Even with Dual Boot, We Still Need VirtualPC
04/06/2006 00:40 Filed in: Technology
April 5, 2006 will go down as a significant day in the history of Apple Computers. Today Apple officially released a public beta of Boot Camp, a program that will allow the user to boot either into Mac OS X or Windows XP. This is especially significant for those Windows users who who have held off buying a Mac out of fear of alienating themselves from the comfort of a Windows-prevalent world. Dual boot is also beneficial for all those who would prefer a Mac for regular computer use, but don't want to give up that favorite PC game. The playing fields have now been leveled.
But what about VirtualPC? Is it now a dinosaur? Irrelevant? A product of the old pre-Intel PowerPC days? I don't think so, and I'll make my case as to why. And before you say it, no it's not because I don't have an Intel-based Mac yet.
Above is a screenshot from my PowerBook with VirtualPC running in the foreground. VirtualPC allows me to run an occasional Windows-only program when I need to. Of course, it's always been slow, and even slower after the move to OS X. It's slow because on all PowerPC Macs, an Intel processor had to be emulated. Emulation makes everything slow. With Apple moving the Mac to Intel processors, there is great hope that VirtualPC will be updated so that a virtual Windows session will run at comparable speeds to a actual Windows PC. If there's no emulation bottleneck, VirtualPC should run quite respectably as long as the user has enough RAM.
However, some are seeing the new dual boot feature of Boot Camp as a sign that VirtualPC is no longer needed. Why do you need to run a virtual session of Windows if you can make your computer boot right into Windows?
Well, I'll tell you why.
VirtualPC is actually a fairly sophisticated program. I can drag files back and forth between the Mac finder and my virtual Windows desktop. I can copy and paste text and graphics between the two environments. I can save files directly from a Windows program to my Mac user account's documents folder. I can print from a Windows application and it goes into the same print que as my Mac applications. I can minimize or hide the Windows environment leaving it in standby mode until I need it. And the newest version of VirtualPC allows me to quit the program while saving the Windows session where it is, so that I don't have to boot it up from scratch next time I want to use it. It's really quite a mature program if you think about it.
But I wouldn't be able to have any of the functionality I've described in the paragraph above in a dual boot environment. If I needed to use a program in Windows, I would have to shut down Mac OS X and restart the computer in Windows. Once I complete that task, I have to shut down Windows and restart OS X. Is this progress?
Consider that back in 1990, before I had switched to the Mac, before I was even using Windows, I was a DOS user on a CompuAdd PC. I had two main programs that I used. One was WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. The other was BibleMaster, a simple Bible software program that gave me access to the New American Standard Bible, which at that time was my translation of choice. Whenever I was working in WordPerfect and needed to access a passage from my Bible software, I had to save the file I was working in, close WordPerfect, and then run BibleMaster. If there was a particular passage I wanted to use, I had to save that passage as a text file, shut down BibleMaster, and then launch WordPerfect again where I would then import the text file. I would often go back and forth between the two programs quite a few times in one session. But each time, I had to shut one program down and then launch the other.
Without VirtualPC, we're a step back even from the old days of running one program at a time in DOS. Because in a dual boot environment, not only can I not use programs from Windows and Mac OS X at the same time, I also have to completely RESTART my computer just to go from one to the other. This is not progress.
A few weeks back, Microsoft committed publicly to updating VirtualPC for Intel Macs. I hope that today's announcement won't affect those plans. Boot Camp is significant for that switcher who's been living in the Windows world for his or her entire experience with computers. And it also will allow the PC gamer to buy a Mac or the Mac user to play a PC game. But for those who are doing significant work, who need to quickly go back and forth between a Windows and Mac environment, VirtualPC remains a necessary program.
But what about VirtualPC? Is it now a dinosaur? Irrelevant? A product of the old pre-Intel PowerPC days? I don't think so, and I'll make my case as to why. And before you say it, no it's not because I don't have an Intel-based Mac yet.
Above is a screenshot from my PowerBook with VirtualPC running in the foreground. VirtualPC allows me to run an occasional Windows-only program when I need to. Of course, it's always been slow, and even slower after the move to OS X. It's slow because on all PowerPC Macs, an Intel processor had to be emulated. Emulation makes everything slow. With Apple moving the Mac to Intel processors, there is great hope that VirtualPC will be updated so that a virtual Windows session will run at comparable speeds to a actual Windows PC. If there's no emulation bottleneck, VirtualPC should run quite respectably as long as the user has enough RAM.
However, some are seeing the new dual boot feature of Boot Camp as a sign that VirtualPC is no longer needed. Why do you need to run a virtual session of Windows if you can make your computer boot right into Windows?
Well, I'll tell you why.
VirtualPC is actually a fairly sophisticated program. I can drag files back and forth between the Mac finder and my virtual Windows desktop. I can copy and paste text and graphics between the two environments. I can save files directly from a Windows program to my Mac user account's documents folder. I can print from a Windows application and it goes into the same print que as my Mac applications. I can minimize or hide the Windows environment leaving it in standby mode until I need it. And the newest version of VirtualPC allows me to quit the program while saving the Windows session where it is, so that I don't have to boot it up from scratch next time I want to use it. It's really quite a mature program if you think about it.
But I wouldn't be able to have any of the functionality I've described in the paragraph above in a dual boot environment. If I needed to use a program in Windows, I would have to shut down Mac OS X and restart the computer in Windows. Once I complete that task, I have to shut down Windows and restart OS X. Is this progress?
Consider that back in 1990, before I had switched to the Mac, before I was even using Windows, I was a DOS user on a CompuAdd PC. I had two main programs that I used. One was WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. The other was BibleMaster, a simple Bible software program that gave me access to the New American Standard Bible, which at that time was my translation of choice. Whenever I was working in WordPerfect and needed to access a passage from my Bible software, I had to save the file I was working in, close WordPerfect, and then run BibleMaster. If there was a particular passage I wanted to use, I had to save that passage as a text file, shut down BibleMaster, and then launch WordPerfect again where I would then import the text file. I would often go back and forth between the two programs quite a few times in one session. But each time, I had to shut one program down and then launch the other.
Without VirtualPC, we're a step back even from the old days of running one program at a time in DOS. Because in a dual boot environment, not only can I not use programs from Windows and Mac OS X at the same time, I also have to completely RESTART my computer just to go from one to the other. This is not progress.
A few weeks back, Microsoft committed publicly to updating VirtualPC for Intel Macs. I hope that today's announcement won't affect those plans. Boot Camp is significant for that switcher who's been living in the Windows world for his or her entire experience with computers. And it also will allow the PC gamer to buy a Mac or the Mac user to play a PC game. But for those who are doing significant work, who need to quickly go back and forth between a Windows and Mac environment, VirtualPC remains a necessary program.