MBA & virtualisation

[OlafTHairy]

Hi guys and girls,
I have just recieved my first Mac, a 13" MBA i7, for nearly 15years, my last one was a Macintosh Colour Classic.

My question is what is the consensus for virtualisation of Windows 7 OS.
a) Bootcamp
b) Parallels
c) VMWare Fusion

i know there have been some version updates recently for the above, so any insight into that would also be highly appreciated.

Cheers in advance.

 

[xraydoc]

Parallels vs. Fusion I think is a matter of personal choice between cost, features, support, etc. There's also VirtualBox, which is another software VM solution - and its free.

As for Boot Camp, this will provide the best performance since you're running Windows right on the hardware without a software layer in between and all its related overhead (memory usage, etc.). It does of course require some setup and a reboot to switch operating environments.

 

[deeddawg]

xraydoc is spot on. I believe both Parallels and VMWare Fusion have free trials so you can evaluate for yourself which you prefer. VirtualBox of course is free so easy enough to try.

One thing Parallels and VMWare Fusion have over VirtualBox is "Coherence" or "Unity" mode where your Windows windows show up seamlessly on the OSX desktop rather than inside a virtual machine window. (I could be wrong here if VB implemented this recently!)

I've not needed bootcamp as nothing I use on Windows is performance sensitive.

 

[jamesr19]

The answers above are very true.

I personally prefer Parallels to VMWare - I get VMWare for free from uni but Parallels performed so much better (speed, graphics, everything) for me that I went out and purchased Parallels 6. Am going to give VirtualBox a try as it supposedly supports Lion in virtual configuration; and not sure if I want to pay £35 to upgrade to Parallels 7...

Parallels' iPhone/iPad app is awesome - another reason to go for Parallels. you can take your VM anywhere as the app supports data transfer over 3G too..top notch!