Product Reviews

When we last looked at Virtual PC (see Reviews, issue 84, p162), it was a brand-new conversion of the Macintosh version. Now, Connectix has released version 5 for Windows, and there will be additional products in the range that also support OS/2 Warp and MAC OS X as host OSes. The functionality remains the same, allowing you to run multiple OSes as 'guests' under another copy of Windows. It's ideal for testing and supporting software under different OSes, running difficult apps that require a certain OS, or for experimenting with new OSes.

Essentially, it's a PC emulator for the PC, emulating a complete PC in software, from the BIOS to the Ethernet card, including S3 ViRGE PCI graphics, Sound Blaster 16 audio and an IDE hard disk and CD-ROM. This means it fully supports most PC OSes as guests, including all versions of Windows, Linux, Solaris, NetWare, BeOS and OS/2 Warp. To get you started, it even comes with a free copy of IBM PC DOS 2000.

The changes in version 5 are many, but although helpful are often hidden. For example, the emulation runs faster, especially on multiprocessor hosts, installation doesn't require a reboot and many of the emulated PC settings persist between program runs. More visibly, guests may use up to 1GB of RAM, there's a new AMI BIOS with support for APM 1.2 and ACPI, and the CPU usage of guests can

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be controlled.

However, the changes in the emulated hardware have a drawback, as using a Virtual PC 4 disk image in version 5 requires the guest OS to be reconfigured. This is automatic in plug-and-play OSes, but means manual alterations for older systems. Guest images can't therefore be shared between versions, but this is a minor issue.

The user interface has been simplified, making it easier to use and reducing the need for guests to halt or restart. There's even a Properties dialog to show the activity and resource usage within each guest. The emulated network adaptor is a 10/100BaseTX model and the guest can detect if a network cable is connected. Unlike the Mac version, though, there's no support for shared USB devices.

The closest competition is VMware, but this is optimised for supporting certain guest OSes and doesn't provide a complete emulated system. While VMware claims better performance and also runs on Linux, it costs over £100 more. Virtual PC is much easier to use, runs on Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP as well as OS/2 and Mac OS, and guest OS images can be freely exchanged between all versions.

There are also many helpful features aimed at typical users. Virtual drives can grow dynamically as they're used, and be marked as read-only, undoable or even differencing, which accumulates changes in another file but keeps the original intact. Guest machines can even be accessed remotely using a standard VNC client, turning an ordinary copy of Windows into a multi-user system in the style of Terminal Server.

This is an essential upgrade for existing users, especially as it's a free download. And, for those still using OS/2, it opens up the world of modern Windows software. Virtual PC 5 is cheaper and easier to use than the competition, highly compatible and cross-platform. The improvements in this edition may be minor, but there's still nothing else to touch it on the market.