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Parallels or Virtual Machine

T

Tech198

Cancelled
Original poster
Mar 21, 2011
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I know the pro and cons, of each, but what do people here do with their Macs when they require access to Windows.

Do you use Parallels/VMWare or some other virtualisation, running you Windows/Mac side-by-side Using Bootcamp, or both vital machine (aka Parallels using your BC partition)

If you choose the last option, do you find when when booting in the application, if it installs Parallels Tools, or whatever, and does it remove them or keep PT installed on the BC partition if you next boot up from it. ?
 
Tech198 said:
I know the pro and cons, of each, but what do people here do with their Macs when they require access to Windows.

Do you use Parallels/VMWare or some other virtualisation, running you Windows/Mac side-by-side Using Bootcamp, or both vital machine (aka Parallels using your BC partition)

If you choose the last option, do you find when when booting in the application, if it installs Parallels Tools, or whatever, and does it remove them or keep PT installed on the BC partition if you next boot up from it. ?
Click to expand...

I run parallels, but I only use it for accounting software once and a while. What are you primarily using Windows for?
 
I use VMWare (as it is compatible with the rest of my office, whom are mainly on Windows machines but utilize VMWare images). I used to use Bootcamp side by side, but never found the need to boot solely into Windows (I don't game and get all of the compatibility I need through a VM). I moved the BootCamp partition into solely a vm image and use that daily (I need to run some software for work that doesn't have a MAC equivalent so need to the Windows VMs).

I never had an issue when I installed the tools, with interference when booted natively into Windows.
 
....

foxyfabio said:
I run parallels, but I only use it for accounting software once and a while. What are you primarily using Windows for?
Click to expand...

Stem (Games) sometimes, but other time web browsing, general stuff i know Parallels itself would be able to handle.

Which to go for.....? As that kinda put me in the middle of the two.
 
Winter Mac Bundle has the latest Parallels included within it, and the price for the bundle is good. I have never used it, have always used VMWare since version 2 but they just leap frog each one for speed, compatibility, and features with each new release.

If you have multiple Macs VMWare allows you to install on more than 1, whereas Parallels needs one license per machine. Could be a limiting factor for some.

There is also Virtual Box by Sun which is free.
 
I have used Fusion since version 2 on all my macs and I have had great luck with it. I have never used parallels myself
 
I use Parallels (currently v6) to run Winders© 7 for my main development work (VS2010/2005, EMS Oracle, SQL EM, IIS), and it's actually an image transferred from my previous HP notebook. Also includes some VPN clients for Fed connectivity, and a few other odds and ends development utilities/components.

Never considered Bootcamp ... I don't have any inclination to be in an isolated Windows environment, since all my other computing (while my VM is running) is in the native OSX (Mail, iCal, Chrome, MS Office, iTunes, etc.) - I also don't do any "PC gaming", but if I did I'd probably think about it [BC] for the optimum performance.
 
I use VMware fusion - it's sort of the gold standard of virtual machines... I also use bootcamp - sometimes I boot to windows and sometimes I use VMware to virtualize my bootcamp partition.
 
I use Parallels for all my Windows needs. I primarily game on my PS3, but also play a few on my Mac (especially OS X native games). When I do look to gaming in Windows, Parallels 7 has surpassed my expectations in running Windows 7 and it's D3D gaming ability.

Oblivion is one game I'm looking for to try next but did notice that on Parallels, your virtual machine is limited to Direct 3D 9.0 specs, so you don't get extra details if you have a better GPU to enjoy gaming with Direct X 11. Being that my MBP only has the Nvidia 320m, I wouldn't expect much out of native Bootcamp gaming.

Still, I love it as it's simple, rather speedy, and I can import the old virtual machines from Virtual PC for Windows if I ever had the desire to run an older Windows OS (Have Win 7Pro and XP Pro installed).

I must say though, that while Linux support is working well in Parallels, it's not as polished as VMWare which I used to use back in the day stuck with a Windows PC from work.
 
I use VMware Fusion.

in comparing both parallels and vmware, I found vmware to be a more stable product and the support to but superior. I think parallels has caught up a bit on the stability side but I still prefer vmware.

I don't play games but run accounting software in windows and stability is a must. When using parallels I'd not only get the guest os crashing but parallels would give me kernel panics. I uninstalled that and installed vmware, the KPs disappeared and I've not incurred any BSODs in windows either.
 
I've used both Parallels and VMWare extensively on the Mac over the past 4 years. Used VMWare workstation and ESX as well. Whilst a previous commenter mentioned VMWare is the "gold" standard, it is certainly one of the most popular but when it comes to Mac implementation I am not overly keen.

It was better up until version 3. After that I just had too many resource issues, CPU spiking and so on which never really went away.

Parallels conversely improved greatly around the same time at version 6 so I switched to using that primarily.

Even now on v4 and v7 respectively on balance I prefer Parallels. It uses the Mac resources more efficiently IMO, requires less RAM overall than VMWare and is very quick. There isn't all *that* much difference between them though.

I had used VMWare initially so that I could re-use VMs across platforms but in reality I very very rarely do this so it ceased to be a factor. You can always convert a VMWare -> Parallels easily anyway.
 
I use VMware Fusion 4 to run a Windows 7 VM. I only use it occasionally to run some IBM AS400 terminal emulation stuff for work. It's worked very well for me.
 
You probably should have posted your question as a poll.

I use VMWare to run Windows client and server guest operating systems, and Linux too. I have used Parallels in the past, but switched to VMWare somewhere around version 2. I had a Bootcamp partition to support the configuration of a Windows Home Server machine, but the WHS box is now gone and so is the Bootcamp partition. I have otherwise been able to avoid situations where I have to boot into Windows on a Mac. I have looked at Virtual Box, but since I already own a couple of VMWare licenses, it didn't have much going for it other than being open source.

I have a physical server running Windows Server as a Hyper-V host, and it's straightforward to move VMWare guest OS's to the Hyper-V host as needed. I don't think such an easy migration path exists for the other virtualization products.
 
No need to spend any money on virtualization software - just download VirtualBox from Oracle.
 
Acejam2k said:
No need to spend any money on virtualization software - just download VirtualBox from Oracle.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

But knowing this forum, people are always looking for a reason to throw their money away.

Now watch someone cite some marketing drivel as a reason why they absolutely had to go with VMware/Parallels ... Even though all they need is to run a simple program for school/work etc.
 
Adamantoise said:
Exactly.

But knowing this forum, people are always looking for a reason to throw their money away.
Click to expand...
Mostly I would agree with you but in this case I would bet most don't know about that option, I sure didnt. In windows VM software is free, I have been using VMware since it was available for OS X so I have stuck with it.
 
Adamantoise said:
Exactly.

But knowing this forum, people are always looking for a reason to throw their money away.

Now watch someone cite some marketing drivel as a reason why they absolutely had to go with VMware/Parallels ... Even though all they need is to run a simple program for school/work etc.
Click to expand...

can VirtualBox be used with an exisiting BootCamp partition?
 
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