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Virtual PC is kind of like driving through the computer world in a limo with a chauffer: you can go everywhere everyone else can, but you get to go there in style (on a Mac, rather than a PC). When Microsoft bought Connectix last year, we wondered what the future would hold for this product. It turns out that the tiny Macintosh Business Unit of Bill Gates' behemoth company has come through with an excellent new version that works amazingly well.
New in version 7 is support for G5 processors, improved graphics performance, faster saving and better integration with OS X. There is also a greatly expanded help system for those (like us) who can easily get lost in the foreign jungle of the Windows interface.
Installation was a breeze, although we thought it would detect our existing installation of Virtual PC 6 and offer to upgrade its virtual hard drive. Instead, we had to migrate the data from the old hard drive file to the new one, which (interestingly enough) is done by having Virtual PC mount the older drive file in the Finder, and then you just drag over what you want. This is probably the most amazing feature of Virtual PC--even if you download a Windows file in Safari, you can install it into your "Virtual Machine," and the file is copied. This makes using Virtual PC almost as easy as using the Mac itself!
Everything seems a bit faster in this new version. Windows starts up faster, saves much faster when shutting down and the Windows interface is quicker to respond on our 1.33MHz G4 PowerBook with 1GB RAM. This is the secret to getting the most out of Virtual PC--give it as much RAM as you can afford.
A nice touch is that each program running in Windows also appears in your Mac's dock, making it possible to switch between them in a way that is more familiar for most Mac users, although the actual switching takes more time than switching between Mac programs.
We did not notice a considerable difference in our ability to use other programs while Virtual PC was running, although our performance meter said it was using up to 85% of the CPU--even while in the background--while it was performing a Windows update. This shows how well Virtual PC has been programmed to integrate into OS X. Users of slower computers should expect more delays, however. The documentation does state that the keyboard and mouse may be unresponsive when Virtual PC is doing an update to Windows.
Microsoft claims that more than half of Mac users have indicated a need to access PC-based software. We suspect that this is overly generous and probably includes all the people who would like to run those .exe files their friends send them. If you are one of those people, you will find Virtual PC 7 extremely helpful. We also really appreciated using it to view some of those Web sites that just won't open on the Mac no matter what you try and to run the occasional Windowsonly software app.
To be fair, Virtual PC is not for everyone. At $250 for a full version, it is only a couple hundred dollars away from the least expensive PCs. So if gaming or hardcore computing is why you want a PC, Virtual PC is not really for you--but for occasional use, it can't be beat.
–CHUCK ROGERS
Virtual PC 7 
Microsoft Corp | www.microsoft.com/mac | $250 ($99 upgrade)
Pros: If you need to run a Windows program or access a Windows-centric Web site, it's right for you.
Cons: Doesn't automatically offer to detect and upgrade older versions, still sluggish compared to a real PC, can slow the rest of your computer down to a crawl while it is loading, saving or updating.
Requires: 700MHz G3 or better, OS 10.2.8 or higher (10.3 required for G5 computers), 3GB hard drive space, 512MB RAM
macHOME recommends: G4 or G5 processor; OS 10.3 or higher; 1GB RAM
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