FWIW, Virtual PC is merely a reader. Fusion and Parallels create virtual machines on which you can run any operating system you like.

They're not perfect, but with the most recent versions there's very, very little that you can't do with them. The main drawback is the processing power required to run the VM at the same time that MacOS is operating, which then is unavailable to your Windows apps.

Then there's always Boot Camp, which makes your hardware 100% available to Windows, but obviously that requires a re-boot whenever you want to switch OS.