Bring It On

Well, GDI+ is for sure easier to use for C++ programmers. Instead of "selecting" stuff back and forth you could just use C++ objects, working with various picture formats is very easy, and overall model is well though out. There are few quirks though - if you're trying to load anything but bitmap picture from resources you'll be forced to use GlobalAlloc, CreateStreamOnHGlobal and whatnot.

But if you try to use that some code to load bitmap from resources it will fail?

Furthermore, if I load PNG file, I get correct info about colors and palette (8bit, indexed), but if I load 256 color bitmap it gets implicitly converted to 32bit?

Drawing text is so different that I found it impossible to display some text to look the same as with GDI. Yes, I've read the Knowledge base article explaining why and how to get similar result, but it doesn't help - I can't seem to get the font of exactly the same size as before.

There was a huge discussion on Slashdot whether it will be possible to install Linux into Virtual PC 2004 now that Microsoft took over the product (the assumption was that it won't, as a part of Microsoft's evil plan to take over the world). Microsoft confirmed that they do not support installing Linux, but did not do anything to prevent it (virtual machine does not care what you run on it).

Well, as they say, the proof is in the pudding - I have successfully installed Mandrake 9.2 into Virtual PC 2004 on two quite different machines (one AthlonXP, one dual Xeon) without even a hitch. So, no need for alarm - at least for now.

And for those arguing that the mere fact that Linux is not on the list of types of OS shown during the install will prevent less computer savvy users from even trying, I ask this - how many beginners you know that are using this kind of software?

Impressions on the Virtual PC itself - it works well, albeit slow, and it does one really impressive thing - without any additional configuration, my virtual OSes can go to the Internet through the host computer, even though I'm on USB ADSL modem (no Ethernet card). Configuring this with VMWare almost never worked without investing serious effort and network configuration knowledge.