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Need to buy VMWare or Parallels

B

bigdaddymac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 20, 2007
119
0
New York
I have one windows program which I need to run on my mac. I need to buy VM Ware or Parallels, don't really care which, just looking for the best/cheapest deal out there. Anyone know of any good deals? Seems a few months ago I saw lots of deals for rebates, etc., but I can't find much of anything now.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
I happened to see both on the shelf at Futureshop yesterday. VMware was 89.99 with a $30 MIR. Parallels was $99 and no rebates. I have parallels on my MB, but everyone I talk to prefers VMware.
 
bigdaddymac said:
I have one windows program which I need to run on my mac. I need to buy VM Ware or Parallels, don't really care which, just looking for the best/cheapest deal out there. Anyone know of any good deals? Seems a few months ago I saw lots of deals for rebates, etc., but I can't find much of anything now.

Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

With Fusion/Parallels, you need a WGA license. See if your program will work with this: http://www.codeweavers.com/
 
trip1ex said:
Try VirtualBox. It's free. It's working for me.
Click to expand...

+1 for VirtualBox.

I've used Parallels and I've used VirtualBox and in my eyes, they're equal - except in price of course. (I have NOT used VMWare, however...) I've used VB for over a year now and its fine for the occasional Windows use.
 
I used both parallels and VMWare, if i had to pick between them i would go for VMWare. It is faster, litter and i have had less problems with it.
 
I prefer Fusion, despite what Parallels say Fusion actually works better with the new Windows 7. Fusion also works better with bootcamp partitions. Parallels is slightly faster, but only if your using a quad or octicore system, Mac Pro etc, for normal dual core Core2Duo machines its slower than fusion.
 
Another hit for Virtual Box!

Add another point for Virtual Box - it's free, and it's at least as good as the first two revs of Parallels. One limitation - it can't run anything older than XP.

I benchmarked Parallels 3 and Fusion 2 about a year ago, and at that time Fusion was faster - on multi-core machines that is, because Parallels couldn't use more than one core, but all that has changed. Parallels 4 is now faster than Fusion in most tasks, but don't take anybody's word for it, check the facts yourself, check out the benchmarks at:

http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.25/25.04/VMBenchmarks/index.html

dmz
 
Going to add another point for Virtualbox. I use it occasionally for running Ubuntu 8.10 and I've had no issues with it...it's equally awesome that it is free. So I would say maybe try that.
 
I don't know if it's just me, but Fusion just felt better put together than Parallels, it feels like a far more robust software package.
 
VirtualBox is free only for personal use. Don't forget that!

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions

* The full VirtualBox package is available in binary (executable) form free of charge from the Downloads page. This version is free for personal use and evaluation under the terms of the VirtualBox Personal Use and Evaluation License.

* If, instead, you wish to purchase licenses for enterprise use and/or enterprise support for VirtualBox, please do not hesitate to contact your Sun representative.
Click to expand...
 
Yet another vote for VirtualBox

Try VirtualBox before you do anything with Parallels or Fusion. I've been using it to run Windows XP for almost a year, and I have absolutely no complaints.
 
Again, why can't you just use Bootcamp? My intel iMac is on the way and currently only have PPC G4. Thought with Bootcamp you can have XP, but you have to boot either or.
 
opeter said:
VirtualBox is free only for personal use. Don't forget that!

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions
Click to expand...

Very good point. I assume he's talking personal use, since he never mentioned anything about a company... but then again, I am OFTEN wrong. :D I use VirtualBox with my Mini and Macbook for when I need Microsoft Office - yeah, I know its available for Mac, but I already own the PC version (2007), and my Mac version is OLD. :)

EDIT: Err, wait... Hey, OP - is QuickBooks for a business venture? If so, I change my vote to Parallels. If not (and I can't imagine why), then stick with VirtualBox. (See guys, I told you I'm OFTEN wrong.)
 
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I use vmware often: free stuff on xp and linux, and paid enterprise version at work. This stuff supports linux, sol10x86 and windows nicely. The free stuff requires some tweaking to get the system clock working nicely on a fedora8 guest instance. Otherwise, it's quite nice. I've no experience specifically with fusion, parallels, virtualbox or bootcamp.

Good luck! Don't forget that you'll need to pay for an oem license of windows.

EVP
 
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