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Emulate Windows with Q

I just downloaded and installed Q on my iMac Core Duo. I tried importing my Windows 2000 Virtual PC 7 image from an old backup disk, and it imported, but keeps crashing at startup. However, this discussion over at Accelerate Your Macintosh has me hopeful that Q just may be the future of free Windows emulation on the Mac. According to the Q site, "Run Windows, Linux and a lot more Systems on your Mac. Q is a feature packed cocoa port of QEMU: Switch fast between guest PCs. Save and restart guest PCs at any stage. Easily exchange Files between Host and Guest. Q makes use of OS X most advanced technologies like openGL and coreaudio to accelerate your experience with your guest PC."

This program is still in development, but they have a Universal Binary. Later on today, when I have some free hours (ha!), I think I'll try to build an image from scratch and install XP. I'll report back after the weekend with my findings.

I just downloaded and installed Q on my iMac Core Duo. I tried importing my Windows 2000 Virtual PC 7 image from an old backup disk, and it...
 

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Jose

I think what everyone wants to see here are instructions on how people got windows running under Q. Anyone got anything for us? I have just been trying since last night and have gotten some stuff working, but it is still a bit tricky. If I get anything I will see what I can do to create instructions for everyone. But if anyone gots any ideas, share with the community.

February 20 2006 at 2:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
macinbot

I am stuck at login windows of W2K, i can't type Crtl Alt Del, as Crtl-Alt get the mouse out of the virtual machine.
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You can't press Ctrl-Alt-Del as the Alt key is in a different position on a PC keyboard. It is the one next to the spacebar (Command) which acts as the Alt key on Windows. If you press Alt (Option), it is the equivalent of pressing the Windows key on a PC keyboard, which merely displays the Start menu (when logged in).

February 20 2006 at 11:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frank d

Doh. Found it.
It is located in the Documents folder under QEMU and gets the custom name of the guest pc with .qvm extension. Not Harddisk_1.qvoc. ( And at 850MB it skipped spotlight, 2 days, >1GB. )

February 18 2006 at 5:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frank d

No immediate other ideas, as I wouldn't know how you create a Win floppy image on a recent Mac without floppy drive. Through the network?

Did spot that you can import VPC images via the tools menu. Not sure if that might help, if you had a boot floppy image in VPC?

--> Does somebody know where the Q harddisks for the virtual machines are located? I created a 2GB one for XP, but it runs reeaaalllyyyy slow on DP G5 2.5 w 2.5 GB RAM. I wish to delete that disk image ... but can't find it on my system and of course neither does spotlight.

Feedback to developers:
Overal I'm pretty impressed with the ease of use etc.
Few points I want to bring up:
- Recognition of USB keyboards plugged into the monitor hub? Apple's keyboard cords are too short to plug into my machine under my desk ... so I can't keep my keyboard on my desk when using Q.
- Screen size larger then 800x600?
- Please do not use CTRL + ALT to release the mouse. As noted earlier here, it prevents from using CTRL + ALT + DEL and thus functionality you can quickly reach that way
- I have redraw issues where Window boxes first appear as being filled with ~~~~ then later they may switch to regular grey ... or not.

February 18 2006 at 5:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
C.K. Sample, III

Depending upon your 2000 disk (some are not bootable except via a floppy boot disk) you may have to create a floppy boot image to start the whole process. wheeeeeeee windoze is fun!

February 18 2006 at 9:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bouland

icerabbit: still didn't work. Selected Boot from CD-ROM but no installation occured. I'm using the Win 2000 install disk. Any other ideas?

February 18 2006 at 1:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frank d

#12. Doing the same here on DP G5. Insert your installation disk. Create you Guest PC. Select Boot From CD and you'll be good to go.

February 17 2006 at 9:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chad

As I understand it, Q is still emulating an x86 not virtualizing one. There is another component to QEMU which enables virtualization, but it is not finished for intel macs yet. So, if Q is already quick on intel macs, hold on to you hat because it is going to get a lot quicker over the next few months.

February 17 2006 at 8:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark Fleser

Can it be installed completely on a USB Fat32 formatted drive? I would kind of like to be able to do it just for the h#ll of it but I don't have the internal HD space to do it.

February 17 2006 at 5:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bouland

I guess I need a set of step-by-step instructions. I'm trying to install it on a G5-dual processor system. It hangs when trying to create a GuestPC from VPC7 and I haven't figured out how to install from my Win2000 and WinXP disks. Does QEMU have to be installed along with Q? Any help would be appreciated.

February 17 2006 at 5:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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