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Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Removes Linux Support
Psykechan writes "MSFN has got themselves a beta of the new MS Virtual PC 2004 which should be out at the end of this year. Most notable in their 'fixes' is the removal of Linux, BSD, Netware, and Solaris from the supported OS list. They may still work, they just aren't supported. We all thought that this would happen after MS bought Connectix but this just makes it official."
is still in there, you select "Other" in the hard drive image set up, and just have to format the image yourself, rather than VPC doing it for you. End of discussion.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Ummm.. Because it allows Mac OS users to run Windows applications? What other application does that (reliably)? SoftWindows has died, SoftPC had the same fate and RealPC is completely destroyed. Did you even consider that before posting?
The only hope now lies in Bochs, an open source PC emulator/virtual machine thingy. Currently it's quite hard to configure and has very low compatibility with existing x86 OS's, but at least it somewhat works and the source is out there.
I run GSX at home, it rocks..but $2,500 is a little more pricey.
But then again, $300 for an unlimited number of PC's, what a bargain.
I think a lot of /.ers are collectively saying, "I told you so."
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Having failed to compete on merit, they have decided not to compete at all. Buy 'em up; kill 'em off!
Intellectually incompetent, morally bankrupt and more money than God; ya gottta love Microsft. Why? Because they said so, damnit!
No. VMWare is a virtualiser rather than an emulator. You need to emulate the ix86 instruction set on a Mac in order to run ix86 software.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Also, if Virtual PC supports Mac OSX, couldn't it also support some of the BSDs since OSX has at least some BSD components underneath?
Like another commenter said... it could be a Carbon app which BSD doesn't have.
BSD ALSO doesn't have a Quartz windowing environment. The app is not X11 so you maybe could run it but not see anything displayed. It also probably requires many Apple runtime libraries.
I've found that Virtual PC on the Mac plainly sucks ass.
... I'm a consultant and this works superbly in VMware as I run Linux but develop for Windows clients all the time.
It's a completely different experience than VMware and can't be compared. VMware runs nearly everything, including peripherals like USB devices that only work in Windows.
Try doing development using Visual Studio and Virtual PC on a Mac. Fun huh?
My Mac on the other hand can't do shit, Virtual PC or not. I keep the Mac around because sometimes I work for Apple.
In the case of Bungie and Halo it wasn't that the ports got behind. Halo's primary platform was the Mac, work on the PC version was also ongoing but not as far along. When MS bought Bungie effectively all development work stopped on the PC and Mac and they ported it to X-Box and finished development there.
So much was planned for the original that didn't make it because they had a major platform shift mid-development
At the time Bungie had a big following and there were a number of web sites tracking everything Marathon and Halo. Jason and others at Bungie would occassionally throw in a tid-bit as to what was happening.
Then it was sprung on the community that MS had bought Bungie
Unfortunately we'll never get the game Halo was supposed to be, we just got the cut down, rushed X-Box port
Quite understandably many of us felt shafted
Don't blame me - this
Its hard to configure, doesnt support 'real' graphic modes.. is slow...
Its a great project and its a lot of work, but isnt 'quite there', yet...
So i still use VMware personally..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There is always Bochs IA-32 Emulator.
http://bochs.sourceforge.net/
Snippet from their web site says:
"Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486 or Pentium CPU. Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, Windows(R) 95, DOS, and recently Windows(R) NT 4. Bochs was written by Kevin Lawton and is currently maintained by this project."
Just to add, it works on the Pentium 4 with Windows XP Professional too. I use it to run Linux on while I'm running Windows.
As one of the other posters alluded too, developers LOVE virtual pc for debugging apps on legacy platforms (Win9x/ME). At least I do. It also makes testing software on various platforms MUCH easier (especially w/automated testing) while using fewer machines.
I'm actually very impressed with VPC. It is a very slick piece of software; only problem is that it is slow as dirt...:) (no surprise there)
Microsoft has released a gratingly repetitive support document on this issue.
The blue box was fiction. No such work was ever "started at NeXT".
The Blue Box, in fact, existed as part of OSX server. Before Jobs closed off the Rhapsody on Intel product, the Red Box would have let users run Win32 apps, The Blue Box later became the TrueBlueEnvironment, and the Yellow Box became Cocoa.
That'll let you run them all with the older app's windowframing - but isn't a very good test, as all the heavy lifting is being done by stuff in system/system32, and in 2000SP2+/XP, all that stuff (and the stuff in Program Files) is "protected" by System File Protection... not that we all don't have a hack for that ready ;)
I've evaluated both, and I can testify that Virtual PC just works. It'll run everything that I threw at it so far.
VMware is different story. I keep on getting problems with it. Examples:
You have to install Vmware tools, otherwise the Guest OS won't run at decent speed. And its installation is not always trouble-free.
VirtualPC on the other hand simulates S3 Trio 64 for the Guest OS, which is probably the most supported VGA card on the planet. So you get decent VGA performance from any OS straightaway.
VMware has bombed out several times on me, bringing down multiple Guest OS with it - and I'm running it on Linux.
VirtualPC never done that, even on my unstable Windows workstation (loaded with various apps and overdue for its OS reinstall).
Various Linux distro has various small (annoying) problems installing on VMware - most notably Lycoris.
On the other hand, all Linux distro install flawlessly on Virtual PC.
With VMware, I consistently got error message saying that I need to hack it so to enable it to share the high resolution timer properly among the Guest OSes.
Virtual PC just runs.
Yesterday several new RH9 installations on VMware were unable to connect to the network. After much looking around, turned out somehow RH9 failed to detect the VMware's virtual NIC IRQ - although previous installations never had this problem!
This never happened with VirtualPC.
And the list goes on.
Imagine my shock when I visited the website to actually buy it, only to found out that Microsoft has bought it.
And of course, several years later, Microsoft will claim that Virtual PC is one of their "innovation".
And now I found out that Microsoft has crippled this excellent piece of software.
I really hope VMware will be able to fix their current shortcomings.
A Google search for "IE6 Bogtrotter" turns up nothing, and several variants of that don't seem to produce anything related to what you're talking about. Have any helpful links?