Product Reviews

Macromedia doesn't make Breeze for the Mac. Until a year ago it didn't do a Mac edition of Contribute, either. Neither can you get Microsoft Access or Adobe Premiere Pro, and you can't test your website's compatibility if you only ever use Safari under Mac OS X. Like it or not, there are times when we could all do with an hour or two spent running Windows XP, which is why Virtual PC 7's arrival has been so eagerly awaited.

Version 7 was delayed by some issues it had with the G5 processor, but Microsoft fixed them, and used the extra time to build in pre-installation of Service Pack 2, which plugs a number of security holes and upgrades some of Windows' key components. It also does a lot of hand-holding, particularly where online use is concerned, so continually monitors the status of your anti-virus software (far more important on a PC than a Mac) and warns you if it's getting out of date. It'll also manage your firewall settings and block unauthorised pop-ups in Internet Explorer, of which version 6 - the latest one - is bundled.

Unfortunately, this pop-up blocking is fairly arbitrary, as it seems to make little distinction between authorised pop-ups and spontaneous, unwelcome intrusions. Some online banks, for example, use a pop-up for the log-in screen, which you specifically request by clicking on a link. Service Pack 2 often sees this as no different to an advert on CNN, and so may block it unless you authorise the whole domain or only take pop-ups from secure sites.

Using Virtual PC with a Mac keyboard can be confusing, as PCs use a slightly different layout. The @ and double-quote are transposed, for example, and without a command key, Windows traditionally uses control as a keystroke modifier. A such, saving files is always control-S. Hitting command-S through force of habit, as you would on a Mac, instead invokes the Shut Down command from Virtual PC's runtime environment. We'd have liked Microsoft to consider the problems this could cause and have facilitated dual keystrokes, perhaps with the regular Mac commands requiring a further modifier (both control-S and command-S for save within Windows, and command-alt-S for shutdown in the Mac runtime, for instance).

We'd also like to see Virtual PC double up on OS X's installed resources. It still doesn't automatically

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detect and piggyback your existing network connection, so you have to set it up again once you're inside Windows. This is surprising, as Virtual PC uses OS X's native drivers as a conduit for printing. Likewise, there's no support for QuickTime unless you install it yourself, regardless of the fact it's already there on your Mac. On a brighter note, at least you won't have to upgrade your single-button mouse: control-clicking inside Virtual PC still emulates a right-click in Windows XP.

Gripes aside, we have to take off our hats to Microsoft. Compatibility is spot on, and once the comms were up and running, we had no problems browsing our corporate network or downloading files from the web. Indeed, when our patience with Service Pack 2's pop-up blocker finally snapped, we switched the default browser to Firefox and it continued to operate without complaint. It did have trouble recognising a USB flash drive, though, and when it took control of the device from OS X, the Mac threw up a warning about unplugging a volume without unmounting it first.

The DVD player was also problematic. Virtual PC doesn't play DVD movies in its default state, and you should switch back to OS X's built-in player instead. When we tested this in full-screen mode, our installation threw up an error message explaining our mistake, and then launched the player and froze the Mac. We couldn't force-quit or gracefully shut down and had no choice but to switch it off using the power button. This corrupted our Windows XP disk image, which we had to reinstall, losing all of our settings. Fortunately, installation is very quick - far quicker than it is on a PC - and startup times are comparable to recent PC hardware.

Because your virtual Windows machine is just a disk image inside your Documents folder, you can't expect it to run at the same speed as a similarly specced PC. We tested it on a dual-2GHz G5 with 512MB of RAM, and allocated as much of the memory as we could to Virtual PC. In spite of this, Windows' system properties reported the machine as a 533MHz-chipped PC with 352MB of memory. It was also under the impression that we had a floppy drive; clicking its icon in Windows Explorer, it asked us to insert a disk, which, of course, was impossible. In spite of this, the system remained responsive, and felt like a one- or two-year-old PC. Web browsing was no slower than in the native Mac environment, and general office tasks such as word processing took no performance hit.

Virtual PC is still the cheapest, most convenient way for a Mac user to run Windows, but version 7 is no great leap beyond what we already have. Our experience of using it was also a little fraught. However, G5 users willing to work within its limitations shouldn't be put off: it has been a while coming, and will only improve with time. As such, it remains a good investment for anyone who'd rather not buy a full-blown PC.