>Greetings all -
>
>Before asking a few specific questions, let me provide an overview of the situation I am dealing with. I have a client for whom I wrote a FoxPro for Mac/2.6 application back around 1994 or so using FoxExpress 2.7. The application is still in daily use, running on Mac OS 8.x workstations in a mixed (i.e., Mac and Intel) network. No problems so far.
>
>The situation: The client is about to upgrade their remaining Macs to current models, obviously running Mac OS X.
>
>I've read the few postings on here regarding similar situations and potential solutions such as:
>
>1.) Visual FoxPro 3.0/Mac.
>2.) VirtualPC
>3.) Terminal emulation/remote access (e.g., Citrix)
>
>Lots of good information there. I do have some specific questions that I am hoping can be answered by folks out here.
>
>The questions:
>
>1.) What was the last Mac OS version that FoxPro for Mac 2.6a ran under?
>
>2.) Is anyone using VirtualPC on a current Mac to run a FoxPro for Mac application? If so, what problems have you encountered and how is performance? It's been Y-E-A-R-S since I ran a VirtualPC product on a Mac and remember them being really, really slow. Has that changed?
>
>3.) Has anyone migrated a FPM 2.6 application to Visual FoxPro 3.0/Mac running under Mac OS X? Can that work? How extensive would it be to move a 2.6 FPM app to VFP 3.0?
>
>For now I am not looking into other possible solutions such as having the users switch over to PC workstations, moving to a web-based application, etc., as I don't believe the client will be looking to spend a huge (for them) amount of money.
>
>Thanks for any and all responses!!! The UT rocks!

I was in a similar situation a few years back. I wrote a custom Fox app running on a network with both PC and Mac clients. It started in FPW26 and FPM26, basically exactly the same code base except for a few tweaks that could be handled via IF _WINDOWS etc.

The Macs started out as SE/30s running OS6.x. When they got replaced FPM26 wouldn't run on their replacements. I can't remember if it broke going from OS 6 to 7, 6 to 8 or 7 to 8. Moving to VFP3Mac let the app run on the newer Macs.

Mac OSX offers native OSX and "Classic" support (which is OS 9). I'm pretty sure FPM2.6 won't run under OS 9, so it won't run under OSX even in Classic mode. I don't know if VFP3Mac runs under OS 9 or OSX in Classic mode.

If you can get a definitive answer on whether VFP3Mac runs under OS 9/OSX that might be an option. However, it was slow and buggy and I wouldn't recommend it.

VirtualPC: see http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=highlights

I have a client running this on a late-model G4 with 2GB RAM. The current VirtualPC product gives you a complete, exact, licensed copy of a Microsoft OS running on top of OSX. OS choices are XP Pro, XP Home or W2K Pro. While I haven't seen her run any Fox apps on it, she's a graphics pro and runs Corel Draw 10 on it with absolutely no issues. In fact, she often runs native OSX apps like Microsoft Office for OSX, Classic apps like older versions of Adobe Illustrator, plus CorelDraw simultaneously, sharing network connection, printers etc. In effect, running OSX apps while also emulating two other completely different OSs. Most impressive.

If you were to go the VirtualPC route, your best bet would probably be to port the app to either FPW26 or a late-model version of VFP.

I don't have any experience with Terminal Services/Citrix and FPW/VFP but in either case you'd still be porting the app to some Windows version of Fox. So, you'd have to decide whether to run the ported app on VirtualPC or via Terminal Services/Citrix. TS/Citrix gives you the pluses and minuses of centralized management. VirtualPC effectively gives a Mac user an XP workstation as well, so they can also run other Windows apps if necessary.