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To the OP, personally I would suggest trying both via their free trial periods and then make your decision.

That will take hours and a lot of effort. Just get the VM Ware. They are far better funded than the Parallels company. Their platform is being embedded into bios level of many servers now and in the future.

They are the Microsoft of Virtual computing.
 
Not trying to thread-jack or anything but is it possible to run your Boot Camp partition (Windows XP Pro) virtually through OSX via one of these two options (Parallels, VMWare Fusion)? For simple tasks I'd love to be able to load my Boot Camp partition virtually through OSX and reboot into Boot Camp solely for Windows gaming.

Mainly, I'd like to avoid having 3 separate OS installs on one machine: OS X, Windows Boot Camp, Windows Virtual Machine ... is this at all possible?

Thanks,
~E
 
Not trying to thread-jack or anything but is it possible to run your Boot Camp partition (Windows XP Pro) virtually through OSX via one of these two options (Parallels, VMWare Fusion)? For simple tasks I'd love to be able to load my Boot Camp partition virtually through OSX and reboot into Boot Camp solely for Windows gaming.

Mainly, I'd like to avoid having 3 separate OS installs on one machine: OS X, Windows Boot Camp, Windows Virtual Machine ... is this at all possible?

Thanks,
~E

Yes, either of these products support using the Bootcamp partition.

...VMware...

They are the Microsoft of Virtual computing.

Don't know if that's a good endorsement or not. :rolleyes:

Cheers,
 
When using VMWare, can I open a single Windows app directly on an iMac by simply clicking it,or do I have to open Windows in its entirety with VMWare first, and then open the PC software?
 
VIRTUAL BOX try that first because it is free and can take care of most needs. If you need some hardware acceleration features in your virtual pc I would use vmware.
 
What would be the best, fastest, least memory consuming way to run Windows Live (MSN) Messenger in its entirety on a Macbook? (not the Mac verstion of MSN, tho)
 
I would also recommend VMWare. I used Parallels for over a year without problems then it started to cause kernel panics. The support was unable to help even though i gave very detailed descriptions to reproduce the issue. Since i couldnt work with 1-4 kernel panics per day I tried VMWare and voila ... no more kernel panics. From that day on I'm a VMWare user and im very happy with it.
 
So....what's the verdict on the new Parallels 4.0 in comparison with Fusion 2.0?
 
Given that Parallels promised a lot of features in version 3, and introduced them to version 4 and made that a paid-upgrade, then I think Parallels' business model and treatment of its users is quite suspect.

Considering I paid for it on the basis of the promised features back then... I'd go with VMWare now - the Competitors Switching discount is very attractive - it costs me as much to buy a Parallels 4.0 upgrade as it does for me to switch to VMWare, so VMWare here I am.
 
Printing

I have an iMac Leopard OS 10.5.5 and conFUSION running a Windows program that isn't available in MAC (drat the luck) - So far, I have the program working fine in the Fusion with one major issue - printing. If I can get the printer to work in either system, the instant that I revert to the other system, the printer ceases to print. I have installed and re-installed the printer in my VM but it will not hold if I open the iMAC OS. When I then go to the iMAC, I have to reinstall the printer - a real bummer. Anyone else encountered such a problem?

I also have Bootcamp running windows with the same program. With this configuration, the printer will work in either OS; however, I really like the ability of moving between Leopard and the Windows installation and would like to continue, but the printer issue has me baffled.

Any suggestions?

Bob :confused:
 
I have an iMac Leopard OS 10.5.5 and conFUSION running a Windows program that isn't available in MAC (drat the luck) - So far, I have the program working fine in the Fusion with one major issue - printing. If I can get the printer to work in either system, the instant that I revert to the other system, the printer ceases to print. I have installed and re-installed the printer in my VM but it will not hold if I open the iMAC OS. When I then go to the iMAC, I have to reinstall the printer - a real bummer. Anyone else encountered such a problem?

I also have Bootcamp running windows with the same program. With this configuration, the printer will work in either OS; however, I really like the ability of moving between Leopard and the Windows installation and would like to continue, but the printer issue has me baffled.

Any suggestions?

Bob :confused:

I have run into a similar issue where I deployed Fusion on a clients MBP. It turned out that utilizing the feature where the mac native printers were 'installed automatically' and utilized by the VM is somewhere between less than great and unusable. What I ended up doing is changing the network setup to Bridged instead of NAT which enabled the VM to fully see the network (ie browse network neighborhood, join a domain etc)... and allowed me to directly install the printer driver and print to the print server of the printer. All is well since then.

Hope that helps...
 
Sony Ericsson sw

Just a little info. When I run Parallel 3 I can not get the sw update to work for my Sony Ericsson phone. However with Fusion it finds the phone attached to a USB port right away.

just some interesting tidbit but for me I actually bought VMWare at that time rather than Parallel after trying both.
 
Just a little info. When I run Parallel 3 I can not get the sw update to work for my Sony Ericsson phone. However with Fusion it finds the phone attached to a USB port right away.

just some interesting tidbit but for me I actually bought VMWare at that time rather than Parallel after trying both.

Both products have incompatable software. Its not just, oh ya, my software works in vmware so that makes it a more superior product, no, both vmware fusion and parallels desktop have some software that won't work but will work on the other.
 
Tom Sawyer - I'm a 'newbie', so could you elaborate on your '..changing the network setup to Bridged instead of NAT which enabled the VM to fully see the network...' suggestion. When I look at the Network feature in System Preferences, I do not see terms listed as 'bridged', 'NAT', etc.

Bob :eek:
 
Tom Sawyer - I'm a 'newbie', so could you elaborate on your '..changing the network setup to Bridged instead of NAT which enabled the VM to fully see the network...' suggestion. When I look at the Network feature in System Preferences, I do not see terms listed as 'bridged', 'NAT', etc.

Bob :eek:

Its not in the OSX System Preferences, its in the VMWare or Parallels setting for the Virtual Machine.
 
I guess I'll just post my preference: VMWare.

I used to use Parallels when it first came out as I didn't want to leave OS X in order to use Visual Studio, and while I enjoyed the functionality once coherence mode was available, them expecting us to pay for frequent unstable updates and features promised but never delivered in each version number was just ridiculous to me.

VMWare has been solid and most importantly *honest* and is *THE* leading company in VM solutions and I'll trust my data with them.
 
Ok Guys very confused Newbie here, coming form windows environment I would like to keep it on MAC OSx and I see the votes are going for VMWare, so my query is Do I need to set the Boot Camp and partition the disk followed by setting up windows on boot camp ,before setting up VMWare
or I can setup VMWare on OSx without the need for boot camp thus saving on the space used by boot camp
Many thanks for being patient with me
 
Ok Guys very confused Newbie here, coming form windows environment I would like to keep it on MAC OSx and I see the votes are going for VMWare, so my query is Do I need to set the Boot Camp and partition the disk followed by setting up windows on boot camp ,before setting up VMWare
or I can setup VMWare on OSx without the need for boot camp thus saving on the space used by boot camp
Many thanks for being patient with me

I did nothing with boot camp. I just installed and configured VM and then installed windows on the partition there.
 
What I got Vmware for $10

I got from Amazon for half price $39.99 from regular price $79.99. I opened the box and found other $30.00 rebate. Total what I pay for only $10.00. Vmware is best deal.
 
xVM VirtualBox is a new product developed by Sun and it's free. check it out:
http://www.sun.com/software/products/virtualbox/index.jsp

Its not a new product. VirtualBox was Open-Source up to a year or two ago, after which it got picked by up Sun. Sadly, once Sun got its hands on it, the quality went down. I used to use VirtualBox all the time when I ran Ubuntu. Upgraded to the Sun version and the VMs ran horribly and ate up system resources like you wouldn't believe.

I do recommend taking a look at it, as my experiences is with its initial Sun release. I will warn that if you need DirectX support (mostly for games), Uniity (Windows apps are displayed on the OS X desktop like native apps), or "advanced" USB support, I would go with Fusion or Parallels. I use Fusion as I get a copy from work. I tried Parallels and didn't like it, so it worked out for me.
 
I am in the exact scenario you are in. I use Autodesk Inventor 2009 Professional and use VMWare Fusion. I have 4GB or RAM (2GB for Windows Vista) and Inventor runs surprisingly well. If you go the Fusion route, you can boot from your Boot Camp partition- no need for a VM. I would suggest you go the Fusion route and just boot from your Boot Camp Partition through fusion. If you give Vista 2GB of RAM everything seems to go well. For basic sketches and even smaller assembly's, Inventor through Fusion works extremely well. I can't remember the last time I had to restart into Vista...

I am already running Bootcamp, for the Autodesk Inventor software. I would like to be able to run lesser applications, such as word and powerpoint, without having to reboot. First off can I install the same copy of VISTA Ultimate on both bootcamp, and parallels or VMware? Second which should I use Parallels or VMware?
 
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