Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 SP1 for Windows is free as of a few days ago. You
can download it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/downloads/sp1.mspx
Most users of QDA software probably associate Virtual PC with "Virtual PC
for MAC" which is commonly used to run Windows only QDA programs on MACs.
Virtual PC for MAC (unlike the Windows version) is actually an "emulator", a
particular type of virtualization, that translates x86 code into Power PC
code. Virtual PC is not available for the new Intel-based MACs yet. True or
native virtual machines don't translate code; they virtualize/abstract the
hardware so that multiple instances of the same or different operating
systems designed for one instruction set (e.g. Intel x86) run at on one
workstation or server hardware configuration. Each instance runs natively
and provided there are adequate hardware resources, especially RAM, at near
native speeds.
There are numerous advantages to this. Security for example. Suppose you run
a security hazard like Internet Explorer. You might run it in a Windows
virtual machine running on top of a host operating system (Windows, Linux,
etc). Your Internet Explorer virtual machine is infected by a virus? Your
host operating system is isolated so no damage is done. Delete the virtual
machine file, restore the original from a backup, and you are up and running
in minutes.
Virtual PC 2007 is scheduled to appear next year and is also supposed to be
free. If you want virtualization for Intel MAC try Parallels. There was an
intro price of $50 until a few days ago. It is now $80. You can run it as a
demo for a while. This is not an emulator like the old Virtual PC for
PowerPC MACs. It will run Windows natively on an intel MAC. Feed it enough
RAM and you shouldn't notice much of a speed difference. Both VMware and
Microsoft are supposed to have virtualization products for Mactels in the
near future.
Another recent aspect of this is that Intel and AMD are selling single and
dual core chips that support virtualization in hardware. Parallels’ and
VMware’s software exploit this. Not sure of all the details but the hardware
aspect makes software virtualization more efficient. As multicore chips
become more common one can see that there are probably advantages to
virtualizing the CPU so that each OS can run on its own core. All this makes
decisions about which OS to use less important as one can easily run many
OSes simultaneously—whatever one needs to run the applications required.
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