Like the title says - Can anyone recommend a good MacOS X emulator for a Vista PC? Preferebly a free one.
I know it’s not an emulator, but it’s possible to install OS X on many non- Apple boxes. Please don’t pirate OS X if you do this…
Your choices are very limited. There’s not a lot of effort put into that end of virtualization. Also, since Apple is primarily a hardware company they go after people who try to use Apple software to make money on non-Apple hardware. Since anyone who does so is breaking several licensing agreements and laws it’s not too hard for them to shut down anything commercial.
As far as I know, only PearPC will allow you to run OS X on a Windows machine, and that hasn’t been in active development for about 4 years; the switch to Intel chips pretty much cut the legs out from under that project. It emulates a PowerPC chip (G3 or G4, G5 emulation never got implemented) and so will be pretty slow even on a faster recent computer. It also won’t run OS 10.5, which is the most recent major revision.
It is possible to get OSX running as a virtual machine using VMware or Virtual box. Note that doing so violates Apple’s EULA, but whether that would hold up in court is debatable.
I’ll be building a new machine soon (Winbox), and will be upgrading the office Mac.
The old Mac (a Mini), originally had Leopard on it, but at the time some of our software required Tiger. After a call, Apple sent us DVDs with 10.4 on it.
So now we have a soon-to-be superfluous Mac, the Leopard disks it came with, and Tiger disks Apple sent us.
Are either of the above disks the images/OS that you’re referring to?
If the old mac is never turned on again, would it be a violation of the license agreements to install them on a dual-boot PC?
If the old mac is never turned on, would it be a violation of statutory law to install them on a PC?
Works for me…
Apple’s license, IIRC, only allows installation on Apple Hardware.
I used to own a mac, and still have the legal software… as well as a legal version of adobe design suite. Since most of my work is done on a PC these days (with legal CS software) I have no use for a Mac, but out of interest wanted to get it running on my PC.
I was hoping for an easy, non destructive method of doing this…
I KNOW people should read the EULA, but I’m one of these people that skip all that fine print. Anyway, I did find this after reading your comment.
Section 2.A states:
This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
Now, the way I see it, if I grab an Apple label and stick it on my PC, will I have an Apple-labeled computer??? Would I have a legality issue?? I know at the end of the day the guy with the more expensive lawyers win, but would I have a leg to stand on?
As long as you aren’t trying to do it commercially you’re not likely to have any lawsuit problems. Even public stuff like the Lifehacker article hasn’t been prosecuted that I know of.
Slapping an Apple logo on your frankenputer isn’t going to do anything to make it more legal, though.
Lol… I said it more in jest. I was amused that the term “Apple-labeled computer” was used, rather than something more definitive, as in “Apple computer”.