VPC 2007 announced!

VPC (virtual pc) 2005 is also free, isn't it?

VPC 2007 will be free, though implied is a membership in the partner program, correct?

Becoming a partner is also free, a 'registered partner', correct?

I like the Partner program so far, as an micro-ISV type myself. I haven't made much use of it to date, but being on the mailing list is worth it alone, imho.

The biggest feature that VPC 2007 needs is support for the Vanderpool virtualisation support built into the newest Intel CPUs and the AMD equivalent.

If it doesn't have that it probably isn't worth upgrading.

dahat wrote:

VPC 2004 went free? At last! I get to banish the horrors that is VMWare from my work PC.

I have to agree.  We've been to some VMWare demos and they certainly are proud of themselves, but where VPC takes 1 file for a machine (plus 1 per disk), VMWare requires a whole slew of files to get a machine running.

Oh, and I haven't run VMWare for months, but there it is, in my task manager, their stupid network drivers.

The last time I even used vmware was about 6 months ago when I tried the vmware image of ReactOS.

I haven't tried VPC. I have heard that it is apparently very slow in comparision to vmware, any truth?

yman wrote:

 I have heard that it is apparently very slow in comparision to vmware, any truth?

I find it to be the other way around.

Maybe because I use it for running windows mainly, and VPC does not have addons for, say Linux.

borosen wrote:



yman wrote:  I have heard that it is apparently very slow in comparision to vmware, any truth?

I find it to be the other way around.

Maybe because I use it for running windows mainly, and VPC does not have addons for, say Linux.

I know they are being developed, and i in fact think you can go to connect, and subscribe to the beta program, and download them.

But this is great news indeed. I cant wait to get my hands on it!

Now I just need to buy another version of Windows so I can start testing with more than 1 version of IE.

That is cool Zeo. I think Microsoft is doing this to combat Xen and VMware. Will the Mac version be free or has Microsoft discontiuned that since bootcamp exists?

How do you like working at Microsoft? I noticed your avatar doesn't have the employee sticker.

Regards,
Vincent

By saying that Virtual PC 2007 will run Vista, I'm assuming they're also adding Direct3D support to it. Granted you can run Vista without the fancy effects now, but I don't think MS would announce it as Vista ready and then have it barely run.

yman wrote:


I haven't tried VPC. I have heard that it is apparently very slow in comparision to vmware, any truth?

One of those 'depends on who you speak to' things - I did hear VPC 2007 is going to improve performance though - which is great!

I'm hoping for a few more features - VPC is a fairly 'mnimalist' system compared to VMWare which seems to have more power user features, such as the snapshot management etc.

Either way, this is great news for both testing and development, and those wanting legacy support.

yman wrote:

I haven't tried VPC. I have heard that it is apparently very slow in comparision to vmware, any truth?

I've used both, on the same machine, which is a reasonable test.
In my experience VPC 2004 was noticeably slower than VMWare, but Virtual Server was not.
It's been a while since I used any of these products on my home PC (it's held together with string and chewing gum as it waits to be replaced by a new machine for Vista), but from what I recall VMWare also offered more flexible options for defining VHDs.

I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how VPC 2007 compares.

The most important feature VPC 07 could support, for me personally, would be 3D acceleration. Not because I want to play 3D games on a virtual machine, but just because it has become very widely used within Operating Systems.

I hope vpc 2007 will have:
- 3d vid card
- basic soundblaster in PCI not ISA

I've tired React OS. It's booted nice but not to any NT 4 look a like... sorry /OMC

ZippyV wrote:


- basic soundblaster in PCI not ISA

With regard to the "Vista compatible" claims, it would have to have a PCI sound card since Vista does not support ISA anymore.

UnoriginalGuy wrote:



The most important feature VPC 07 could support, for me personally, would be 3D acceleration. Not because I want to play 3D games on a virtual machine, but just because it has become very widely used within Operating Systems.

That'll be computationally impossible for any modern cards. It might be possible to emulate a 3DFX Voodoo card, but if they want real performace they're going to have to ask the 3D chipset vendors to add native virtualisation support to their products.

Of course, they could write a wrapper, but I don't know how well that would work.

VirtualPC really needs better Linux support (and drivers) before I can consider using it over VMWare. They support OS/2 which I feel less people use than Linux.

Try using the latest Ubuntu build in a modern computer, it really doesn't run that well.