Using Windows for MSFT Apps on Macbook Pro 2018

[fad1]

Greetings All!

I'm considering a Macbook Pro and I wanted to ask if any of you use Windows 10 using a VM (Parallels or Fusion)? I plan to use the Windows 10 for Microsoft applications like SQL Server, Power BI and etc and I just wanted to get your thoughts as to how that works out for you? Do you have a similar use case as mine? How do you like the experience? Do you wish you had just bought a windows laptop?

I am considering the Microsoft Surface line of computers as well, but they seem to have QC/reliability issues.

Thanks!
FAD1

 

[netmaskit]

I’m a happy user of VMware Fusion, using it not only for Win10, but also for Linux.
Virtualization allows me not only to run features that are not available in MacOS (like IE in Win10 or my Linux development environment), but also to do things which are not possible without virtualization, like moving “machines” easily from computer to computer (or even to customer’s servers), reverting machines to their previous state, backing up images, etc.
In my opinion, virtualization software is the most important software for any laptop, whether it’s Mac or Win or Linux.

 

[campyguy]

Greetings to you OP. Answers, in short form. Yes, I do. I use the queried-about apps plus Office 365 (mainly for Access and Excel and Power BI) plus Revit plus AutoCAD - Win 10 Pro in a Parallels Desktop 12/14 Pro VM, works perfectly as long as the VM's preferences are tuned appropriately. I truly believe PD with Win 10 works, it just works - pretty much seamlessly. I have a Win laptop available to me, a Dell decked out with a Xeon CPU, 128GB of RAM and dual 1TB SSDs - I generally don't need that much horsepower full time so I use the Dell as a rendering workstation that runs headless (in a room that is very well cooled, mind you...).

I'm on an iMP now, but only since May - working with 15" rMBPs for the last 6 years or so with maxed flash. Happy with those rMBPs and a relevant version of PD. I really like that I can just copy a VM in varying states/snapshots - I still launch an XP SP3 VM just for a water resource design SW package that hasn't been updated in a decade but still works perfectly - but only on XP.

BTW, you should follow virtualization news that was announced just yesterday, but with not too many details yet. Win7 or Win10, on Azure. I met some geeky friends for lunch, and for once none of them talked about the others they want to ask out (but never do) at the office - both men and women here - all they could talk about was MS's announcement. I rent time on AWS, but I'd rather rent Win10 on Azure and put 64 or 128 cores to work for me...

 

[fad1]

Greetings to you OP. Answers, in short form. Yes, I do. I use the queried-about apps plus Office 365 (mainly for Access and Excel and Power BI) plus Revit plus AutoCAD - Win 10 Pro in a Parallels Desktop 12/14 Pro VM, works perfectly as long as the VM's preferences are tuned appropriately. I truly believe PD with Win 10 works, it just works - pretty much seamlessly. I have a Win laptop available to me, a Dell decked out with a Xeon CPU, 128GB of RAM and dual 1TB SSDs - I generally don't need that much horsepower full time so I use the Dell as a rendering workstation that runs headless (in a room that is very well cooled, mind you...).

I'm on an iMP now, but only since May - working with 15" rMBPs for the last 6 years or so with maxed flash. Happy with those rMBPs and a relevant version of PD. I really like that I can just copy a VM in varying states/snapshots - I still launch an XP SP3 VM just for a water resource design SW package that hasn't been updated in a decade but still works perfectly - but only on XP.

BTW, you should follow virtualization news that was announced just yesterday, but with not too many details yet. Win7 or Win10, on Azure. I met some geeky friends for lunch, and for once none of them talked about the others they want to ask out (but never do) at the office - both men and women here - all they could talk about was MS's announcement. I rent time on AWS, but I'd rather rent Win10 on Azure and put 64 or 128 cores to work for me...

Thank you for your response! If I may ask, whats the configuration of you macbook pro? Also, do you have a recommendation of how much RAM/HDD space should be allocated to a VM running windows 10? I personally plan on getting the Macbook Pro 15 inch with 256GB.

 

[campyguy]

Thank you for your response! If I may ask, whats the configuration of you macbook pro? Also, do you have a recommendation of how much RAM/HDD space should be allocated to a VM running windows 10? I personally plan on getting the Macbook Pro 15 inch with 256GB.

The VMs we're using are what I'd term either burstable or general purpose, the former tied to water resource analysis and the latter linked (on disk) to GIS relational databases. The burstable VMs fit comfortably in about 5GB of disk space and don't require much flash, 1 vCPU/ 1GB RAM - the VMs of this type run comfortably with a 32GB-40GB VM and 2 vCPU/2GB RAM (Win10 Pro 64-bit). The GP VMs need more disk space as the related database isn't that small, with 28-32GB of disk space, 2 vCPU/ 4GB RAM - the VMs of this type run comfortably with a 64GB VM and 2-4 vCPU/8GB RAM (again, Win10 Pro 64-bit).

The only real issue we've had to deal with are MS's updates - some only seem to install if there's sufficient dedicated disk space as in 128GB or via an ISO/optical disk if the VM is less than 128GB, it's been the major updates like the one in April that seems to want a larger partition/VM. My means to address this is to use an "expandable" VM, increasing the VM size if an update won't install due to insufficient disk space.

The rMBPs we've been using for this kind of work are quad-core i7 CPUs, but our next units will be the 6-core i9 CPUs. Never less than 16GB of RAM, I'll be testing out one with 32GB RAM later this year for this work with an eye on reallocating a few 2012 i7 Mini Servers in our offices (since we already own several!). The 256GB SSD should be sufficient for most work, we've only purchased units with 512GB/1TB. My caveat with this is I'm only getting used to the latest update of Parallels, coming from a couple versions back I'm pretty impressed with its performance so far; I usually skip 1-2 versions of VM SW but I'm finding that Win10 seems to do "more" with fewer resources allocated - rendering and recalculations are definitely taking less time...

I'm also checking out MS's SQL Server on Virtual Machines offerings, they have a few "free" options for demo exploration and IMO the hourly rates are pretty competitive if one brings their own license(s). Cheers!

 

[improwise]

Any thoughts of using an MBP 2018 primarily for Windows (.NET development). Used to do that before there were any real MBP competitors on the PC side but with TouchBar, TouchID with no Windows support etc it just seemed like a dead end. Or?