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NYU02

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 13, 2007
120
0
I am buying a new apple computer and need to run windows. The main selling point of parallels and VMware over bootcamp is the ability to run windows apps right in the mac OS. But which is better? - parallels coherence vs. VMware Fusion's unity?

Which is more stable? easier to use?

I know VMware is still beta but is it still better/more stable?

Thanks,
NYU02
 
Parallels 3, for me, has been a disaster. It is unstable, so I've switched to VMWare. Unity actually works better for me as well, and it integrated with OS X better.

It will be $79, but $40 if you act now to pre order.
 
Parallels 3, for me, has been a disaster. It is unstable, so I've switched to VMWare. Unity actually works better for me as well, and it integrated with OS X better.

It will be $79, but $40 if you act now to pre order.

VMware for me has had a lot of problems where as Parallels 3 has been rock. I ahve had many many problems with Unity where as coherence has been fine. So two sides to the coin, really is hit and miss at the moment.

However VMware have very good customer support which can not be said for Parallels, and I feel that in the end VMware will be the better product.
 
a stupid question, does this "Unity" form still need a full installation of windows?
 
I don't know if you guys know this or not, but VMware is offering a pre-order price of only $39.99 for their product which is scheduled to go final in August. Until then you get to run the beta but when final release happes, you get it for only $39.99. Quite a deal compared to the $89.99 final price. Anyway, I just bought the pre-order and will be loading the beta soon to test on my new MBP. I did not go for the parallels due to the limited 3d gaming I am reading from others not having much luck with it. Besides I am familiar with VMware itself, not the mac stuff, and their products are generally pretty robust and enterprise in class. I am confident it will be a nice final release and for $39.99, who can complain?
 
a stupid question, does this "Unity" form still need a full installation of windows?
Yes, it is emulation, unlike WINE, which is used in Crossover. It is like Parallels' Coherence but has shadow effects and acts nice with Expose :)
 
Unfortunately from my experience Unity doesn't work anywhere near as well as Coherence. Sure it's nice that Unity separates the windows so that they can be minimized and used with Exposé, but you can't really make use of programs that have taskbar icons and overlapping windows don't even display correctly in Exposé. I really wanted to give VMWare a chance, so I waited and waited for them to add the features of VMWare Workstation along with some other cool features, but it never happened. Fusion still doesn't have multiple snapshot support, and Parallels now does. Considering that VMWare Workstation has had that and many other features that Fusion still doesn't have for a while now, I see it as a sign that VMWare is not very much committed to the Mac platform. :( Think about it; if VMWare was really committed to developing for Mac OS X, they would have been able to come up with a product much more well featured than Parallels by now considering the resources available to them.

That said, if I didn't already have Parallels and was considering whether to get Parallels or VMWare right now, it would be a tough choice. $40 for VMWare Fusion is a really good deal and being half the price of Parallels Desktop might just be enough to change my mind and make me go with Fusion. On the other hand, Parallels has said that they will add all of the features that VMWare Fusion currently has over Parallels (64-bit OS support, multiple processor support, Exposé support for Coherence) in updates to Parallels 3.0. So go with Parallels if you want more features, VMWare if you want better cost and support.
 
Well, Parallels almost screwed up my bootcamp partition pretty badly, and never really worked right, while VMWare's always worked great for me. Haven't really played with Unity too much (haven't really had a reason to use windows since Flash CS3 is universal...), but it looked great from what I've played with.
 
Unfortunately from my experience Unity doesn't work anywhere near as well as Coherence. Sure it's nice that Unity separates the windows so that they can be minimized and used with Exposé, but you can't really make use of programs that have taskbar icons and overlapping windows don't even display correctly in Exposé. I really wanted to give VMWare a chance, so I waited and waited for them to add the features of VMWare Workstation along with some other cool features, but it never happened. Fusion still doesn't have multiple snapshot support, and Parallels now does. Considering that VMWare Workstation has had that and many other features that Fusion still doesn't have for a while now, I see it as a sign that VMWare is not very much committed to the Mac platform. :( Think about it; if VMWare was really committed to developing for Mac OS X, they would have been able to come up with a product much more well featured than Parallels by now considering the resources available to them.

That said, if I didn't already have Parallels and was considering whether to get Parallels or VMWare right now, it would be a tough choice. $40 for VMWare Fusion is a really good deal and being half the price of Parallels Desktop might just be enough to change my mind and make me go with Fusion. On the other hand, Parallels has said that they will add all of the features that VMWare Fusion currently has over Parallels (64-bit OS support, multiple processor support, Exposé support for Coherence) in updates to Parallels 3.0. So go with Parallels if you want more features, VMWare if you want better cost and support.

I don't know since I never ran parallels but considering this is going to be ver 1.0 for vmware I am not looking for extensive feature sets at this point over stability which is what it appears Vmware was focusing on. Anyhow we must wait and see how the GR will be in August as right now it is comparing a first version beta against a final release player. Ipersonally hope they both do well with their products and it allows for good choice options for people. Good competition is always good for us consumers and keeps the vendors on their toes.
 
Any good comparisons

Hi,

I'm currently running parallels (3.0), but as I want to have the multi
core support I'm tempted to pre order VMware. I have a couple of
questions:

1. Are there any good comparisons between the fusion beta 4.1 (?)
and parallels 3.0 ? I mean : features, resource usage etc ...

2. Can you have both installed on one mac ? without problems ? I do not
need to run both at the same time, but want to have the choice.

Rudi
 
Hi,

I'm currently running parallels (3.0), but as I want to have the multi
core support I'm tempted to pre order VMware. I have a couple of
questions:

1. Are there any good comparisons between the fusion beta 4.1 (?)
and parallels 3.0 ? I mean : features, resource usage etc ...

2. Can you have both installed on one mac ? without problems ? I do not
need to run both at the same time, but want to have the choice.

Rudi

2. Definitely I have had that set-up for quite a little while.

I find that I use parallels a lot lot more than I do VMware. Also VMware installs crap all over the computer, which is something I didn't like.
 
I'm using Parallels 3 currently and I'm very happy with it. Coherence mode works very fine, this is a monster feature. I haven't tried VM Ware, but I don't even need to: Parallels suits me. According to what people say on other forums Coherence has been much more stable than Unity
 
Parallels 3 is not out yet?

I just purchased Parallels from Apple Store and was trying to figure out if I had the latest version. The packaging does not list the version anywhere. I paid $79 and have not opened it.

Is Parallels 3 out already, or will I get a free update once I install it?

Does anyone know about the performance operating MS Access in parallels?
 
Parallel's 3.0 is out yes.

I have it - it is the version that supports 3D.

Parallel's is really good - but right now I'm finding it slows my computer down a hell of a lot, and is really slow at starting up, makes my computer pause for a bit.
 
How do I know if I have the latest version?

Parallel's 3.0 is out yes.

I have it - it is the version that supports 3D.

QUOTE]


The box does not provide any info as to which version I have. The only difference I can see is the location of the orange bubble near the monitor on the front of the box.
 
I have never run Parallels but ave the vmware running flawlessly thus far on my new MBP. It even runs some of my old 3d games no problem and windows runs super quick and smooth under it. I am quite pleased with vmware so far and look forward to the august final release date.
 
Parallel's 3.0 is out yes.

I have it - it is the version that supports 3D.

Parallel's is really good - but right now I'm finding it slows my computer down a hell of a lot, and is really slow at starting up, makes my computer pause for a bit.
Maybe your system is to blame for the slowdown? I mean Parallels is famous for using a lot of resources. How much RAM do you have? What are your system specs?
 
Maybe your system is to blame for the slowdown? I mean Parallels is famous for using a lot of resources. How much RAM do you have? What are your system specs?

Read my signature ;)

2GB of RAM. I'm exchanging my MBP tomorrow anyway - but I don't think using a lot of hacks helps the system run smoothly..
 
Read my signature ;)

2GB of RAM. I'm exchanging my MBP tomorrow anyway - but I don't think using a lot of hacks helps the system run smoothly..
Sorry for being a blind bat:) I don't know why parallels can work so slow with 2 Gigs. Memory leak maybe?:eek:
 
My personal experience of testing Parallels is that it is not too stable, even at version 3, so I have opted for VMware Fusion. So far so good. I have also spent a lot of time reading some of the comparisons between the two programs and they all generally come up in favour of VMware for speed and stability. Here are three which I found the most useful.

Windows virtual machine performance on the Mac. Which is a general speed review including BootCamp tests, which is useful.
VMware vs Parallels Photoshop tests. Which is interesting in that it focusses on testing Photoshop and Adobe software on each program.
Virtual Vista. Which includes a Virtual PC comparison.

Although Parallels does have more features for integrating between the Windows installation and the Mac OS X and if version4 proved to be faster and more stable, then I would happily switch. Having said that, someone on another forum said that the more integration that you have between the Mac and Windows virtual machine, the more of a security risk this is. Does anyone know if this is true or not and why this would be the case? Thanks.
 
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