Connectix Virtual PC For Windows V5
We have in the past used earlier versions of Virtual PC at the Lab and, to be blunt, while we could appreciate the difficulty of creating a seamless virtual PC application, we were less than impressed with the end result in terms of usability, particularly stability.We were pleasantly surprised to find that Connectix has addressed the stability issue exceedingly well in this latest incarnation.
And even more impressive is the ease and simplicity with which you setup your virtual PC environment. If you can install a basic Windows app from the box, then you are going to be able to install Virtual PC. The configuration is also a doddle.
The first time you run Virtual PC (VPC) it prompts you with a series of simple questions such as what OS are you going to install; this helps the application suggest basic virtual memory settings. The user can increase or decrease the memory allocations on various Virtual PCs if they are running several to balance the performance of each VPC. You can also choose to purchase a ready-made disk image for your operating system (unfortunately we did not receive one in time for testing). In this instance a Ghost image is simply loaded into the virtual disk and once you reboot that VPC, the OS is up and running.
We did it the old fashioned way and simply installed Windows 2000 from CD on one VPC and SuSE Linux on the other VPC. The virtual system that is emulated by the software is not particularly sophisticated as you can see from the table below, but it is certainly sufficient for most business applications. Do not expect to run your digital editing suite or Unreal 2 game from the VPC, it simply does not have that much emulated sophistication or grunt, which we will get to later.
Once you have created one or more VPCs, they are effectively controlled from the small Virtual PC window. From here you can launch the relevant VPCs, shut them down, tweak their individual settings, or create a new VPC.
We found the sound emulation worked fine--although we did not rigorously test it to ensure Sound Blaster compatibility, it worked satisfactorily in any of the business applications we ran. And, once we had configured our LAN settings correctly on the VPC, we had full access to the network. There were two options for the LAN, Shared Networking with Network Address Translation or Virtual Switch. The application notes recommend Shared is the easiest to configure and should suit most users. However, to run server software or run networking protocols other than IP over Ethernet, Virtual Switch must be used. Although the latter is more difficult to configure according to the manual, we found it simple and straightforward.
Cutting and pasting between host PC and VPC is supported as is dragging and dropping, and folder sharing. One rather neat feature is you can not only gracefully close down a VPC and its OS, you can brutally pull the plug, which results in a disk scan on its reboot. You can also suspend the VPC, save its state to disk, and then restart where you left off.
The CD and floppy drive can be manually "captured" or "released" by the VPC, however if you insert a self booting CD it will boot up on whichever window currently has the focus.
Most of the functionality just described is available from the VPC's drop down menu at the top of the window. There is also an additional VPC toolbar at the bottom of the window that indicates the status of the virtual hard drive, CD, floppy, shared folders if there are any, and virtual LAN. However, if the VPC display is configured for full screen, the menu and tool bars are no longer available. Virtual PC Preferences such as CPU load sharing between front and background VPCs are also set from here.
The VPCs can be configured so they can be remote controlled by another PC as long as this PC is running the VPC client.
Running apps on the VPC was a breeze; quite frankly we were surprised at how robust the VPC was. Business Winstone and all its applications ran without a hitch and any business apps we threw at it ran smoothy. Admittedly the VPC is generally slower than the host PC, as you can see from the graphs, and you can expect your average business app to run around half as fast as it would on the client. But, on our 1.7GHz PC, the VPC and apps managed to keep up with most tasks we tried.
| Product: | Connectix Virtual PC For Windows V5 |
| Price: | AU$491.23; OS packs $408.73 for Windows 98, Me & XP Home, $535.38 for Windows 2000 & XP Professional |
| Vendor: | FirmwareDesign |
| Phone: | 1300 369 951 |
| Web: | www.connectix.com |
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| Interoperability: |
½Runs on most Windows x86 platforms, OS/2 and Mac. |
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| Futureproofing: |
½
Standard, albeit modest, hardware component emulation should support future OS versions without custom vendor provided drivers. |
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| ROI: |
Modestly priced, particularly if you install your own guest OS from scratch. |
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| Service: |
½7-day replacement warranty, free Web support; telephone and e-mail support charged at $49.50 per incident or $99 for a three-incident pack. (Updates and patches are free from the Web site.) |
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| Rating: |
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6%
1%
