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Virtual PC

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Screenshot of Virtual PC 6.1 for Mac OS X with emulated Windows 95 and Windows XP. Safari runs here native.
Screenshot of Virtual PC 6.1 for Mac OS X with emulated Windows 95 and Windows XP. Safari runs here native.

Virtual PC is an emulation suite for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS operating systems, originally created by Connectix, subsequently acquired by Microsoft.

Virtual PC emulates a standard PC and its associated hardware. Thus, it can be used to run nearly all operating systems available for the PC, however issues can arise when trying to install uncommon operating systems that have not been specifically targeted in the development of Virtual PC. Subsequently emulated hardware may not be fully functional, or certain operating systems may not run altogether. The Macintosh version of Virtual PC uses dynamic recompilation to translate the x86 code used by a standard PC into equivalent PowerPC code used by a Mac.

The first version of Virtual PC was originally developed for the Macintosh and was released in June 1997. Four years later in June 2001, the first version of Virtual PC for Windows, version 4.0, was released. Microsoft later acquired Virtual PC, and an unreleased product called Virtual Server, from Connectix in February 2003.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 is the current version for the Windows operating system. Its equivalent on the Macintosh platform is Virtual PC for Mac version 7.

Similar but competing products include VMware (x86 only) and Bochs (open source).

External links

de:VirtualPC hu:Microsoft Virtual PC

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Copyright © 2003-2004 Zeeshan Muhammad. All rights reserved. Legal notices. Part of the New Frontier Information Network.