Less questions. 😕

I own three versions of Virtual PC (5, 6 and 7) and have used them on daily basis. I have also used DosBox (PC & Mac versions), dosemu, qemu, Bochs, PCx (mac) and Bluelabel (mac).

In comparison, Virtual PC is much faster and reliable than any of these. At this moment, I run Virtual PC 7 with Windows XP in an Apple G4 and runs amazingly well. I have also tried other OS under Virtual PC 6, that is: MS-DOS 6.22 w/Windows 3.1, Redhat Linux 6.2, Windows 95, Windows 98, Aros (an Amiga Workbench based OS for x86)... they ALL run fine. I even run other emulators inside the emulator itself to test speed and stability (there's no better way) and I can say that it is THE BEST PC emulator around.

HOWEVER, version 7 does not bring really anything new, not even a considerable speed increase. Microsoft only seeks profit (as usual) and faithfulness to their Windows OS. For those who own version 6, I do not advice to upgrade since the $99 price is abusive. You will barely get anything different from version 6.

DosBox is excellent since it is GNU, requires no prior installation of an OS and has several front-ends to make it friendly. However, there are yet many stability issues, and speed is not stelar.

However, VirtualPC has worse sound emulation than DOSBox imho. Besides, I feel VirtualPC development could enter a stagnant cycle. Who knows? Everything that Microsoft touches.... well.... you get the point. DOSBox is always growing/improving and it is already quite good on its own. In a nutshell: DOSBox is far more flexible at least for running old games. 😎

The crappy sound is why I gave up on Virtual PC. Plus DOSBox runs great in 64 bit XP and Virtual PC won't run at all.