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Need to run Windows SPSS on new macbook pro, help please!

P

psychotropic

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2008
121
0
Florida
I need to run SPSS (statistical software) on my mac for school. I have played around with the SPSS version on mac computers at the library and it is very buggy. I am thinking of getting either vmfusion or parallels to run Windows 7 and then getting SPSS PC versions that are much more proficient and effective. I purchased my Macbook Pro a couple weeks ago, but have not upgraded the ram from 4 to 8 gb yet. Can anyone provide me some opinions as to whether vmfusion or parallels works better, of it's personal preference? I know that either will work, so the most important information I need, is how much ram I should allocate to make sure that it runs smoothly? Should I wait till I am able to bump up to 8gbs before doing all this or what are your thoughts?

Thanks for helping out!
 
acedickson

acedickson

macrumors 6502a
Dec 6, 2004
727
0
ATL
I think it's personal preference. With only 4GB of ram allocate 2GB. Once you upgrade to 8 then give it 4. If you can run it on 2GB then you don't have to run out and upgrade to 8GB.
 
rev.b

rev.b

macrumors regular
May 1, 2009
232
0
Portugal
I run SPSS 19 on a virtual machine (windows XP) using Virtualbox.
Works just fine.

Everything went smoother when I upgraded to 8 Gb, though.
 
NickZac

NickZac

macrumors 68000
Dec 11, 2010
1,758
8
MacMojo1 said:
Get SAS....

or JMP native to Mac

if you need a free copy for school PM me
Click to expand...

x2. If you can use SAS, its better than SPSS simply because it is used in the world other than social sciences and social economy. With that said, it is also much more expensive, resource intensive, user unfriendly, and it makes graphics that my rabbit could do on a bad day.

I use SPSS daily and I use version 18 for Mac. If that is the version on your school computers, I almost guarantee it is running odd due to a lack of the 18.0.3.4 updates, with the 4 indicating a "hot fix" for the issues with java. This issue came about in Nov/Dev 2010 with an update to OSX 10.6, and many people are not fimaliar with it unless they are both hardcore with SPSS and OSX. The lack of this hotfix causes problems that I can only describe as varied and bizarre.
 
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