It was suggested to me in a previous thread to use Crossover to run MS Excel instead of using alternative programs such as Parallels and Fusion since the only reason I would need to run Windows is to use Excel. However, when I went to the Website to research Crossover, Excel had a "Bronze" rating which implied that it was buggy. Does anyone have experience running these 2 together?
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Crossover and Excel
- Thread starter nic01scgt
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No experience with Excel, but Access and Crossover are hopeless. Personally I'd steer well clear of Crossover and use either Parallels or VMWare (or possibly one of the free Windows emulators / virtualisations, although they tend to be more complicated to set-up).
My experience with Crossover is about a year and a half ago, so it may have changed from then.
What I found out, is that overall Crossover was pain to use on anything but gold standard apps -- and those are fairly limited. It would quit unexpectedly. The screen would render incorrectly. I could not select menu items. It caused errors in files.
I liked the Crossover concept and hoped that it would work for me. Bottom line there was simply too many issues to make it worthwhile for me.
BTW, Crossover only supports Excel 2000 at the gold level. So if you want to run Excel 2003 (Silver) or Excel 2007 (Bronze) you will probably have issues.
IMHO, Parallels and WMware Fusion provide a much better solution.
What I found out, is that overall Crossover was pain to use on anything but gold standard apps -- and those are fairly limited. It would quit unexpectedly. The screen would render incorrectly. I could not select menu items. It caused errors in files.
I liked the Crossover concept and hoped that it would work for me. Bottom line there was simply too many issues to make it worthwhile for me.
BTW, Crossover only supports Excel 2000 at the gold level. So if you want to run Excel 2003 (Silver) or Excel 2007 (Bronze) you will probably have issues.
IMHO, Parallels and WMware Fusion provide a much better solution.
I said Access and Crossover are hopeless.
The Access database an organisation I do work for were trying to run had all sorts of weird problems that simply didn't occurr on a real Windows computer nor later under Parallels.
BUT I personally do think Crossover is hopeless and the other similar no-need-for-Windows systems around, unless you have very limited and simple needs. (The only reason it that organisation even tried it was because the fools they use as IT consultants are also hopeless - I wouldn't have even suggested bothering with it). There's simply no way to have proper Windows compatiblity without actually having Windows installed with all it's component libraires, etc. ... at least not leagally.
The best options for Windows use on a Mac are Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion, or Apple's Boot Camp (or you can try some of the freeware / shareware options, but they are often more complicated to set-up) ... for all of which you will also need to buy an actual Windows licence as well as one for Windows Office. It's more expensive, but it's (almost) guaranteed to work as properly as any othr Windows PC (the above organisation still has a problem under Parallels Desktop of it not being able to use security USB Flash drives).
Of course, depending on what you actually need it for, buying the Mac version of Office / Excel is probably a better and cheaper option. There are also freeware / shareware applications as well as Apple's own Numbers.
