eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
My family members expect the unexpected when I say, “Take a look at this!”—but I produced a satisfying double take from my 11-year-old son when he saw a Windows 2000 desktop, running in a window of its own, on what he knew perfectly well was my new Apple G4.
When I unpack a new machine, the first thing I install is a trustworthy firewall; on a Mac, I use Symantecs and get an acceptable balance between annoyance and assurance. As soon as I have that firewall in place, though, the next thing I like to install on a Mac is the latest version of Connectix Virtual PC; Version 6, released late last year, is a keeper.
There are three things that Ill be doing routinely in a virtual Windows 2000 session on my 12-inch PowerBook. (Yes, as a matter of fact, I did pay full retail price; Apple finally built what I wanted.) First, I prefer the Win32 version to the Mac OS 9 version of Adobe Photoshop LE. Both versions came with one of my digital cameras, and its my preferred tool for working with all of them.
Second, I can plug my Jornadas USB cradle in to the PowerBook and ActiveSync with Outlook 2002 as it runs in the Win 2000 session—with an Outlook icon appearing in the Mac OS X desktop “dock,” and thats a nice trick indeed.
Third, my Sony digital voice recorder came with only Win32 versions of its USB drivers and its editor/manager application, but I can plug it in to the PowerBook and work from the Win 2000 session—then convert the Sony-format files to WAVs and drag them out to the OS X desktop, for whatever else I want to do.
If I need to download driver updates from Sony, Ill just open a browser inside the virtual session, and Ill be good to go. As far as the remote site is concerned, Im a Pentium II/MMX machine running Win 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.
When Im done with my Win 2000 “machine” for the day, I can abandon any changes to its virtual hard disk or keep them. Its not that this is a “better Windows than Windows” because Im still running Windows code. Im just running it on my own terms, complementing my other options, and thats certainly better for me.
Tell me what Ive overlooked at [email protected].