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BootCamp or Parallels?

T

Titus

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 8, 2009
108
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My new iMac will be delivered next week. I need a Windows platform in addition to MacOS.

I've had iMacs before but always had two desktops w/monitors running (college professor.)

I need to decide whether parallels or Boot Camp will work best for me. Opinions? When using Parallels, can I work across platforms by dropping files?

Thanks for any recommendations.
 
Titus said:
My new iMac will be delivered next week. I need a Windows platform in addition to MacOS.

I've had iMacs before but always had two desktops w/monitors running (college professor.)

I need to decide whether parallels or Boot Camp will work best for me. Opinions? When using Parallels, can I work across platforms by dropping files?

Thanks for any recommendations.
Click to expand...
Yes, with Parallels, you can copy in between Windows and macOS apps, and your Windows programs can access your Mac drives.
 
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If your needs are not very speed-sensitive Parallels offers the most convenience, but performance is not as good as booting into Windows; Especially for graphics
 
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I suggest Parallels. It's what I use and is quicker than Bootcamp. Only drawback to Parallels is they want you to upgrade at a cost just about every year. Otherwise is a good program.
 
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TiggrToo said:
Why choose either when you can have both?

Set up a boot camp partition then run it natively or through Parallels depending on your need.

kb.parallels.com

KB Parallels: Use Boot Camp in Parallels Desktop

I have Windows installed on my Mac via Boot Camp, how can I use it in Parallels Desktop?
kb.parallels.com kb.parallels.com
Click to expand...


Well, one reason would be that if you would never use Bootcamp natively and would always be served well enough with parallels it'd be a waste of disk space. But otherwise, sure; It gives flexibility
 
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I've heard they are now selling single purchase (no subscription) Parallels. Just hoping it will still work with the next upgrade.

My iMac Pro is coming early. Should be here next week.
 
If your planned Windows usage is light and infrequent, you should also consider VirtualBox since it is free.

Like Parallels it runs concurrently on the macOS host and you can easily copy files from Windows to Mac (Windows in VirtualBox sees your Mac desktop as an external drive).

I used a Windows VirtualBox instance for several years on my Macs before I acquired a Windows 10 notebook PC. VirtualBox performance is nothing noteworthy but for my purposes at the time it was quite adequate.
 
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I have Parallels installed on my new MBP and the performance is quite underwhelming to be honest. I guess I had high expectations from an application that is rated #1 as far as VMs are concerned. The more virtual resources I allocate to the VM, the worst the experience becomes. The cursor literally moves across the screen at what looks like 12 fps.

I purchased Parallels at a reduced student discount ($39) and the "subscription" lasts one year.

If you want a more practical, performance-oriented and long-term solution, then I would recommend installing your OS of choice in BootCamp. It's the more "real version" with "completeness."

If I'm reading this correctly it appears that you've ordered the iMac Pro. BootCamp will be more suited for that level of pro performance. Parallels would be very limited in that aspect.
 
Well, after a year of Parallels, I decided I would just use my PC laptop for Windows-specific tasks. It worked but not without printer issues and rebooting.

Now the iMac Pro is doing 95% of what I need done and it's clean and very fast.
 
For my needs Parallels is ideal. I work from home and need to run our phone system in Windows as well as some other Windows only things occasionally. For that it works great.

For gaming though you are probably better off with BootCamp.
 
A little over a year ago I got rid of my desktop PC and replaced it with Parallels on a new 64gb 2018 Mini. Works better than I ever imagined for my use. I use Windows primarily with an older version of GlobalMapper, a powerful GIS program (for making maps). The VM is quite a bit faster than my old dual-core i5 Windows PC , it only takes about 10 seconds to boot and the integration with MacOS is terrific.

Games don't interest me and Parallels is just perfect for my kind of usage. I used Parallels at work with Windows XP back around 2008 on my MacBook Pro. It was slow, crash-prone and made the laptop run really hot. It's come a long way since then. :)
 
I initially setup Bootcamp but then my Mac became an exclusive Win10 machine with a nice 27" monitor. So, I tried Parallels and now I can run MacOS (multiple versions - High Sierra and Big Sur), Win10 and WinXP concurrently and interactively. Works great for Photoshop CS6, Visio, etc.

The only performance driver for Bootcamp for me would be running PC games. But, I don't play games, so its moot.

Beware: If you switch from Bootcamp to Parallels, or in the reverse, your Win10 activation becomes invalid. MS considers Bootcamp and a Virtual Machine separate computers. I had to get on the phone with MS to get my license back after switching.
 
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Good point about MacOS virtual machines. I use Mountain Lion and Sierra virtual machines to run some very expensive legacy CAD, 3d and database software. The VM's are considerably faster than the old Macs I used for these in the past.

Cayenne1 said:
Beware: If you switch from Bootcamp to Parallels, or in the reverse, your Win10 activation becomes invalid.
Click to expand...

There's another current thread about this:

forums.macrumors.com

Windows activation with Parallels

So I've successfully imported my Boot Camp install into Parallels, and to my amazement it works pretty well. Not as well as native, but graphics performance is about 2/3rds of what you'd expect from bare metal (Radeon HD 7950 in my case.) The only fly in the ointment is activation. When I boot...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

I'm also moving this discussion to our Windows forum, but a re-direct will remain here.
 
I might be the odd guy in this thread but has anyone used Wine in place of BootCamp or Parallels? There's no emulation layer and you don't need a Windows license. I'm using Wineskin v1.8.4.2 code from GitHub and everything runs smooth in Big Sur 11.4.
 
I used wine to run some old DOS software on my Mac a number of years ago. Worked fine for that, I created a standalone app with winebottler.

From what I've seen, wine is probably a good solution if you have minimal needs, but Parallels works really well with MacOS and has allowed me to get rid of my Windows computer. I have no problem with paying for a licensed copy of Windows, that plus the cost of Parallels is WAY cheaper than the alternative I was considering of purchasing a new Windows machine.
 
Boyd01 said:
I used wine to run some old DOS software on my Mac a number of years ago. Worked fine for that, I created a standalone app with winebottler.

From what I've seen, wine is probably a good solution if you have minimal needs, but Parallels works really well with MacOS and has allowed me to get rid of my Windows computer. I have no problem with paying for a licensed copy of Windows, that plus the cost of Parallels is WAY cheaper than the alternative I was considering of purchasing a new Windows machine.
Click to expand...

Agreed. WineBottler was pretty great. Don't know if it's still maintained. Wine is hit and miss with compatibility. If you rely on software that's Windows only professionally, the reliability of something like Wine as a solution could be iffy depending on the software. Wine is great when it works well but it isn't guaranteed to work well.

Though back in high school we needed a program called ChemSketch for our chemistry class. All the Mac users complained it was Windows only and we weren't informed in advance so we didn't have time to work out a solution. 10 minutes later I was distributing a working, running ChemSketch.app bundle made with WineBottler to the class :D
 
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One thing I noticed, the DOS program I converted with winebottler was less than 100kb, but the "bottle" was almost 1gb! I suppose that's because the bottle also contained all the API's necessary to run under MacOS?
 
casperes1996 said:
If you rely on software that's Windows only professionally, the reliability of something like Wine as a solution could be iffy depending on the software. Wine is great when it works well but it isn't guaranteed to work well.
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That's my experience, but I'd say "really iffy". It does not work well with anything that needs communications inside and outside the PC. (DB type stuff) Some things work, and work really well, but throwing a new app in is like playing darts blindfolded. My experience with Wine is more on the Linux side, and that's better than what I've seen on my M1 MBA.
 
Boyd01 said:
One thing I noticed, the DOS program I converted with winebottler was less than 100kb, but the "bottle" was almost 1gb! I suppose that's because the bottle also contained all the API's necessary to run under MacOS?
Click to expand...

You can make two types of WineBottles. One that requires Wine already on the system and one that's stand-alone. If you made them Standalone each .app bundle also included all of Wine and some glue-code to launch it without installing Wine to the base machine but just running it off the app bundle just for that app. You could also bake in WineTricks into that. So that could explain the size.
 
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bobcomer said:
That's my experience, but I'd say "really iffy". It does not work well with anything that needs communications inside and outside the PC. (DB type stuff) Some things work, and work really well, but throwing a new app in is like playing darts blindfolded. My experience with Wine is more on the Linux side, and that's better than what I've seen on my M1 MBA.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's generally a bit better on Linux. But sometimes you also just need to tinker with configs and WineTricks and you can get it working better :) But depending on the software you're still looking at anywhere from completely broken to basically perfect, with the vast majority falling nearer the broken range if it's more complex software.
It was entirely perfect with ChemSketch though. Also Reviewsical Hero; A fun little game project someone made for the old VideoGamer UK's humorous Reviewsical idea
 
casperes1996 said:
You can make two types of WineBottles. One that requires Wine already on the system and one that's stand-alone. If you made them Standalone each .app bundle also included all of Wine and some glue-code to launch it without installing Wine to the base machine but just running it off the app bundle just for that app. You could also bake in WineTricks into that. So that could explain the size.
Click to expand...
That sounds really cool! I had never run across WineBottles, but I'll look it up should the need ever arise!
 
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