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Parelels and VMWare

B

BBQ BOY

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 23, 2010
158
0
I asked this question on another site and this is the answer I received. Please help explain his response. Thanks.

Me:
"I own 2 restaurants. Both have DVR security camera system that would like to view remotely. It isn't mandatory to do so but it would be nice to see what is going in my restaurants when I can not be at one. Anyway, the software is PC based and I really do not care to run on boot camp all of the time. One store has a 32 camera system and the other a 12 camera system.
Something else I wish to view remotely is my POS system (Point of Sale) Again it isn't mandatory.
I run my corporate office by PC. In example, Quickbooks and Office. I know There is Quickbooks for Mac and Office for Mac but my biggest concern here is transferring data from the Mac to the PC.
Help me out here guys.
Thanks. "

Answer:
"All you need to do is install Parallels or VMWare and you can run all your current PC apps seamlessly along with the Mac OS. No need to use Boot Camp or reboot. You won't notice any difference in speed from your current PC either. You will have the best of all worlds. Just make sure you get 4G or more of RAM and you should be all set."

Me:
"Ok. Can you explain to meow to install parallels, what is involved, where can I get it and also how to's on the VMWare?"
 
BBQ BOY said:
I asked this question on another site and this is the answer I received. Please help explain his response. Thanks.

Me:
"I own 2 restaurants. Both have DVR security camera system that would like to view remotely. It isn't mandatory to do so but it would be nice to see what is going in my restaurants when I can not be at one. Anyway, the software is PC based and I really do not care to run on boot camp all of the time. One store has a 32 camera system and the other a 12 camera system.
Something else I wish to view remotely is my POS system (Point of Sale) Again it isn't mandatory.
I run my corporate office by PC. In example, Quickbooks and Office. I know There is Quickbooks for Mac and Office for Mac but my biggest concern here is transferring data from the Mac to the PC.
Help me out here guys.
Thanks. "

Answer:
"All you need to do is install Parallels or VMWare and you can run all your current PC apps seamlessly along with the Mac OS. No need to use Boot Camp or reboot. You won't notice any difference in speed from your current PC either. You will have the best of all worlds. Just make sure you get 4G or more of RAM and you should be all set."

Me:
"Ok. Can you explain to meow to install parallels, what is involved, where can I get it and also how to's on the VMWare?"
Click to expand...

Vmware and parallels are stupid easy to install. Just buy them and install them, it's a simple drag and drop process. Plop in a windows install cd, follow the on screen instructions and in about a half hour you'll have a windows virtual machine ready to be used.
 
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You should try google instead.
 
is there a way to manage the cameras through a web interface? (e.g. firefox or similar?) that would make it easier.

but yea parallels is the way to go, you NEED a version of windows to go with it though!
 
BBQ BOY said:
I asked this question on another site and this is the answer I received. Please help explain his response. Thanks.

Me:
"I own 2 restaurants. Both have DVR security camera system that would like to view remotely. It isn't mandatory to do so but it would be nice to see what is going in my restaurants when I can not be at one. Anyway, the software is PC based and I really do not care to run on boot camp all of the time. One store has a 32 camera system and the other a 12 camera system.
Something else I wish to view remotely is my POS system (Point of Sale) Again it isn't mandatory.
I run my corporate office by PC. In example, Quickbooks and Office. I know There is Quickbooks for Mac and Office for Mac but my biggest concern here is transferring data from the Mac to the PC.
Help me out here guys.
Thanks. "

Answer:
"All you need to do is install Parallels or VMWare and you can run all your current PC apps seamlessly along with the Mac OS. No need to use Boot Camp or reboot. You won't notice any difference in speed from your current PC either. You will have the best of all worlds. Just make sure you get 4G or more of RAM and you should be all set."

Me:
"Ok. Can you explain to meow to install parallels, what is involved, where can I get it and also how to's on the VMWare?"
Click to expand...

The bolded part at least isn't true. Unless your PC is from sometime around ~1999. Any virtual machine is by nature slower than a dedicated machine. It's not always noticeable, but saying you'll never notice a difference is silly.

For managing a windows based PoS system you should be fine, but if your video cameras are dealing with streaming video, I'd suggest you look into what DoFoT9 mentioned.
 
depends on your pos software and dvr software.

if your using rmpos you can use your iphone or any pc to monitor sales and such.(RMpos app avail in app store free)

little more info on software could help.
 
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if its windows only software, then crossover/wine would be the way to go i reckon. You get actual performance that way :p

Its basically trial and error though, i do love parallels, but if you need cpu intense programs then its not always the best way to go - from personal experience it seems to cause 'glitches' every so often in the processing. E,g, you might end up with videos that lag every so often, etc.
 
DoFoT9 said:
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if its windows only software, then crossover/wine would be the way to go i reckon. You get actual performance that way :p

Its basically trial and error though, i do love parallels, but if you need cpu intense programs then its not always the best way to go - from personal experience it seems to cause 'glitches' every so often in the processing. E,g, you might end up with videos that lag every so often, etc.
Click to expand...

Crossover and Wine are a hit and miss type products. While many older software runs on them, newer software tends not to and/or have problems. The best you can get is Parallels/VMware Fusion for non-intensive or Boot Camp when you really need power.
 
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ayeying said:
DoFoT9 said:
Wirelessly posted (nokia e63: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE63-1/100.21.110; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

if its windows only software, then crossover/wine would be the way to go i reckon. You get actual performance that way :p

Its basically trial and error though, i do love parallels, but if you need cpu intense programs then its not always the best way to go - from personal experience it seems to cause 'glitches' every so often in the processing. E,g, you might end up with videos that lag every so often, etc.
Click to expand...

Crossover and Wine are a hit and miss type products. While many older software runs on them, newer software tends not to and/or have problems. The best you can get is Parallels/VMware Fusion for non-intensive or Boot Camp when you really need power.
Click to expand...

sorry, i didnt word that very well. The start of the 2nd paragraph 'its trial and error' was referring to crossover haha. On my mobile :(
 
If you have a reasonably powerful / recent mac, Vmware or Parallels should do the job you need quite well. It's only really 3d graphically intensive applications that take a big performance hit and even that has got better recently, certainly with Vmware which is what I use from time to time.

Vmware lets you assign however many processors / cores (limited to half of what you have I think) to the virtual machine that you want, which is why I said you need a fairly up to date Mac.

I can't imagine that you would run into problems using the video software you mention as the biggest bottleneck with your video feed is going to be the speed of your internet connection.

By the way, you can download trial versions of parallels and Vmware, although you may still need to invest in a copy of windows. I think Windows 7 gives you 2 weeks or so in which to enter a serial number, so if you have a spare disk kicking around, that may be the way to go. At least you can test the setup and see if it meets your needs.
 
I called the DVR camera company today and they told me that even parallels will not work. They said nothing will work if I have a Mac. I said how about if I log onto the system throughout the internet and they said nope and nothing will work from a Mac.
I'm confused. Why can't it work on Parallels or even through the internet? Is this guy an idiot or just full of it?
 
BBQ BOY said:
I called the DVR camera company today and they told me that even parallels will not work. They said nothing will work if I have a Mac. I said how about if I log onto the system throughout the internet and they said nope and nothing will work from a Mac.
I'm confused. Why can't it work on Parallels or even through the internet? Is this guy an idiot or just full of it?
Click to expand...

It should work through Parallels, as what you are doing is booting into a virtual machine[Windows]. Basically, you will be running your software nativley, albeit though a virtual machine.
 
BBQ BOY said:
I called the DVR camera company today and they told me that even parallels will not work. They said nothing will work if I have a Mac. I said how about if I log onto the system throughout the internet and they said nope and nothing will work from a Mac.
I'm confused. Why can't it work on Parallels or even through the internet? Is this guy an idiot or just full of it?
Click to expand...

It could be either:

A - They don't know what parallels is

or

B - The software legitimately won't work in a virtualized environment. If the software needs direct access to certain hardware then that could be the problem.

I know you're set on a Mac, and I mean, you could run bootcamp and have a full windows install to do whatever you wanted with. But that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a mac. At that point, you're better off just getting a PC since you've given up the main highlight of using a mac, OSX.
 
My computer guy called Linux and they told him that Mac will not work. I have no idea what the details are but that doesn't make sense at all.
 
BBQ BOY said:
I called the DVR camera company today and they told me that even parallels will not work. They said nothing will work if I have a Mac. I said how about if I log onto the system throughout the internet and they said nope and nothing will work from a Mac.
I'm confused. Why can't it work on Parallels or even through the internet? Is this guy an idiot or just full of it?
Click to expand...
what is the software of the DVR company? he does sound like an idiot, but i would trust him tbh. just to be safe.

BBQ BOY said:
My computer guy called Linux and they told him that Mac will not work. I have no idea what the details are but that doesn't make sense at all.
Click to expand...
it doesnt really make sense no :(
 
Kind of stupid question, probably, but do you need to have 2 Win7 copies installed if you plan to use both bootcamp and paralells? Or 1 copy is ok?
 
BBQ BOY said:
I called the DVR camera company today and they told me that even parallels will not work. They said nothing will work if I have a Mac. I said how about if I log onto the system throughout the internet and they said nope and nothing will work from a Mac.
I'm confused. Why can't it work on Parallels or even through the internet? Is this guy an idiot or just full of it?
Click to expand...

I would be willing to bet that the DVR company reps just don't know what Parallels/Fusion/BootCamp is.
 
How about if I just ran boot camp only when I need to look at the cameras? Or will my computer forever be acceptable to viruses?
 
I like vmware a lot better.

Basically, they're programs which let you run a "virtual machine" which runs Windows. And yes, the virtual machine can get viruses. It's not ideal, but if you need a windows app, that's your best bet.
 
BBQ BOY said:
How about if I just ran boot camp only when I need to look at the cameras? Or will my computer forever be acceptable to viruses?
Click to expand...

it depends on the camera system but. does it NEED an OS to be able to record? if not, then i am 95% sure that you dont need a dedicated computer, and that parallels/vmware will work.
 
BBQ BOY said:
How about if I just ran boot camp only when I need to look at the cameras? Or will my computer forever be acceptable to viruses?
Click to expand...

Bootcamp = windows

Meaning your computer will be a windows machine, with a glowing apple. All of the protection that OSX offers is gone when you're using bootcamp.

I'll say it again, why are you so set on a macintosh, even in spite of all the trouble it seems to be causing with your tech support?
 
mikeo007 said:
Bootcamp = windows

Meaning your computer will be a windows machine, with a glowing apple. All of the protection that OSX offers is gone when you're using bootcamp.

I'll say it again, why are you so set on a macintosh, even in spite of all the trouble it seems to be causing with your tech support?
Click to expand...

Well, that is only partially true. If you get malware or a virus while using Windows, only the Windows install will be affected(except in rare occasions), the OSX portion will be fine.
If you are that worried, just use Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer and don't download and open any files that you haven't scanned with an anti-virus program.
 
mikeo007 said:
Bootcamp = windows

Meaning your computer will be a windows machine, with a glowing apple. All of the protection that OSX offers is gone when you're using bootcamp.

I'll say it again, why are you so set on a macintosh, even in spite of all the trouble it seems to be causing with your tech support?
Click to expand...

I want OSX because I use Mac at home and have an iPhone. I want the convenience of having my emails pushed to my laptop and calendar there live at all times. I just love Mac and have been a PC guy in the past and swore that I never would go back to PC.
 
BBQ BOY said:
I want OSX because I use Mac at home and have an iPhone. I want the convenience of having my emails pushed to my laptop and calendar there live at all times. I just love Mac and have been a PC guy in the past and swore that I never would go back to PC.
Click to expand...

It doesn't make good business sense to let a personal bias get in your way of choosing the best hardware for the job. I'm sure you know how to run manage a business, but you may be letting your personal desires get a little too involved in your decision making process. I'm sure you would love to have a Macbook laptop, and buying one as a business machine is a great way to get one for yourself.

Anyway, in the end, it's your business and your choice entirely. That being said, the tech support are idiots and it will run on a mac one way or another.

As long as the software will work on a normal windows machine, then there's a ~95% chance that it will work in VMWare. If it doesn't work in VMWare for some reason, there's a 100% chance it will work in bootcamp.

This isn't meant to sound rude, but every time someone raises a valid point about why it may not work on OSX, you bounce back with a "but maybe this will work" type of statement. It will work...it might take a bit of elbow grease to get it running smoothly, but as long as it will run on any windows PC, you will be able to get it working on a macbook.
 
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