Practical Virtualization Solutions: Virtualization from the Trenches

Chapter 6. Microsoft Virtual PC

Virtual PC (VPC) was Microsoft’s original entry into the virtualization market. Never an innovator, Microsoft was fairly late to the virtualization party. In 2003 it acquired Connectix, a company that developed virtualization software for Windows and Macintosh environments. Three years later, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2004 as an emulation suite for Mac OS X on PowerPC and a virtualization suite for Windows. The Windows version was free; the Mac version was not. A month later it announced the Macintosh version would not be ported to Intel-based Macs, which were replacing PowerPC-based Macs, thus cutting out the non-Windows market.

In early 2007, Microsoft released VPC 2007, the current version in production. ...