curious said:
Well, I thought I read somewhere that Virtual PC might not work at all. I also read that certain things won't run that well, such as Photoshop CS. I can't swear that this is true, but that's why I'm asking about it here.
I could probably live for a while without Photoshop, but I might be in trouble if I can't run some sort of VPC type program.
You absolutely would not want to run Virtual PC even if it ran at full speed (or at all if what you're saying is correct) on these things because the software is incapable of emulating anything past Pentium II. In fact, I wouldn't rely on a VPC-type program for pretty much any Windows app because they run so slowly. Really, I see no reason for the VPC unless it's a safety blanket for until you get used to the Mac OS or if you're in some kind of pretentiously networked environment hostile to Macs. I used it for a while because my school offered it free, but it just got to be more of a hassle than it's worth.
Photoshop will run, but not at full speed. It'll be okay if you use it casually, but not if you're some kind of image-editing professional who demands hours of use out of it everyday.
That said, if you absolutely must have a window in which you can run Windows, IEmulator will do the trick on Intel Macs and actually costs much less than Virtual PC for mac. The catch is you have to install the OS yourself if I'm not mistaken. Here:
http://www.iemulator.com/
Of course, if I were you and absolutely needed Windows, I'd just wait for either the completion of the Darwine project (though this is actually running Windows apps without Windows, not Windows itself) or the release of Vista, when someone will undoubtedly hack it to work on the Intel macs with EFI. if you want an idea of how it will perform, here's a video of it Running Microsoft office under Windows 2000:
http://www.iemulator.com/movies.php?themoov=3
And cheers on your decision.