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Getting a new iMac, should I get VMWare or Parallels?

I evaluated VMWare and found Parallels to be better.

I use it pretty extensively for developing and testing Windows software and I haven't had the stability problems others are reporting.

One HUGE exception though: When I upgraded to the latest version, it choked when converting one of my VMs and corrupted it, leving it unusable. Tried again with my backup: same problem. So, one of my 12 VMs just couldn't be converted. So I guess I can't really give Parallels an unqualified endorsement.

I read a good review on the pros and cons of VMWare vs. Parallels somewhere... I can't find it, but this one looks good very good: http://forums.mactalk.com.au/showthread.php?t=38392
 
danb77 said:
You need to choose "connect to" the drive in the Virtual Machine menu. This transfers "ownership" of the device to the virtual machine. The same works for printers, CDs etc too...
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I think I have done that because I can see the drive vanish in OS X and show up as a lit blue icon in VMware but it does not show up in my computer in XP...:confused:
 
vansouza said:
I think I have done that because I can see the drive vanish in OS X and show up as a lit blue icon in VMware but it does not show up in my computer in XP...:confused:
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What is this drive formatted as? Windows won't read Mac formatted drives (HFS) without a third party add-on.

Also, for what its worth, I use VMware and think its fantastic.
 
Another vote for Fusion\Vmware. They have been in the business, and do it better, longer than anyone. (That and the fact that I get it free as I'm an ESX admin for a large company helps). ;)

In all seriousness though, Vmware is the way to go. The product can do nothing but get better, and it's already fantastic.
 
Celeron said:
What is this drive formatted as? Windows won't read Mac formatted drives (HFS) without a third party add-on.

Also, for what its worth, I use VMware and think its fantastic.
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Its a little thumb drive, 2 gigs formatted FAT; I do not understand why it shows as active in the VMware XP window, again lower right USB blue icon. But does not show up as a drive in Word or Excel or in my computer. I have to burn everything to CD... anoying... :mad:
 
Using VMWare and very happy - I'm evaluating it with ARC GIS, QuickBooks Pro, and some other stuff.

Incidentally, I talked to a consultant friend not too long ago who was doing some work with Berkeley/Alamo. She was telling me that when their security people looked into Parallels, it was very hard to tell exactly what the emulation layers were doing behind the scenes - e.g. where processor calls were going, when it was making Internet connections and so forth. She said that the Berkeley folks wound up picking VMWare because it is more transparent and easily secured for their needs. But, it raised a question about how Parallels keeps data secure for them that wasn't there for VMWare. Just an FYI, I suppose, since I don't do this kind of work where security would be such a high priority.
 
CashGap said:
Well... you disagree with the bulk of the responders... it's a leap to say that all of us are being terribly misleading.
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I didn't say it was wrong to have the opinion that Fusion is better, I said Fusion isn't much better like some of you seem to be saying it is. Fusion and Parallels are very similar programs.

CashGap said:
I was actually surprised to read that Parallels SmartSelect was a feature, I assumed it was a nasty bug until I learned how to turn it off! Nothing like clicking on an attachment in an email in OS X and unexpectedly having the Parallels VM, then Windows, then a Windows app load when you expected it to load in preview as it always had. That's aggressively intrusive default behavior.

Anecdotal experience only, but I've had a night-and-day experience with Parallels and Fusion when judged by performance, intuitiveness and stability.
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I've never had Parallels automatically associate anything with a Windows program that already had a Mac program associated with it (and I've used every available build, included the betas, of Parallels 3.0). Not to mention that is a bug which has probably been fixed by now.

mrwizardno2 said:
Dragging and dropping files onto the VM desktop is hard? *looks around* What could really be more easy?
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If you want to simply modify a file it is far easier to just open the file, not make a copy, modify, and then copy back.
 
It could be that in final releases, the Parallels 3.0 and VMware Fusion have similar performance.

Likely both were faced with the dilemma of launching a product before it was ready in order to be "first", or delivering a stable product a month or so after the competitor. Engineering approach V. Marketing approach, and there are undeniably advantages to each approach.
 
I started using Parallels, simply because at the time VMWare was not available for Mac and then, it messed up my HD. Once Fusion showed up, I switched and found it more stable, I'm a happy camper now. :apple:
 
^yup.. I feel like an idiot. I have installed and am running VMWARE fusion and it is indeed 'snappier' and more responsive than Parallels.... but you dont' have to take my word for it lol..

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/9665/picture1xv9.jpg

That shows a comparison of speeds for the different ways to run OS's on a mac.. Parallels.. as you can see.. is dead last..

VM is so much easier to set up.. and it runs smoother.. I barely even notice it's a virtual pc.. i have it set to 768mb of ram and its running fine.. if you have a few hours to kill to play around installing and setting it up i suggest it.. I still have parallels.. but i will be using VM from now on.. I already put Microsoft Office on it... the only thing is it doesn't have the cool transitions.. but it doesn't really matter if you just set it to an alternate space in Spaces or an alternate desktop in YouControl-Desktops or VirtueDesktops.

2.16ghz Macbook 2gb ram running Leopard 10.5.1
VMWARE Fusion 1.1 with 768mb allocated
Running XP Ultimate (Professional)
 
I have to vote Parallels.

With Fusion there was just more involved in setting it up and I could never get it to cooperate with my Boot Camp partition. When I finally got it to run my BC partition, without getting an error message, my keyboard or mouse wouldn't work. It said I needed to install VMWare Tools or something like that, but I had to be logged into Windows to do that, and how could I type my password in when my keyboard wasn't working??! :rolleyes:

After that I gave Parallels a try and haven't had a problem. They're actually quite similar but I get much better performance out of Parallels. I was able to log into my Boot Camp partition, and Parallels automatically installed everything so it would function properly and viola.
 
Piece of Advice

To the OP
Whichever one you get, Max out the RAM on your Mac. Basically, if you give *each* machine (ie Windows and OS X) the RAM it needs, then you can just pop back and forth between them with no worries.

My wife uses VMWare on her MBP to tunnel into some proprietary database systems over the internet using XP. We didn't know when we bought the laptop that she would need virtual machine, so we are a little light on the RAM - and it shows.

She has had fewer problems maintaining the connection and with firewalls than others using XP natively.

Ironically her employer specifies that the contractors must use IE 7 and XP for security reasons.

Hope this helps

Seth
 
I am using VMware and it works flawlessly, I just added 4 more gigs of ram though. before that it was working slow.
 
Parallels vs VMware with 3-D imaging, Quickbooks

I realize this is an old post...hopefully someone will indulge a first time user with a response!

I currently use Parallels with XP for some 3-D imaging software (MacBook Pro, 2 gigs RAM), and it runs a little slow. I was thinking of trying VMware to see if I get better performance. A few things I could use some advice on:

1. Is there any reason to expect better performance from VMware with the type of work I'm doing?

2. Is there a way to transfer XP, programs, etc from Parallels to VMware so I don't have to reinstall everything?

3. With my work I toggle back and forth between XP and OS with expose frequently, although I do not transfer files frequently between the two. Is this just as easy with VMware?

4. I was planning on purchasing Quickbooks PRo 2008 soon. Does anyone have verification that Quickbooks Pro 2008 works well with VMware or Parallels? I heard it was unsupported with virtual machines, so I'm a little cautious of purchasing it. On the other hand, the reviews I've read of Quickbooks for Mac are pretty poor, so I'd like to use the windows version if it works OK.

I appreciate any input!
 
schmidty said:
I realize this is an old post...hopefully someone will indulge a first time user with a response!

I currently use Parallels with XP for some 3-D imaging software (MacBook Pro, 2 gigs RAM), and it runs a little slow. I was thinking of trying VMware to see if I get better performance. A few things I could use some advice on:

1. Is there any reason to expect better performance from VMware with the type of work I'm doing?

2. Is there a way to transfer XP, programs, etc from Parallels to VMware so I don't have to reinstall everything?

3. With my work I toggle back and forth between XP and OS with expose frequently, although I do not transfer files frequently between the two. Is this just as easy with VMware?

4. I was planning on purchasing Quickbooks PRo 2008 soon. Does anyone have verification that Quickbooks Pro 2008 works well with VMware or Parallels? I heard it was unsupported with virtual machines, so I'm a little cautious of purchasing it. On the other hand, the reviews I've read of Quickbooks for Mac are pretty poor, so I'd like to use the windows version if it works OK.

I appreciate any input!
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1. Perhaps. It's difficult to say for sure. I use Fusion and my XP runs better than on my old machine. If nothing else, if you need to do something very CPU-intensive on your Windows VM, Fusion does let you allocate more CPU to the VM than Parallels does. That would definitely get you better performance on Windows, but at the expense of running OS X slower (temporarily, of course).

2. I have no idea.

3. I haven't used Parallels, but I can't imagine it being any easier than switching back and forth with Fusion. It's pretty seamless, and I transfer files back and forth a lot too, which is just a simple drag-and-drop.

4. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work in a VM unless it happens to need accelerated 3D (but it's Quicken!) or if it needs access to very picky peripherals or something. I'd say that's likely something Microsoft made them say to discourage Mac users. Technically, only the "Ultimate" versions of Windows support virtualization--Windows says I'm not allowed to run my XP Home in a virtual machine--but it runs just fine.
 
schmidty - To transfer your Parallels VM to Fusion use the VMware Importer Tool. It's free and currently in beta. It should work fine.
VMware works great with Exposé and spaces. Personally, I like to run my Vista VM in full screen and use spaces to switch between Mac OS and Windows.
I'm not entirely convinced with Unity. It looks ugly in the dock and you can't hide windows, you can only minimize them. Both products boast about how they even run oddly shaped windows (WMP) well. I found this just to be a big lie. It works sometimes, but Windows Live Messengerwith Messenger Plus does not display properly in Unity. It has a huge border of my Windows background.

I have not tried Parallels, however judging by what people are saying I'll just stick with Fusion. Hopefully Fusion will get an update that includes a SmartSelect clone that works better. I've heard some complaints about SmartSelect on Parallels.
 
Bought both. Tried both. Threw Parallels out.

Fusion rocks ! Couldn't ask for better performance.
 
snberk103 said:
Whichever one you get, Max out the RAM on your Mac. Basically, if you give *each* machine (ie Windows and OS X) the RAM it needs, then you can just pop back and forth between them with no worries.
Click to expand...
New to Macs after twenty years of using DOS and then Windows operating systems. I'm using a new MacBook with 2 GB of RAM. Will this be adequate to run VMWare with Windows Vista?
 
AdrianGordon said:
New to Macs after twenty years of using DOS and then Windows operating systems. I'm using a new MacBook with 2 GB of RAM. Will this be adequate to run VMWare with Windows Vista?
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Yes, but XP will be MUCH better, so would 3GB.
 
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