The good people at AuctionMac Software have announced an upgrade to their excellent utility, VPC Helper. Virtual PC is a product from Connectix that emulates a Pentium system and allows you to run Windows on your Mac. VPC Helper works to make that process more efficient and works directly with Virtual PC itself. The new version includes performance increases. According to AuctionMac Software:
AuctionMac Software has released VPC Helper v1.2, a major upgrade to the hot new utility aimed at users of Connectix' award-winning Virtual PC Windows emulation software. What's new? We've added more support for new RAM-saving methods! Now, users can easily configure and reset disk cache settings (Mac OS 9 is needed for this feature), saving several megs of precious RAM. Furthermore, VPC Helper now offers features to re-launch your quit background apps after you are finished using Virtual PC... No restart needed!
Emulating a Windows PC on a Mac stresses every system resource, making large amounts of RAM and processor cycles required commodities. Up to now, freeing up RAM and processor speed for Virtual PC has been tedious, time-consuming, and irritating. Now, VPC Helper offers tried-and-true methods of safely freeing up resources for maximum Virtual PC performance. Some features are exclusive to VPC Helper.
VPC Helper v1.2 offers several features... VPC Helper will quickly prepare your Mac for Virtual PC use and allow one-click configuration and return. VPC Helper will set your Virtual Memory and Disk Cache settings (Mac OS 9 is needed for this feature), set extension/control panel startup sets, quit the Finder, quit 'hidden' background apps and processes, and restart your Mac (if needed) in direct preparation for maximum Virtual PC use! And VPC Helper quickly configures and reconfigures settings with a click of the button! It will even re-launch those quit background processes without the need to restart!
A 64MB G3 can run a stable Windows 98 OS without the drawbacks of using Virtual Memory (VPC Helper works with any version of Virtual PC)! VPC Helper will safely and easily free as many resources as possible to help you get the most out of Virtual PC. In our tests, VPC Helper methods dramatically improved both CPU and disk-intensive processes! (A complete performance comparison chart is available on the web site.)