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Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Removes Linux Support

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the but-adds-the-coveted-multiple-network-interfaces dept.

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."

3 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. Never thought I would see this on a Microsoft site by Polyploid+Pimp · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Check out the following statements about Virtual PC for Mac from the Microsoft site: "It has a great Mac OS X user interface and it takes advantage of the stability in Mac OS X."

    Are the guys at MS indirectly saying that Windows is not stable? Seems they could be finally saying it!

    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?

  2. Re:Pretty useless then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use Virtual PC 5 on Windows at work to build & test Dephi & Java software. We get an enormous amount of control over the build and test enviroments by configuring the virtual machines exactly as we want them and enabling Undo Drives; the configuration can not change so we're 100% sure that the same setup is always used. This is much better than our current setup where I have to strugle to maintain four machines, especially the Delphi machines.

    We went for Virtual PC because it was cheaper than VMWare (By quite some margin, I might add).

    However we've already been shafted by the Connectix - Microsoft handover; we bought VPC 5.0, and when we wanted to upgrade to 5.2 they're no longer available. All we can get is a 5.2 trial, or the 5.0 we already have. The Virtual PC page at Microsoft also used to say VPC 2004 would be released in November; now it says "End of 2003". Bah!

  3. Re:Pretty useless then by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Bochs will never replace VPC as long as Bochs is written in "pure" platform neutral code. VPC works as well as it does because of platform-specific optimizations done all over the place, both in C code and in assembly. This can break compatibility(such as with the new G5), but it's the only way to get enough speed to be useful, otherwise it's going to be like trying to use MAME to run Windows(MAME of course is also pure, but it can get away with this because the environment it emulatates runs at a fraction of the speed of the host).