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Virtual PC 7 Notes and Reports

Updated December 17, 2007

What's in VPC 7

If you have a PowerPC Mac, you can still buy Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 with Windows XP Professional (US $249) and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Professional Edition (US $499, upgrade $329), which includes Virtual PC with Office, as well as a Standalone (DOS-only) version, and an Upgrade version.

VPC7 was Microsoft's first major rewrite of the emulator since it acquired it from Connectix. There were also new features in Version 7, including the following:

• G5 compatibility. Virtual PC is now compatible with Macs powered by the 64-bit G5 processor.
• Improved performance. 10-to-30 percent faster than version 6, according to Microsoft.
• Faster, smoother graphics. Although graphics are still emulated, Virtual PC 7 will get graphics acceleration from graphics cards that support Mac OS X's Quartz Extreme. According to Apple, Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. Quartz Extreme is faster in Panther, which means VPC 7 should be faster in Panther than 10.2.8.
• Fast Save. Virtual PC will close a Windows instantaneously when you click the Close button. Virtual PC then saves the state, which you can see progressing in the Virtual PC list.
• Streamlined printing with Panther. When Mac OS X 10.3 users print from any PC application, VPC prints to the Mac's default printer. It is not necessary to configure the printer from within Windows or from VPC Settings.
• More configuration options. Virtual PC 7 has more settings in VPC Preferences (including more options for configuring the toolbar at the bottom left of the VPC window) and in the Settings dialog for each virtual machine.
• Expanded help.
• New installation setup assistant.

There are also beefier system requirements for the new version. Virtual PC 7 requires a Mac with a 700 MHz processor, 512 MB or RAM, and Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later.

You can still install your own version of Windows; Microsoft says it will ship a less expensive version without Windows within a few months.

Currently, only the English version is available. Microsoft has promised versions for French, German, Japanese and Swedish, but has not said when they will be available.

Features with VPC 7:

Speed improvements. Although we haven't run benchmark tests, we found VPC 7 to be faster and more responsive to VPC 6 under all conditions. We found speed improvements even without a Quartz Extreme-compatible card, and in Jaguar (10.2.8) as well as in Panther. Windows XP, which we found to be clunky (and many readers found unusable) under VPC 6, seemed to run smoothly.

Replacement processors. VPC7 worked on a Power Mac with an upgraded processor, even though Microsoft says that upgrade cards are not supported.

Fast Save. This feature works as advertised. Click the close button in the upper left of the window in which Windows is running, and it instantly closes. Virtual PC then takes a few seconds to save the state, after the window closes.

Configuration options. In addition to specifying which icons will appear in the VPC toolbar, VPC Preferences lets you set the CPU usage for a virtual machine running in the background. This is a slider bar between "low" and "high," not a numerical value of processor utilization. You can also add a script menu.

Installation. The new installation assistant did not appear to affect the ease of installation. We found installation of VPC to be fairly easy, and the same is true for VPC 7.

Version History

Virtual PC 7.0.3, security update. August 24, 2007 -- Microsoft has released Virtual PC 7.0.3, the first update in over two years for the emulator/virtual machine software for PowerPC Macs. Microsoft describes the update as one that “fixes a vulnerability that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.”

Virtual PC 7.0.2, update for Tiger. June 29, 2005 -- Virtual PC 7.0.2, a free update is aimed at compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The company said that the update fixes the three compatibility problems with when running in Tiger:

• Virtual Switch networking
• Zero Conf printing (which Apple used to call "Rendezvous")
• Running of the Dock Start menu

Virtual PC 7.0.1. November 10, 2004 -- Virtual PC for Mac Version 7.0.1 is designed to fix a bug that prevented VPC 7.0 from running on Macs with more than 2 GB of memory. Microsoft also said that the update "improves the overall stability of Virtual PC." The update is available in five languages.

VPC 7.0 ships. October 5, 2004 -- Microsoft ships Virtual PC for Mac Version 7.0 with Windows XP Professional.

Reader Reports

TIP: Using Virtual PC 7 with RAM disk

October 13, 2004

A reader named Ed describes how he got performance gains in Virtual PC installing it on a RAM disk, a virtual drive volume located in RAM, rather than on the hard drive. He used a utility called RAM Disk Creator (US $15) to create the RAM disk in Mac OS X.

I have gained Virtual PC performance by using the RAM Disk Creator utility. It seems to work only with Virtual PC 7. Create a RAM disk just big enough to contain the Virtual PC application, then copy VPC to the RAM disk. When you launch Virtual PC from the RAM disk (instead of the hard disk), there's noticeable performance gain.

All of your changes are saved on the Virtual PC disk image located on your hard disk, so your date is safe. If the Virtual PC application gets accidentally deleted from of RAM disk, just copy it back to the RAM disk.

You can REALLY get a huge performance gain if your Virtual PC disk image is small enough to also copy to the RAM disk. If you are running Windows 95 or NT, then the Virtual PC disk size is around 200 MB. This is real performance boost. Just remember to copy back the PC disk to your hard drive before ejecting the RAM disk. Otherwise, your data will be deleted

A third strategy is to copy the Virtual PC app and Virtual PC disk image (if small enough) to the RAM, as just describe. This time, create another PC drive image located on your hard drive for the specific purpose of saving your data. This way you don't have to copy back the main Virtual PC disk image to your hard drive.

October 18, 2004
Loren Olson reports good performance with VPC 7, but found no speed improvement using a RAM disk:

I found no real advantage to using Virtual PC 7 with Ramdisk Creator. However, running Virtual PC 7 under OS X 10.3.5 on a Dual 867 with a Radeon 9000 video card I found the speed improvements are very real. Instead of getting a CPU that rates at about 557 MHz I now get one that rates at almost 700. I am disappointed that Virtual PC still apparently lacks USB 2 and FireWire but, I guess that was too much to expect. Though it will support USB 1 devices.

If you've tried this

Slowdowns with Norton Antivirus

NOTE: Symantech reported that NAV for Windows was incompatible with VPC 6.

October 18, 2004
Steve Sande reports of a problem with VPC 7.0 Win XP Pro and NAV 2005:

I'm using Virtual PC 7.0 with Windows XP Pro on a 1.8 GHz iMac G5 17" and it works pretty well; so well, in fact, that I'm selling my old Dell PC! Of course, knowing how the Wintel world is overrun with viruses, trojans, etc. I immediately went out and bought Norton Antivirus 2005 to install on my virtual XP machine. Well, it doesn't install - apparently Symantec doesn't support NAV running on virtual PCs. You can get the installer splash screen to show up, but when you click on the "Install Norton Antivirus 2005" link it shows the hourglass for a few seconds and then just sits there. I pulled up the task manager and you can actually see NAVSETUP.EXE trying to run before shutting down. I did some searching and found that this was quite common with NAV 2004 and 2005 with VPC 6, and that nobody had found a fix.

My solution was simple - I returned NAV to Amazon.com and downloaded Avast! antivirus. It loaded in seconds, it's free for home use, and it works with the XP Pro SP2 "Security Manager".

October 18, 2004
Mr. Richardson reports of a performance problem with newly the revamped Fast Save feature:

My experience with VPC 7 on a QS 2002 G4 is good; slightly faster than VPC 6.1.1 with Win2K on the same computer. The one negative I've experienced with VPC 7 is the Fast Save option. On VPC 6, the Save PC State process took 15-20 seconds (restoring from saved state took about 20-25 seconds).

However, with VPC 7, the save process takes about 3 minutes, and this is true regardless of RAM amount allocated to XP. I typically allocate 448 MB to XP on a Panther system maxed out to 1.5 GB.

I'd like to find out what the fix is for the very slow fast save/restore option. Otherwise, XP Pro works well, especially configured in System/Advanced settings for best performance for the Windows Classic appearance.

October 27, 2004
Mr. Richardson

The Save PC State slowdown I had in VPC 7 was solved by turning off the Autoprotect preference setting in Mac Norton Antivirus.

October 27, 2004
John Warren

I can confirm what Mr. Richardson has seen with fast save when Norton AV is running.

I currently have cases in with both Microsoft and Symantec on this issue. In both cases the issue is already past the Level 2 techs.

I also have both Microsoft and Symantec talking to each other. I will be posting more information about this later once I get more information back from MS and Symantec.

Reader reports good performance

October 29, 2004
Roy Houston

We upgraded to the a Power Mac G5 2 MP with 4 GB of RAM last week.

Previously, we had used VPC 6.1. With Virtual PC 7, we can edit and render Flash seamlessly, even while other programs are open in Virtual PC, and while other Mac software was running. In fact, we found Windows running faster then on our Toshiba P4 1.8, and that is no exaggeration.

We mentioned this to the Apple guy at our local CompUSA and he was amazed because he's seen the frustrations we've had with VPC 4.0, 5.0 and finally, 6.0, which was light years better then the older versions, but we still had to depend on a Windows based machine for our work. Now it appears we can soon put the Toshiba to rest. We can say with confidence (using both OS regularly) that this is the best version made.

We remind readers that according to Microsoft, Virtual PC 7 can only use the bandwidth of one processor in a dual-processor Mac.

VPC 7 problem with USB and PalmOne devices

October 29, 2004
A reader named Kevin

The problems started cropping up with USB and PalmOne devices as early as VPC 6.1.1. In VPC 6.1.1 it would take forever for the installer to complete its process of installing, and then when you tired to Sync, it look like Hotsync would initiate, but it would never take off, just time out. Well, in VPC 7 the installation process has been greatly improved, but once again, you can't sync to PalmOne devices such as the T3, and T5.

November 1, 2004
Peter Walker:

I have the same problem. I've installed Palm Desktop, but can't hotsync with Windows using VPC 7.

November 1, 2004
Loren Olson

If you are using Virtual PC 6 or 7 under OS X syncing Palm devices is next to useless. The only fix I have seen is running Virtual PC under OS 9, which of course you can not do with Virtual PC 7.

December 15, 2004
Matt Wildbore

I also cannot sync my T5 with VPC 7. When the HotSync initiates the USB activity initiates ( at the bottom of the VPC window) and the Windows arrow briefly changes to a small hourglass and then it does not connect.

 Suggestions on how to sync

November 4, 2004
Unseelie thought a problem if Palm Desktop for Mac was open:

I sync Palm devices with VPC 7.0 daily with my Tungsten T to a Windows XP (now updated to SP2) VM under 10.3.5 and it works just fine. I did, initially, see some problems if the Mac Palm Desktop was enabled. It appeared as if the Mac Palm Desktop would grab the device before Palm Desktop within the VM could do so. Since then, I have always disabled the Mac Palm Desktop before syncing within Windows and it works like a charm.

November 4, 2004
John Holmes

I am able to do the hot synch just fine. If I am in the VPC window and click on it, then when I push the hot synch button on my Palm, it does the hot synch in the Windows Palm Desktop, if I don't then it will hot synch in the Mac Palm Desktop.

The best method I could find is from within VPC Windows, with the mouse changed to a white arrow. On the Palm device, tap the Hot Synch application in the applications (not the Hot Synch button on the cradle).

November 4, 2004
Jim Breashears describes how he syncs with Virtual PC 6

I've never (knock on wood) had a problem syncing VPC 6 with Palm Devices using USB. I don't know it this is relevant to the discussion, but my set up is: PowerBook 1.25 w/ 1.25 GB Ram & PowerBook 667 w/ 1 GB Ram, both machines set to allot 512 MB to VPC 6. Both machines have VPC 6 and Win 2000 Pro.

VPC Menu Bar > Edit > Settings > USB > Enable > select "USB Device from Apple Computer"

My Palm device is a Kyocera 7135 Smartphone. I used to use the Keyspan serial- to-USB because I thought that was the only way to get it to work. One day I got a wild hair and tried plugging in straight to USB and it worked. I think I got the idea off of MacFixIt, but can't remember for sure.

December 15, 2004
Bruce Miller

I have been enjoying both USB Active Sync and USB Hot Sync 100 percent reliable results inside all versions of Windows (98 SE, 2000, XP Home) running from VPC 5, 6 and now 7.

I have been helping others achieve the same results following extremely simple, but very specific sequences of tips and procedure I have archived here: 

The tips refer specifically to USB Active syncing, but as noted within, all the tips and sequences of USB cable plugging are identical for Palm Hot Sync for successful results. Not following all the tips will eventually cause syncing to fail or never work properly.

Also, its essential to install both Palm Desktop and Active Sync software in Windows EXACTLY as instructed and to NOT plug in the USB cradle until prompted to do so for proper and trouble-free driver installation. Its so critical, that I suggest reinstalling Windows entirely if that wasn't originally followed.

TIP: Palm syncing with Virtual PC, use Bluetooth

April 21, 2005
Andreas Merkel

I had also the sync problem with Virtual PC 7 and my Palm device.

I'm using Mac OS X 10.3.9 with a Palm Tungsten T3 and Win XP on Virtual PC 7 (latest update).

It was not possible to sync over USB. But VPC 7 offers the possibility to set com1 to Bluetooth-PDA-Sync. It is also necessary to reduce the transfer-speed within Hotsync and palm to a lower level. I used 19200.

Now the syncing works fine. I think this is a good solution for all persons with Bluetooth Palms.

April 25, 2005
Loren Olson did not have the same luck with his add-on Bluetooth adapter.

While I suppose there is a possibility this will work if you have a built in Bluetooth, it certainly will not work with a D-Link Bluetooth adapter. I have a D-link Bluetooth adapter which while seen by the Mac itself, never ever appears in Virtual PC.

VPC 7.0 doesn't work with Macs with more than 2 GB

Version 7.0.1 fixed this problem, but a reader provided a workaround:

Joseph McBride
November 10, 2004

If you have a G5 with more than 2 GB of memory, VPC 7 will not install or boot up. I received VPC 7 in October as part of the MS Office 2004 Professional suite. There are workarounds as follows:

1. Quit VPC 7.
2. Open hard drive /library/Extensions folder.
3. Create a new folder and name it what you want.
4. In the extensions folder in 2 move the extension "virtualpcosservices.kext" to the newly named folder in 3.
5. In"/Library/StartupItems" folder find "VirtualPCOSServices" folder.
6. Move folder in 5 to folder created in 3.
7. Restart your Mac.

If you can verify or disprove the efficacy of the 7.0.1 update in fixing this memory problem

VPC 7 won't talk to Serial/USB converter

November 10, 2004
Spero Leon reports that VPC 7 doesn't work with a USB adapter that worked with previous versions:

Since the upgraded to VPC 7 from VPC 6.1 I cannot use Keyspan Serial-to-USB Adapter. It seems that the port gets hung up or is busy.

December 10, 2004
Steve Unruh

I have both a Keyspan and Iconcepts USB-to-serial adapters. I am using VPC 7.0.1 and cannot get either to work. I have tried it with "Enable USB" both on and off. With it on and the adapter selected, I get a message that the com port is unavailable. When it is off, the adapter still shows up in the selection popup of the com port, and you get no error message when you select it, but it still does not work. Both of these adapters work with VPC 6.

I am using a 12" PowerBook with 10.3.6.

An adapter that works and how to use it

December 21, 2004
Matthew Pinto

I read this report of problems with USB/Serial adapters and VPC7. I don't have a fix but I can report that I have not had problems with the Prolific Adapter with VPC 7, Windows XP SP2 on a Power Mac G5.

I have both the Mac OS X driver and XP driver installed for the Prolific so that both sides see it. I enable USB in VPC and put the check mark in the Prolific adapter and it communicates perfectly with my "CarChip" program and adapter.

VPC 7 won't connect to DSL

The problem:

November 22, 2004 Joe Simon can't get Virtual PC 7 to connect to the web over his DSL line:

No matter what I do, I can't connect to the Internet from Virtual PC 7 using my DSL connection (PPPoE) connected to my Mac's Ethernet port (Mac OS X Panther). My Mac is the only computer.

Internet Explorer says that it found the web page, but then the web page never loads and times out.

I've done everything that VPC help suggests, and have Shared Networking. (I tried Virtual Switch, but it was even worse -- Internet Explorer could not find the page at all.) I have tried the suggestions at Microsoft's VPC Internet Troubleshooting page. I've tried different network settings in Windows XP, including automatic IP and typing in the Mac's DNS server address. I've tried it with the Mac OS X firewall on and off, and with the Windows XP Firewall off. Nothing works.

The Fix:

December 7, 2004 -- We've discovered a method of getting a Virtual PC to connect to the Internet over a DSL connection. The secret is to use Virtual PC's Virtual Switch setting instead of Shared Networking. Then set up Windows to connect directly to the DSL ISP using PPPoE. Windows calls DSL a "broadband modem." Here's how with Virtual PC 7 and Windows XP:

1. Make sure the virtual machine is not running.
2. Set Virtual PC to Virtual Switch networking. (Virtual PC's PC menu->PC Settings->Networking)
3. In Windows, go to the Start menu and choose Control Panel.
4. Click Network Connections.
5. Under Network Tasks, click Create a New Connection. Click Next.
6. Select Connect to the Internet. Click Next.
7. Select "Set up my connection manually." Click Next.
8. Select "Connect using a broadband connection that requires a user name and password. Click Next.

In the next few screens, type in the information for your Mac's DSL (PPPoE) account provided by your ISP.

December 15, 2004
Eric Westby sent in another solution:

I actually ran across an even easier fix, one that enables me to continue to use shared networking: just change the MTU within the virtual machine to 1492. This is easily accomplished within a program such as Dr. TCP, available at http://www.dslreports.com/front/DRTCP021.zip

Tip: Reclaiming disk space in the VPC 7 virtual disk image. December 30, 2004 -- Steve Maser forwarded a procedure to shrink the size of the Virtual PC 7 disk image file in order to reclaim the space on his hard drive:

I was looking for a way to erase the "free space" on a VPC 7 hard disk so that you can use VPC's "reclaim lost space" option to reduce the size of hard disk file. I found this using Google. It worked for me:

Regarding VPC image size. The VPC image does not decrease in size even after you delete files or uninstall programs. The VPC image only grows in size it does not dynamically get smaller.

You will need to manually reduce the size of the VPC image with this procedure:

This procedure is for Windows 95, 98, NT 4, and 2000 guest operating systems.

Be sure to backup any important data before beginning procedure, as this directly changes the guest image contents.

1. Defragment the guest OS hard drive.

2. Backup any critical data in the guest OS.

3. Download Eraser, (http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/) and install it in the guest OS.

4. Run Eraser in the guest OS.

5. Select Edit->Preferences->Erasing

6. Select "Unused Disk Space"

7. Select "New"

8. Enter the description "Blank"

9. Select Add

10. Create a 3-byte pattern of zeros. On the "Custom Method Editor" window, near the bottom you'll see "Pattern" and underneath that, will be "Byte 1" (with 8 zeros), then "Byte 2" with a checkbox by it, and a grayed out "Byte 3". When you check the "Byte 2" box, the "Byte 3" will no longer be grayed out and you can then check it, thus creating a 3 byte pattern of zeros.

11. Hit Save

12. Select "Blank" under "Unused disk space"

13. Hit OK

14. Select File->New Task

15. Select "Unused space on drive"

16. Select Local Hard Drives

17. Hit OK

18. Select Task->run on the previously created task

19. When finished, close the report

20. Exit Eraser and shutdown the guest PC. Make sure the guest is not in a saved state.

21. Use Virtual Disk Assistant on the Mac to reclaim lost space. Pressing "command+d" will start Virtual Disk Assistant.

22. Select Examine or modify existing disk image, and click the right arrow to continue.

23. Click Select Disk and browse to the location of the disk image to compact. Generally, this will be the Virtual PC 4 folder.

24. Double-click the disk image and click the right arrow to continue.

25. Select Reclaim zeroed drive space and click the right arrow to continue.

26. Click Reclaim Space.

Modem problems with Virtual PC 7

January 26, 2005 -- A pair of readers report two different problems with modems from within Virtual PC 7.

Eugen Steiner:

I'm trying to connect Virtual PC 7 XP professional running on a 12" PowerBook to the internal modem.

The modem works from the Mac side and I have followed the manual's instructions to install a standard 56000 modem driver on the Virtual PC on COM1. Running diagnostics, it seems that the Virtual PC has some kind of contact with the internal modem. However, I cannot get the fax-application, nor other modem-dependent functions to work.

Michael Tulloch had another:

I must say that my experience contrasts markedly with the other users featured on the MacWindows Virtual PC 7 page. We had recently purchased two dual 1.8 GHz G5s, 768 MB of RAM and Virtual PC 7.0.1. Windows XP ran slowly with 512 MB allocated to Windows...We also tested VPC with Windows 2K, and that resulted in a reasonable, smooth and quick experience.

However, in both cases, we found that you couldn't control the modem accurately through VPC. Apparently the G5s built-in Microdash modem is not of the highest quality to begin with, and VPC's modem control was a little lacking. We had all kinds of problems using Z-modem to send and receive data.

Also, the Ethernet connection is wholly emulated in software, regardless of the hardware. Thus, you could be running a gigabit Ethernet card (as we were) and still only receive 10 Mb/sec.

April 25, 2005
Brett Kahl

I read your comments on regards installing the modem drivers to work on COM1. I tried the same and can not get the thing to dial out.

If you can shed some light

January 30, 2006
Malcolm Souness

Hi, I'm also having difficulty getting the modem in my 12” PowerBook to work under Virtual PC7. When viewing communications to the modem, empty square “character outlines” appear in front of commands returning from the modem when addressing it with a particular software package. Diagnostics when run suggest that the modem is in use by something else &endash; VERY confusing.

Virtual Switch broken in Tiger, Mac OS X 10.4

NOTE: This was fixed with Microsoft's 7.0.2 update.

May 3, 2005 -- Microsoft verified that Virtual PC 7's Virtual Switch option not working in Tiger. A spokesperson said that it would be fixed in a free patch from Microsoft in 2-to-3 months.

Thanks to all of the readers who wrote in to verify the problem. Two readers also reported that the problem occurs in Virtual PC 6 as well.

Phil Ershler: I have noticed the same issue with Virtual Switch in VPC 6 and Tiger. Shared Networking seems to work OK.

Douglas Stroud:

I upgraded to Tiger over the weekend and all went pretty well. However, with VPC 6 I am having the same problem as mentioned in the article with the Virtual Switch being broken.

VPC 7 disk corruption, crashing in Tiger 10.4.3 when printing

December 16, 2005
Erik Scheirer reports a strange problem with Virtual PC 7.0.2 and Mac OS X 10.4.3:

I am having all sorts of problems with 'disk' corruption, and often it crashes my Mac as well. Seems to happen any time that I 'empty the recycling' or heavy-duty file transfer.

I have found the pattern that crashes my Power Mac dual G5:

• VPC is running and one of the 'machines' must be Windows. This doesn't happen when running freeBSD, for example.
• Another mac on the local net is sleeping and is sharing its printer.
• VPC is in foreground on non-printer Power Mac G5. The printer Mac wakes, and bang! the PowerPC forces restart. This, even though I have removed all shared printer entries from the Power Mac G5.

Happens every time. Only when running VPC with Windows.

The Fix

January 3, 2006
Erik Scheirer

Since I about removed the shared printer entries VPC has not crashed at all.

On Mac 1 I deleted the shared printers that are actually being served by Mac 2 and not physically connected to Mac 1. I took them out via the Printer setup utility. Also, Mac is OS X 10.3.9 and Mac 1 is 10.4.3.

If you've seen this problem

VPC7 won’t update Windows or access MSN

August 7, 2006
Luke Blindell has a problem with Virtual PC 7 with certain network tasks:

I'm quite pleased with VPC 7.0.2, but the only real problem I have is that Windows update won't work and I can't log into MSN, I think the 2 are related. Other Internet browsing works fine. I have left the network settings as default and have ALL firewalls off.

Web browsing seems fine in both Explorer and Mozilla. My web access seems as fast as the host Mac's.

August 16, 2006
Albert Markl

I can confirm the "Update Windows" problem. When checking for updates on the Microsoft web site, the program never returns.

It seems to me that it happens since there was an update for checking the genuine Microsoftness of the operating system. It worked well before.

Strangely, automatic updates work perfectly (at least as long as you’re an admin...).

August 16, 2006
Rich

I have a similar problem (VPC 7 not updating), reported it on the Microsoft Mac VPC newsgroup and have gotten no replies.

August 16, 2006
Jeremy Lock:

I cannot update Windows using Windows update via VPC 7. I have to wait for the MS Windows automatic updates to download.

Also MS Internet Explorer 7 will not open under VPC 7. As this is a beta I am not really bothered.

A fix

August 16, 2006
Elton Turner

I had the same problem and a few more with VPC not updating and not connecting to certain websites. After searching about for help, I found a reference to some PC software that helped solve the problems. I am running OS X Tiger (10.4.7), VPC 7 (latest version) and am connected to the Internet via DSL.

Find and install Dr.TCP in Windows. Set the MTU values to 1300. It is okay to use both the Macintosh firewall and the Windows XP firewall – I recommend running them both for security reasons.

Once everything is running correctly, I also recommend saving a copy of the Virtual PC list (located in the user’s personal Documents folder), because Windows XP frequently loses it bearings, and this copy can be used to immediately restore VPC7 back to its last known good working condition. (Anything added to Windows since the copy was made will be lost, of course, but at least it runs again.)

Another fix

September 27, 2006
A reader named Rich

9/13/06 UPDATE: My problem was solved with the help of Microsoft Support directing me to delete a bunch of stuff. I updated the post I previously sent to you at Google Groups.

To read Rich’s fix, click here, then scroll down to the entry called “Windows Update fails in XP – SOLVED.”

If you've tried this fix

Tip: Outlook 2001 in Classic in Tiger

August 16, 2006 -- Kirk Fuller sent us a tip for setting up Outlook 2001 for use in Classic:

While looking for information at MacWindows about Entourage for a new user, I decided to see if others were having issues with Outlook 2001. Here is how I have it working flawlessly in classic on Panther or Tiger.

1. Create a disk image of appropriate size (typically I choose 40MB)

2. Install Outlook 2001 to the newly created and mounted disk image

3. For machines with multiple users: -Place the dmg file in the shared users folder (verify its permissions as available to all) -Add an alias to the dmg file in the users Login Items so its automatically mounted at login

4. Printing in Outlook will require the setup of a printer in Classic using the Desktop Printer Utility

That's basically it.  Having Outlook run from a disk image (where the OS will ignore permissions) will allow the creation of the necessary hidden files by Outlook.  As long as your OS X network settings are correct you can use the common name of your exchange server when creating the profile.

If you've tried this fix

Nokia PC Suite no-go in VPC 7

February 3, 2006
Mike Lincoln

Nokia PC Suite, version 6.70.22, does not run on VPC 7.02 under Mac OS X 10.4.4 running on a late model AL PowerBook 1.67 GHz with 1 MB memory. The program loads, but then the application's window colors become fouled up when clicking the buttons and it can never actually find the Nokia phone (N-90 in my case) over USB. Interestingly, Virtual PC sees the N90 over USB in “My Computer,” but Nokia PC Suite can't connect to it.

October 6, 2006
Paul Cheng confirmed a previous report:

I'm using the latest version of PC Suite 6.81R13. Using VPC 7.02 it exhibits the behavior listed on your site. The Bluetooth connection will not work either. The program is already flaky enough under Windows using USB.

For a list of other Windows programs that have problems with Virtual PC, see our VPC Incompatibilities page.

A fix

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