The plague of viruses and spyware that afflicts computers running Microsoft Windows has sparked new consumer interest in Apple Computer’s competing Macintosh models, which have been free of viruses in recent years and largely free of spyware.
But one issue has stopped many Windows users from switching: Out of the box, Macs can’t run Windows or software made for Windows. That means that people who switch to the Mac can’t keep using the Windows programs they like or that their employers require them to run.
Now, one company has come to the rescue, making it easier for Windows users to switch. Surprise: It’s Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft, the publisher of Windows and the most popular Windows programs, is enabling the computers sold by its arch-rival, Apple, to run Windows and Windows programs.
To be sure, Microsoft didn’t invent this miraculous product, called Virtual PC for Mac. The software giant bought it from a small company that had been making it for years. But Microsoft has given the program new visibility, and has improved it with version 7.0, which came out last week starting at $219.
Virtual PC takes over a part of the Mac’s hard disk and creates a “virtual” Windows computer there. Essentially, it fools Windows into thinking the Mac is a Windows-compatible PC. When you start the program, a real, full version of the Windows XP operating system boots up, and you can install and use Windows programs atop it, just as if you were using real Windows-compatible hardware.
All the while, the Mac’s own operating system, OS X, is still running, and you can run your Mac and Windows programs simultaneously, in separate windows.
While the two environments are separate, you can cut, copy and paste files or blocks of text between programs running in each. The two operating systems can even share file folders. And the Mac’s Internet connection and printers can be used seamlessly by the virtual Windows computer.
I’ve been testing Virtual PC 7 on a new, powerful Apple iMac G5, and I found that it ran all the Windows programs I tried flawlessly, including programs you can’t get for the Mac. I successfully ran Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Money and Musicmatch jukebox, none of which is available in a current, full-fledged Mac version.
But, there are two big drawbacks to using Virtual PC. First, it operates much more slowly than a real Windows PC. Second, the “virtual” Windows computer it creates inside the Mac can be infected with Windows viruses and spyware, even though these viruses can’t damage the Mac operating system and other Mac programs.
These drawbacks mean that you shouldn’t plan to buy Virtual PC and run lots of Windows programs. If you buy a Mac, you should expect to run Mac programs the majority of the time. Virtual PC is best used for one or two Windows programs that you need to run only occasionally and for which Mac equivalents don’t exist.
That’s not a problem for most consumers. The Mac operating system is better and more modern than Windows, in my opinion. The Mac’s free, built-in Web browser and e-mail program are better than their counterparts on Windows. The Mac comes with an integrated suite of photo, music, video and DVD software that can’t be matched on Windows.
But Virtual PC can round out this superior Mac experience by unlocking access to the vastly larger market of Windows programs.
In my tests, even on the speedy G5 iMac, the virtual Windows computer ran like very slow Windows hardware, despite some speed improvements in this version. It wasn’t crippling, but it was annoying.
You can speed things up by allocating more of the Mac’s memory to virtual Windows, but there wasn’t enough total memory on my 512-megabyte test Mac to make a big difference. If you plan on using Virtual PC, I suggest boosting your Mac’s memory to at least one gigabyte, allocating half of it to Virtual PC, and then running only one program at a time. And avoid power-hungry software, such as cutting-edge games.
Also, I’d shun the program’s “shared folders” feature. Viruses that live in the Windows portion of your Mac’s hard disk can’t normally corrupt Mac files. But if you share a Mac folder with Windows, you are breaching the wall between the two systems.
Still, Virtual PC is a great boon to Windows users switching to the Mac if they need to use Windows programs occasionally. And Microsoft is making it all possible.
Walter Mossberg writes about personal technology for The Wall Street Journal.
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