Create a virtual Windows PC on a mobile device with MojoPac
Description: "MojoPac Freedom" is the free edition of the MojoPac desktop virtualization software. It allows you to install a Windows XP environment on a portable hard drive, Ipod, or other device that, when plugged into any PC, behaves as a self-contained Windows XP environment that can have the programs that you need installed and the desktop customizations that you are used to.
Picture this: you're off to a 7-day visit to your in-laws over Christmas, during which time you would like to do some overdue graphic design work with GIMPshop, create a few blog postings using your favorite blog-publishing program, and perhaps put in a few hours of gameplay with that latest MMORG that you're into. More importantly, you also need to be checking your email locally for work with Outlook as well as have all of your archived emails for reference just in case. Oh, and you'd also like to be able to move music and video in and out of your Iphone (i.e. you need Itunes installed as well).
For a scenario as described above it seems obvious to take a laptop, as it's just not practical for you to be installing all this software on your in-law's computer. However, there is in fact another option: use MojoPac to create a virtual PC set-up with all the programs and data that you need stored on a USB drive or even on your Ipod, and then simply plug that device into any computer to instantly get all of your programs along with an entire virtual PC environment on demand.
One of the nicest things about this software is the ease of setting it up. You have to create an account at the MojoPac site, which involves picking a username and password and submitting a working email, but you can actually do that from the installation process itself. The process takes a mere few minutes at the end of which your new mobile-device borne virtual PC will up and running (see installation section below).
My experience with MojoPac: I tested this software by installing it first on a 2-Gig USB stick as then on a 12-GIG partition on a portable USB drive. Here are my notes on this program:
- Compatibility: not all software can be installed with the MojoPac environment (a list of supported programs can be found here). While I was able to install MS Office 2003, Itunes, and a number of other games and programs just fine, many other freeware titles that I attempted would not install. Moreover, some that did install would simply not function properly. If a program you need is not working post it in the support forums and it may be supported in future versions.
- Reliability: I tested my MojoPac-enabled device with some 8 different computers. For five of these it worked just fine, for two it displayed an error message and required a reboot to work, and on one PC it would not work at all no matter how hard I tried. Something to keep in mind in case you absolutely positively must have your programs working for that important presentation.
- Performance: will depend mostly on the speed of data transfer of your USB device. The MojoPac site states that the virtualization process itself does not tax performance to any notable degree, and they stress that you can play the latest graphically intensive games at full performance. That said, your MojoPac PC will very likely be slower than the host PC unless you have a really fast USB device that you are running it on.
- Installation: you do not need to have Windows XP or any Windows CDs around; MojoPac will install everything that it needs on its own (which is one of the coolest things about this program). Currently MojoPac only works on Windows XP, but a Vista version will be available shortly. Its possible to install MojoPac on a directory on the host computer instead of a device, but I haven't tried this myself.
- Size on disk: the Windows XP installation that MojoPac put on my device is approx 200 megs (128 megs minimum required, 2 Gig minimum recommended). The portable device will have the typical Win XP folder structure (Windows, Program Files, Documents and Settings, etc.)
- Switching back and forth: between the host PC environment and the MojoPac PC can be done at the press of a button via a docked MojoPac bar on the top of your screen or from the MojoPac icon in the system tray. There are times when your activity within the MojoPac PC is interrupted by security software running in the host environment (firewalls or antispyware/antivirus). In most cases MojoPac will notify you of the windows which pop up in the host, but not always. If your MojoPac PC seems stuck and you don't know why, try flipping over to the host PC and see if something's up.
- Accessing other drives/devices: the MojoPac PC will simply not access hard drives connected to the host PC, although it will access other hardware (e.g. CD drive, mouse, keyboard, etc). From the settings it is possible to allow it to access the host PC drivers, which games and other programs need to function. To copy data back and forth between the host and MojoPac PC's you will need to switch to the host PC and transfer data to the MojoPac device. Strangely (but happily) the host and MojoPac PC's share the clipboard.
- Technical support: although in theory you do not get technical support with the free edition, you can still send them error reports, create technical support tickets, and (hopefully) get the issues resolved.
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