Academic Computing

Monday, May 9, 2005

To: Faculty

From: Kim Vincent-Layton

Lab Upgrade Manager, ph. x4211

kbv7001@humboldt.edu

Subject: Retirement of Virtual PC in Academic Computing Macintosh Facilities

Academic Computing is officially announcing the removal of Virtual PC (VPC) for the Fall 2005 term. This change will take place in the following Macintosh facilities: Founders Hall 202, Gist Hall 218, Jenkins Hall 212, Library 310, Science A 364, and University Annex 123.

As you know, Academic Computing has inquired with faculty about retiring Virtual PC Version 6 due to the lack in performance with modern Operating Systems such as Windows XP. The faculty that responded to the inquiry agreed that VPC is no longer a viable option for use within Academic Computing Macintosh facilities.

The following is an excerpt from staff research on VPC:

“Currently, it can take up to six minutes to boot Windows XP before any interaction is available to the user. Accessing the Windows Start Menu is slow and erratic when trying to navigate through the menus. Program load time is so slow that a user begins to question whether or not the program was selected while in the Start Menu and consequently starts programs multiple times. Once programs are loaded, user interaction is extremely slow. Saving files within Virtual PC can also be somewhat challenging. The USB flash drives do not work when Virtual PC is loaded and causes Virtual PC to crash. Also, saving to the USB floppy within Virtual PC may cause corruption to the user's floppy disk.

The newest version of VPC 7 has been extensively tested as a possible alternative to retiring VPC 6. In addition, the Macintosh G4 workstations in these facilities do not meet the minimum requirements to run VPC 7. Tests showed that on capable G4 platforms, VPC 7 ran at least 25% slower than VPC 6.0

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.