How to Run Window Applications on a Mac Power PC
Compatibility problems have always been an issue for Mac users. Many people rely on their Mac processing abilities, but miss out on applications that only run on Windows. There are several ways to install and run Windows on a Macintosh machine to experience the best of both worlds. To truly experience full compatibility, a process called Virtual Computing allows Mac users to run Windows OS applications and Mac OS X simultaneously on a Macintosh machine.
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Instructions
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Download and install a free program called "Q." Q allows users to open Windows OS in an application window on your Mac while running OS X.
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Open Q and choose "New Guest PC" from the "Guest PC" menu at the top of the screen. This opens an option window where you name your virtual OS and choose which version of Windows to install. Click the "Create PC" button at the bottom of the window to bring up a general preferences window. Configure hardware and networking settings for your virtual PC. Click the "Create PC" button again, and an icon will appear in the Q control box displaying your virtual PC's name. Insert the Windows disk and click install.
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Click your virtual PC's icon on the Q control box once Windows is installed. Windows will open within the Q application window. Run through the Windows setup and security process, and set a password. Open Q at any time, chose your virtual PC and run Windows applications.
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Open your virtual PC from the Q menu, and operate it just as you would on a normal Windows-native machine. The Windows OS will open within the Q application window and appear to be another application running on your Mac OS.
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Access the web or disk drives as usual from the Virtual PC and install and run windows programs on its OS instead of Mac's OS. Q has several options and tools in its main window. You can monitor CPU usage, set your virtual PC to occupy the whole screen, restart or shut down the virtual PC, or switch out of Windows while leaving it running in the background.
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Tips & Warnings
There are other programs designed to run Windows on PowerPC Macs in a similar fashion to Q such as "Guest PC" and "Virtual PC."
Q runs Mac OS X and Windows OS simultaneously, which uses a large amount of your machine's processor speed.
Recent versions of Windows require higher processor speeds. For example, running XP requires a processor of at least 1GHz, while Vista would require closer to 2 GHz to operate successfully.
To run anything higher than Windows 95 properly, a Power PC G4 or G5 is necessary due to their higher processing capabilities.
