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bclizzle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 29, 2009
248
3
i switched my work computer to a mac - but i still want to run windows simaltaneously. also, is it possible to take my old pc and retrieve all my files, and office programs?
 

djc6

macrumors 6502a
Aug 11, 2007
864
448
Cleveland, OH
I've tried all three.. I have VMs running Server 2008, Server 2003, XP, Windows 7, etc.. for some development work. Parallels is worth the money - its the fastest of the bunch by a wide margin. It was a huge improvement over Fusion in terms of performance.
 

bclizzle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 29, 2009
248
3
do you guys know anything about the data transfer from the old pc to the new mac?
 

kernkraft

macrumors 68020
Jun 25, 2009
2,456
1
I've tried all three.. I have VMs running Server 2008, Server 2003, XP, Windows 7, etc.. for some development work. Parallels is worth the money - its the fastest of the bunch by a wide margin. It was a huge improvement over Fusion in terms of performance.

I also have Parallels 5 (although, I haven't installed it on my latest computer) and it was the version that overtook Fusion. However, performance comes at the price of stability. I heard it from many that Fusion is more stable. The latest version might be even faster than Parallels 5, if you can wait a bit.
 

rayward

macrumors 68000
Mar 13, 2007
1,697
88
Houston, TX
do you guys know anything about the data transfer from the old pc to the new mac?

I have an old version of Parallels (from 2 years ago), and it included a feature that allowed me to "clone" my old PC onto my Mac. It was a great safety net for the PC to Mac conversion, because I could open my old PC on my Mac, and everything was there just like it was. It was also very easy to do - just install Parallels on the Mac, install the migration assistant on the PC, connect the two and let it do its thing.

I'm sure this is still a feature of Parallels, and the latest version is much more powerful. You can now open individual PC apps on your Mac desktop without having to go through Parallels first. That makes me wish that I hadn't bothered to downgrade to Quicken for Mac...
 

willieva

macrumors 6502
Mar 12, 2010
274
0
Both vmware and parallels allow you to turn your existing pc into a virtual machine. Vmware's program is called vmconverter, it's a free download. Parallels must have something similar. The migration assistants can be harder to use as they require the pc to allow the mac to access it. Also, making a copy of the pc first lets you redo the install process more easily if there is a problem or you get through it and realize you might prefer a different setup.

Both vmware and parallels have trial periods, I think 30 days, so you can try both. They each have their plusses and minuses. Either one will work fine.
 

cmon360

macrumors newbie
Jul 7, 2010
9
0
i switched my work computer to a mac - but i still want to run windows simaltaneously. also, is it possible to take my old pc and retrieve all my files, and office programs?

I prefer using Parallels Desktop 5. It works great.
Yes, it is possible to transfer your old PC content to your Mac. Use the Parallels Desktop Switch to Mac Edition http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/stm/features/. Let me know what you think.
 
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