my friend has a G4 laptop and he installed virtual pc 5 and XP... XP is unusable cuz it's soo extremely slow... is this normal?
he gave it 256 RAM
any ideas are appreciated

Dude, XP is slow even on a real PC :)

Win2K is a LOT better if you have to run under emulation.

p

the pickle wrote:

"Dude, XP is slow even on a real PC :)"

i have been a pc user for years. i only just recently bought my first ever mac machine. i can tell you that XP is not as slow as most mac users may think. I ran the OS on an old Celeron 500 thinkpad with only 128 mb ram and it ran fine. i would say the problem with this user's slowdown must lie in this VPC software. but of course emulating an OS within another OS is always going to be slow.

- Bill

VPC needs alot of CPU-work (i don't know
the word...)

In mac os 9.X, VPC could slow down
other operations in the backgroud to get
mort CPU-power.

In mac os X however it cannot do that due
to the Preemptive multi-tasking thing...

I'm no expert, but it means that your mac
has control over the CPU and not VPC
anymore. That can cause VPC to slow
down...

I'll try to find the link from the site i read it...

sorry for my english, i'm from belgium...

i found this:

Connectix says Apple apps get
preferential treatment in OS X. January
10, 2002 -- Yesterday we met with
Connectix executives to discuss the
cause of Virtual PC 5 slower performance
in Mac OS X, which we reported on
January 7. Connectix claims that some
Apple applications don't experience the
slowdowns of VPC because of extra
access to the processor given to Apple
applications. "There's a discrepancy
between Apple apps and non-Apple
apps." said Director of Product
Management Kurt Schmucker.

As we've previously mentioned, Connectix
says that VPC in OS X will never be as
fast as it is in OS 9. Connectix claims that
Virtual PC can't get enough processor
power in Mac OS X because of
preemptive multitasking. Virtual PC is not
"event driven" (using the processor in
response to user commands)--but
instead needs constant processing
power, which preemptive multitasking
can't give it, according to Connectix.
However, there are other nonevent driven
OS X applications that have good
performance--iTunes and iMovie, for
instance. Connectix claims that Apple
applications get access to the processor
that other apps don't. "It's undocumented
API's that give iTunes and iMovie their
smoothness," said Connectix QA
Manager Jeff Woolsey.

If they exist, these undocumented APIs
are the kind of secret trap doors that
Microsoft is often accused of using for
Windows applications. However,
Schmucker said he did not think Apple
was intentionally withholding technology,
saying that Apple already has given
Connectix help with porting VPC. "Virtual
PC exercises more parts of the kernel
than any other application," he said.
Schmucker also said that Apple is
currently working with Connectix to
improve VPC performance, possibly
incorporating changes in a future version
of OS X. We could not contact an Apple
representative for a comment.

Another issue for Virtual PC 5 is that it is a
Carbon application, which means it is
subjected to the processing overhead
that all Carbon applications are subjected
to. Carbon is the fastest way to port an
application to Mac OS X, enabling a
developer to retain large portions of its
code base instead of creating a new
application from scratch. (Microsoft Office
is also a Carbon application.)

hey, i appreciate the responses...
i am running xp on my machine and am very happy with it...i never have liked mac and probly never will... but my friend has one and he got jealous and installed xp on his mac... haha, maybe he will have to crossover...

windowsxp is still the same crap as
before. A little more colors and billy has
another OS.
Look at this forum. All problems about
drivers, video card, sound cards....

The only reason why my mac crashes
sometimes, is because of Internet
explorer (which i'm not using anmore)
A microsoft piece of crap.

They force me to use windoze at the
university. I can talk about it.
I bet you've never used a mac in the last
couple of years....

and with the words 'this forum' i mean the
one about windoze 2000 for example.

My Dad has Connectix on the computer and he and Window 98 and he has problems with getting the internet hooked up to it. Does anyone know how to do that??