I've been reading up on which VM to use for a while and I'm still unsure. Part of me feels that I might even need it ... gamingwise Steam is available (TF2).
Any one think I should VM these applications or have suggestions on alternatives? MS Office (is the Mac version as good?), KMPlayer/PotPlayer (find it more powerful than VLC), Zune (can I tell iTunes to play files but NOT write or update them?), WinRAR, Daemon Tools. Those are the ones just off the top of my head.
I totally agree with jcpb. Office for Mac sucks. I have both and Office 2011 (for Mac) is much worse than both Office 2007 and obviously 2010. It is slow, has issues and bugs still, misses features and offers a bad GUI with a badly half hearted implementation of the Ribbon. It can work for you if you standards are low but it really sucks with big documents and collaborative work.
Chances are if office for Mac is good enough for you you could make due with iWorks or Open Office just fine.
I regularly start the VM for Office 2010 because I cannot stand 2011.
VLC is what I use I see no need for anything else. It plays anything and has the awesome horizontal scrolling on Macs.
iTunes you can tell it a few things. The biggest limitation is that it wants the library in one place. I don't know zune. I only used Foobar2000 and WMP in Windows. Both are much better than iTunes. iTunes is a good store but not really a great player or music manager. It works though for the most stuff. I think Zune player isn't much different.
I use none of these but run both local and online music of Spotify. Classify apps and such in Spotify, Radio, ... are just awesome for only enjoying music.
WinRAR there are a number of alternatives. None exactly great. Some miss simple password support. Little repair capabilities. I found "The unarchiver" to be at least quite okay and easy to use.
I also use the inbuilt one in Pathfinder. That is a finder alternative much better than finder. Finder is really poor compared to Windows Explorer.
Deamon Tools. There isn't quite the same thing but virtual discs apps exist. I had one installed once but I forgot the name. You hardly ever need them in OSX. There are dmgs and never any isos worth opening in OSX.
In general install BetterTouchTool and Alfred those are imo the must have apps in OSX that make it a much better system and there really is nothing truly comparable in Windows. Launchy just doesn't cut it IMO.
but more important is the need for a Windows platform on the system that is stable (at least to Windows standards) and will not hinder me.
Actually Windows 7 is more stable than OSX. The opposite is an old myth that doesn't die. It takes less to crash OSX opposed to Win7. The myth comes from older Windows Versions or idiots that come in contact with the click all install all syndrom on Windows.
From 2 years on this forum I can say that this isn't just my experience.
On that basis I haven't had any experience with Parallels, I noticed on reviews that Parallels came on top over VM Fusion, anyone who's had experience with both notice any major advantage? I'm aware of the 3D acceleration difference between Fusion and Parallels from reviews but I doubt this will be an issue.
Parallels often came on top with Fusion in Performance often trailing a bit behind. I tried both and Parallels is the consumer product that lives of such benchmarks. Parallels only exists for OSX users and its GUI is more OSX. VMWare is the enterprise grade big boy. It preserves more of the Windows GUI and is just way less buggy and more stable.
I would always take VMWare and steer clear of Parallels. If one needs that bit of extra speed (the differences are rather small today) people should use bootcamp. No VM is really good for gaming. VMWare is stable and hassle free. Parallels is for those that fall for the latest bling feature and care less about stability.
If you use Windows for Games. Use bootcamp and virtualize the partition. You get all the RAM, all the CPU and most importantly native Windows Dx11 graphic drivers.
The VM is for running 2D apps and stuff. It really gets you crappy GUI performance if you have too many Windows open but unity mode basically works just as if those Windows windows would be Mac apps.
Office 2010 ie runs way faster and better in unity than office 2011 native on Mac. As if you'd run it on a 10 times faster notebook. Excel+Word together with linked content and it feels like a 1000 times faster notebook with the VM Office.
If you never need Games or bootcamp don't use bootcamp. You get snapshots and can suspend and resume the VM which saves battery life but keeps it readily available. A VM booted from bootcamp doesn't allow those things.
