Re: Virtual PC with Excel

Hi Rick,

I presume that you have encountered a situation where you want to use some add-ins that were poorly written and run only on Windows.

At work and at home I've had the luxury of having the ability to use and compare Virtual PC to a mixed environment of Mac and seperate PCs. I've used the PCs as stand-alones and also using Microsoft's desktop PC connection.

As far as maintaining the Windows environment is concerned, if all you want to use is Excel and the add-ins without any network or internet connections then keeping your PC (whether its a virtual PC or made of hardware) up to date is not much of an issue. Just keep it disconnected from all networks.

Having an extra hardware PC is a bit of a pain. It takes room, takes time to start up and shut down, and then you need to move your files back and forth between your mac and the PC.

The way to go is Virtual PC. You can "pause" a virtual PC so that it is always in the state that you left it. It does not have to started up, simply "restored" which takes very little time. You can have a shared directory, so your Excel files can be accessed by both the PC and the Mac without having to move the files at all.

For me, the convience of a Virtual PC is so great that it makes a hardware PC (even a free one) seem like a klutzy distant second choice solution.

-Jim


--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>


Rickbw@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: 
After doing much discovery it appears the best solution for me is to
purchase Virtual PC, load Excel 2000 and then I should be able to use
the add ins on my new iBook.   Does this make sense?   I really like my
new iBook, but also want to be able to use a couple financial
investment workbooks that I have set up.   However, before going and
spending another $200 I wanted to make sure this solution makes sense
to those who would know.

Thanks for the help,

.

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