Virtual PC Free (for PCs) and Windows Vista Licensing

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Virtual PCMicrosoft had a couple of interesting announcements yesterday on the “Virtually Vista” blog concerning Virtual PC and Microsoft Windows Vista and Virtualization.

The first was that Virtual PC (Microsoft.com) (for PCs) would be free. Virtual PC for Macs would not be free. They also mentioned that virtual PC 2007 (VPC 2007) was in development and that it would support Windows Vista in both host and guest modes, as well sa support for 64-bit Vista as a host OS, and that it will be faster than Virtual PC 2004.

The second (and fairly relevant to us) involves how Windows Vista Enterprise will be handled in a virtualized environment:

Customers who deploy Windows Vista Enterprise have the ability to install up to four (4) copies of the operating system in a virtual machine for a single user on a single device. Even better, nothing in the license requires that Microsoft Virtualization technologies be used – if you want to use a competing product as your Virtualization solution, you still get the four extra installs for use with VMs.

Macworld UK Article: CrossOver lets Windows apps run on OS X, sans Windows

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Macworld UK has an excellent write-up about CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac, and how it relates to Parallels Desktop and Apple’s Boot Camp.

CodeWeavers has announced plans to release CrossOver Mac this summer. The $60 software will allow Intel Mac users to run Windows applications – including some games – without having to buy or install Windows itself.

Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop both provide this capability for Intel Mac owners already. Boot Camp, software from Apple currently available in beta form, makes users reboot their Macs and run Windows. Parallels Desktop iis a ‘virtualisation’ utility that enables the Windows operating system and Windows applications to run in Mac OS X, within another window (or, alternately, in full screen mode).

CrossOver Mac will take this one step further – it eschews what CodeWeavers chief operating officer Jon Parshall calls the “box within a box approach”.

“What you see running is an application sitting in your Dock or your Applications folder,” Parshall said.

Both Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop work because the new Macs utilise the same microprocessor that’s found in Windows-compatible computer, and CrossOver Mac employs the same basic principle. This wasn’t possible before January, when Macs depended solely on PowerPC-based microprocessors made by IBM and Freescale. The presence of an Intel processor inside the Mac forges a close enough resemblance to get Windows and Windows applications to work.

Full article.

Macworld Review: Parallels Desktop for Mac

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Parallels Desktop for Mac
Macworld has published a review of Parallels Desktop for Mac, including benchmarking it using applications (including Photoshop) both within a Windows Virtual Machine, as well as using Apple’s Boot Camp with Windows, and running natively under Windows on various name-brand PCs (Dell, HP, etc.). They bring up what everybody else is saying, that you’ll need lots of RAM to run virtualization software.

Quote:

Parallels’ ability to run nearly every version of Windows, along with many versions of Unix and Linux, makes it a valuable tool for anyone using an Intel-based Mac who has a need or desire to work with other operating systems. If your job requires Windows, but you love your Mac and OS X, Parallels will truly give you the best of both worlds. If you put your Parallels session in full screen mode, anyone walking by won’t even be able to tell that under the Windows façade, you’re actually running the world’s greatest operating system.