that's entirely different from the Mac that it's running on. I can then reconfigure, flash, and wrangle the boxes to my heart's content. Until device manufacturers have their platform-centricity beaten out of them by the marketplace, this approach is a usable workaround .

BUT RUNNING WINDOWS-ONLY apps is just one reason I use VPC. Surprising as this may sound to the Wintel contingent, I often find myself using it in favor of a real PC.

I spend a lot of time checking out all sorts of operating systems. VPC, it turns out, is perfect for that. If I want to check out Gentoo Linux or the latest OpenBSD and FreeBSD releases, VPC lets me do so without razing an existing PC hard disk. Nor do I have to trash a perfectly good OS configuration on the off-chance that a new rev will work better.

I take a CD image of the OS I want to install (like a hard disk image, a CD image is a file that contains a CD's data), create a new virtual PC and attendant hard disk image on my Mac, boot the virtual PC from the CD image, and I'm off and running.

IF I CHANGE my mind about configuration options, or find my installation not to my taste for any reason, I can just delete the hard drive image, and start fresh. If I decide that the latest and greatest isn't for me after all, I won't have affected an existing, stable system in any way.

Now, you'd think that doing anything with a PC emulator would be slower than using a real PC. And it's true that running contemporary software within the VPC environment is slower than running it on a real PC. (Especially if you use the latest and greatest from Redmond.)

If you really need that level of performance, by all means use a real PC. I know I do. But unless you're being foolish and trying to run a particularly computationally intensive application, typical Windows and x86 programs run quite acceptably under emulation.

VPC can, in fact, be a real time-saver. Burning a CD takes time. Booting and installing from a real CD is much slower than booting and installing from a CD image on my local hard disk, and I can easily delete--and, if I want to, recreate--a new hard disk image in less than a minute.

IT'S ALSO WORTH NOTING that contemporary open-source OSes run lickety-split on VPC. And since it emulates an i686-class processor, I can use the most optimized OS distributions out there.

Those who need VPC for their daily work tend to need it for very specific apps. I know plenty of Web designers, for example, who use VPC to test their efforts under Windows without needing an actual Windows box sitting on their desk.

The point is, VPC lets me use a Mac as my primary work platform without being shut out of PC-based OSes. Emulation has come a long way. What was once a belittled fringe technology has become the cornerstone of several recent generations of Intel's own chips, as well as Transmeta's Crusoe and products like VPC. If you're thinking about the switch from Windows to Mac, VPC is a more-than-sufficient safety net while you make the transition. And it will remain a diversely useful tool afterward.

What do you think? Have you ever used a PC emulator? Did it work? Did it help? TalkBack to me below.