# Parallels Alternative for PowerPC?



## Q-Kid-Kowalsky (Aug 3, 2008)

Hey. Is there an alternative to "Parallels Desktop for Mac" that will run on PowerPC? I went to their site, and the new Parallels only runs on Intel. All I want is to run the Orb Media Center so that I can make my Wii into a Media Centre. If there is nothing, I will turn to WiiTransfer, but I would rather go with Orb which is free. Also, because I am on PPC, there is no BootCamp. Thanks, guys... and girls.


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## Chealion (Jan 16, 2001)

If you can still find somewhere that sells Virtual PC you can try Virtual PC. The other alternative is to use something like PearPC. These will emulate x86 - but it's quite slow (and there is no 3D acceleration)

For speed and the simplicity I'd recommend using something like WiiTransfer instead - a native app is considerably faster and better than an emulated OS running an application.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

PowerPC windows emulators = really, really, really, really, really, really, really SLOW.

Chealion's answer is a better option.


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## G-Mo (Sep 26, 2007)

VPC is really the best option... I used it for many years on G3, G4 and G5 machines... You can usually find a copy floating around on eBay...


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

When my wife needed to run one single Windows App related to horticulture, I purchased and installed VPC on her 15" PowerBook.
I installed a much stripped down version of Win98 in VPC using this utility...

Lite PC, and it actually runs quite well.

I feel that many na-sayers probably haven't taken the time to really work with VPC, or maybe just have their expectations set far too high, such as running already over-bloated software such as MS Office and Windows versions of Photo Shop etc.

jb.


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## zmttoxics (Oct 16, 2007)

Ya, I had VPC 7 running with Win2k on my G5, but its almost unusable (i needed to run visual studio 2k3 and up). Its pretty rudimentary too as it only supports the i386 instruction set. i686 linux will kernel panic for example.


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## Trevor... (Feb 21, 2003)

Given $300 PC's have been available for the better part of a decade, I don't see the place for Virtual PC - which ran $249 - $349 with a windows license.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Virtual PC is pretty slow, so avoidance is the key. If one can get away with an older version of Windoze, then buying an old used machine is the best solution. Well... It's relative, because the best solution is just not to run anything Windoze. But if one must run it, then an old machine should be adequate. I used to do that for one piece of software, only to be saved by a class action lawsuit that saw the company retract their virus dispensing software and go with PDFs, which allowed me to go Mac all the way.


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