VirtualBox vs Parallels/Fusion on MBA

[gman901]

Any thoughts on how VirtualBox compares to the Fusion and Parallels versions? I think VirtualBox would be a nice free alternative if you are running Windows in Bootcamp.

 

[KnightWRX]

Any thoughts on how VirtualBox compares to the Fusion and Parallels versions? I think VirtualBox would be a nice free alternative if you are running Windows in Bootcamp.

I ran a XP VM on Virtual Box with 2 GB of RAM on my Macbook. I assigned 512 MB to Windows, it ran smooth as silk. Now that I upgraded the RAM to 4GB on the Macbook, I gave the VM 1 GB.

VMs seriously don't require tons of ressources. The overhead is minimal. Anyone worried about this is fussing over nothing. We ran VMWare back in the days of 500 mhz processor and 256 MB of RAM and even before that. There is nothing to worry about.

And I agree with you, VirtualBox is a no brainer. Unless you're into pirating, Free wins out.

 

[gman901]

That's good to know! Will VirtualBox pick up my Bootcamp partition like Parallels and run smoothly? I think the advantage of Parallels is that it seems more user friendly. I am asking all this and I do not even have my MacBook Air to test it out!

 

[r.j.s]

That's good to know! Will VirtualBox pick up my Bootcamp partition like Parallels and run smoothly?

I don't think it does work like that with BootCamp, but I may be wrong.