VMWare Public Beta, Parallels Beta 2

[aristobrat]

I would like apple themselves to develop transparency with WINE, they did pretty well with Rosetta, and imagine ALL WINDOWS GAMES - no more reasons not to switch. Codeweavers are OK, but have a load of incompatability issues.

As cool as a Rosetta for Windows would be, I think that the best it'll probably ever get will be like with Parallel's Coherency. I'd imagine that there are just too many Windows apps that do things in a wonky manner for anyone to get Wine/Codeweavers to work with virtually everything like VMWare/Parallels does.

Oh god I hope not.

Virtualization would be a pretty kick-butt feature for Apple to say that their OS ships with. "Not only can OS X run Windows apps, it can now run [Linux, Beos, etc] applications." That'd probably switch quite a few more people to OS X!

 

[AidenShaw]

In other words, same as Windows

Virtualization would be a pretty kick-butt feature for Apple to say that their OS ships with. "Not only can OS X run Windows apps, it can now run [Linux, Beos, etc] applications." That'd probably switch quite a few more people to OS X!

So OSX could run the same set of virtual machines operating systems that Windows can run - not sure why that would attract more switchers.

Note that Windows is already adding virtualization to the core OS

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/virtual/default.mspx
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6075111.html
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1946420,00.asp

 

[aristobrat]

So OSX could run the same set of virtual machines operating systems that Windows can run - not sure why that would attract more switchers.

I was just thinking that it would make OS X more attractive if it came as part of the supported OS vs. the current "Oh, now that you have your new iMac and want to run Microsoft Money without rebooting into Boot Camp, you'll need to go buy Parallels Workstation. No, Apple doesn't make that, so if you have any problems you can't use your ProCare to get a session on it or ask the Genii any questions about it. Sorry. But it does pretty much work." spiel that switchers currently have to deal with. Boot Camp is cool, however I think most average switchers are going to be looking for the non-obtrusiveness that virtualization gives them, and I think Apple could do a better job in helping deliver that. No?

Note that Windows is already adding virtualization to the core OS

Right, and the Linux world has been playing around with Xen, but neither really offer anything to the consumer currently (unless Vista's shipping with something I haven't found yet).

 

[Richard Hallas]

I've been using Parallels with much satisfaction for quite some time, but I had two problems with it until recently. The first was that the most important piece of 'serious' software I wanted to use under it didn't work properly, and I could only use it under Boot Camp. The other was that my favourite PC game wouldn't work because of CD copy-protection.

The latest Parallels beta is no better at running the 'problem application', but it does now cope with copy-protected CDs, so the game now works perfectly. I can also now use it with my Boot Camp partition, which saves me a few gigabytes of drive space (important on a laptop), so I'm very pleased with it indeed.

I was interested to try out Fusion, though, to see if it would run my 'problem' application. The answer was that it wouldn't. (The problem may be, in Fusion's case, that it offers only 16MB of video RAM, and you can't adjust this. You don't appear to be able to adjust this in Fusion, though Parallels lets you configure up to 32MB, which my 'problem application' requires.)

Anyway, Fusion seemed to work reasonably well, but its range of features appears much smaller than those offered by Parallels. I like the quality of the icons in the toolbar more than those of Parallels (which seem rather gaudy), but I don't like the fact that they waste a lot of room. If they were down the side of the window, as they are in Parallels, they wouldn't be a problem, but having them across the top means that the largest Windows desktop I can see all at once on my 1280x800 MacBook is an 800x600 desktop. In Parallels there's enough room in the window for an 1152x768 screen mode without it going off the Mac's screen. But then, Parallels also lets me to set arbitrary desktop sizes just by resizing the window, which is nice.

The thing that worried me about Fusion, though, was how unstable it made my MacBook, which goes against what people have said here about how reliable it's supposed to be. It installed three kernel extensions, and I found that on two occasions my MacBook suffered a serious kernel panic and had to be reset, even though I hadn't run Fusion itself. (Its kexts were of course installed.) I got a couple of other kernel panics immediately after running Fusion, too. This is not an unstable MacBook; I haven't got many 'system extras' installed on it (no Haxies, for instance), and it never normally crashes. With the Fusion beta installed, though, it kernel-panicked four times in one day, twice without even having launched the software. I therefore uninstalled Fusion, and the machine has been perfectly stable again ever since.

I quite liked the look of Fusion, but it seems to me that it's a long way behind Parallels at present. It also gave me great trouble with accessing the optical drive in my MacBook. I managed it eventually, but it involved a few restarts of the virtual machine and fiddling about with non-obvious configuration choices. So, it seems to have a fair way to go to catch up with Parallels, but it'll be interesting to see how it develops.

 

[AidenShaw]

Run OSX in a virtual machine

Boot Camp is cool, however I think most average switchers are going to be looking for the non-obtrusiveness that virtualization gives them, and I think Apple could do a better job in helping deliver that. No?

Apple might be able to work out the DRM so that you could run OSX inside an Apple virtualization environment.

 

[Arcus]

Virtualization would be a pretty kick-butt feature for Apple to say that their OS ships with. "Not only can OS X run Windows apps, it can now run [Linux, Beos, etc] applications." That'd probably switch quite a few more people to OS X!

Oh I agree with that. Im just not a big fan of Parallels. Yes I use it. Im looking forward to trying fusion.

If Apple chose to do virtualization as part of the OS I hope it would allow us not to have to install the OS at all. If we did , I would feel more comfortable with them choosing VM or Para.

 

[weldon]

Frankly, whoever gets 3D apps (including games) working first gets my money. I'll use BootCamp for a while until the situation with DirectX and 3D support becomes more clear.

 

[SPUY767]

Frankly, whoever gets 3D apps (including games) working first gets my money. I'll use BootCamp for a while until the situation with DirectX and 3D support becomes more clear.

If you're all about games there will never be a solution that comes even close to boot camp. So just forget about it. If it's productivity apps that you're after, then a good virtualization solution will be one that can use not only a seperate partition, but a seperate drive, and can operate invisibly.

 

[SiliconAddict]

By the way, it took Windows 3 days to became infested with viruses and Trojan horses. God, I'm glad I switched to the Mac...

Oded S.

Then I'm sorry to say you don't know how to drive a computer.

 

[mac_md]

Geneology

Can somebody lay out the basics for a 'windows on Mac' newbie's mom?

My parents will be buying an iMac imminently, and they will need to run likely one single Windows geneology program. With all the 'stuff still in beta' and various options, what's the best and simplest way to set her up?

Consider buying Reunion, an excellent Mac geneology program. Windows data can be inprted as a GEDCOM file.

Or use parallels with WinXP and their current program. Parallels was plenty of power to run any gen. program. Just buy Parallels and install the program with their current version of Windows. Very easy....may have to call Redmond to get an authentification code for Windows. Tell them, correctly, that you have bought a new computer and are trashing the old one.

 

[SPUY767]

Then I'm sorry to say you don't know how to drive a computer.

Yup, I've been running windows on my media center, and my laptop for months and months and months and not so much as a single virus. And I don't even use an AV program. If you know how to use any computer properly you can avoid virus threats. The root of the virus debate is protecting the average user from themselves.

 

[seashellz2]

still want to see a list of the pros and cons of both Fusion/Crossover WINE and Parallels.

OH.


Yeah>
Anyone see the front page story 12/25/06 (at least in the Seattle PI-in MS territory):

HUGE SECURITY FLAW FOUND IN VISTA
some Ruskie Security outfit found it.

Do they hire idiots for programmers or what?

 

[BuzWeaver]

I wonder, will there come a day soon when I don't need to keep my PC around and up to date for gaming? 'Cause that would be really, really cool...
Admittedly I haven't looked that hard into it, but is this within the realm of possibility with these programs and the intel mac hardware?

As a gamer myself I'm looking for the day where the possibly of running the games I play and the Beta's on a Mac will be a great day indeed.

 

[weldon]

Consider buying Reunion, an excellent Mac geneology program. Windows data can be inprted as a GEDCOM file.

Reunion is a great program, but I'm also very impressed with what you can do online at Ancestry.com. I hadn't looked at it for a few years, but I took advantage of a free trial and I'm really impressed with where they are taking online genealogy. You can import and export standard GEDCOM files from ancestry.com, but I also really like how easily you can share all the family tree info that you put together.

 

[uNext]

Originally Posted by odedia  

By the way, it took Windows 3 days to became infested with viruses and Trojan horses. God, I'm glad I switched to the Mac...

Oded S.

I hate it when "noobs" blame windows xp on their mistakes.
point blank is like other memebers mentioned if that happened to you
is because you dont know how to drive a computer.

i ran microsoft xp without an av program and never had problems
DONT BLAME MICROSOFT for your inability to properly use a computer.
Is like saying thank god i left honda for a bmw the honda kept on running out of gas.

is all about the end users ability.

 

[Westside guy]

I hate it when "noobs" blame windows xp on their mistakes.
point blank is like other memebers mentioned if that happened to you
is because you dont know how to drive a computer.

Personally, I hate it when people make sweeping statements either way.

XP SP2 is reasonably secure in its default configuration. XP as a whole has had a horrendous track record security-wise; and some of the biggest exploits that occurred cannot reasonably be blamed on "n00bs".

 

[BuzWeaver]

Originally Posted by odedia  

By the way, it took Windows 3 days to became infested with viruses and Trojan horses. God, I'm glad I switched to the Mac...

Oded S.

I hate it when "noobs" blame windows xp on their mistakes.
point blank is like other memebers mentioned if that happened to you
is because you dont know how to drive a computer.

i ran microsoft xp without an av program and never had problems
DONT BLAME MICROSOFT for your inability to properly use a computer.
Is like saying thank god i left honda for a bmw the honda kept on running out of gas.

is all about the end users ability.

Having been in the Apple world for just over a month now I can say that to an extent there are equal proportions of problems between the PC and the Apple, they just fall in different areas. People that are PC savvy or have worked in the PC field as I have typically can handle or correct issues that may arise.

It really boils down to how knowledgeable a person is about a system or OS.

 

[AidenShaw]

By the way, it took Windows 3 days to became infested with viruses and Trojan horses.

It would be a good idea to invest a few dollars in a hardware firewall to protect your Apple as well.

Being invisible on the Internet is a good tactic regardless of your OS.

 

[Snowy_River]

As cool as a Rosetta for Windows would be, I think that the best it'll probably ever get will be like with Parallel's Coherency. I'd imagine that there are just too many Windows apps that do things in a wonky manner for anyone to get Wine/Codeweavers to work with virtually everything like VMWare/Parallels does...

Well, if you recall, Classic worked in much the same way that Codeweavers does. It wasn't 100% compatible, especially with software that tried to access hardware in peculiar ways. I can't count the number of applications that were rock-solid in OS 9, but were either unstable or simply wouldn't run at all under Classic in OS X. Essentially, I gave all these applications up. Would I want to go back? Absolutely not.

So, if Apple introduced an equivalent to Classic for Windows apps (which, one could easily argue, is closer to what Parallels is doing with Coherency, but see my comments farther on about where I see Coherency falling short of the mark), based on the WINE, even if it couldn't run a lot of Windows programs, the ability to say "Now Mac OS X can run most common Windows applications through our new WINE-X emulation layer..." would be incredibly powerful. Would it run everything? No, but neither did Classic. Would it gain more switchers? Most likely...

...Boot Camp is cool, however I think most average switchers are going to be looking for the non-obtrusiveness that virtualization gives them, and I think Apple could do a better job in helping deliver that. No?...

My personal pet peeve with virtualization, dual boots, etc. is that they aren't unobtrusive. Why? Because you end up storing your files in multiple different places. You loose double-click functionality. And so on.

Suppose you have your system set up to work with the "unobtrusive" method of Parallels Coherence. Someone emails you a Word file. Because you have this unobtrusive set-up, you only have Office for Windows. Can you double click on the file? No. Can you save it in your documents folder and then open Word to open the file? No, because Word sees a different file system, a different disk, etc. (Sure, you can share your whole Documents folder with your VM, but then what if you dragged the file to the desktop? Do you just set-up every directory on the Mac side as a share with the VM?) And what if you write a document in Word, then save it and later want to attach it to an email? Well, if you saved it on the VM disk, you'll have to drag it out of there, right?

Let me go ahead and say that I haven't tried Parallels or VMware, so I don't know how seamlessly they have managed to implement file sharing between the host and guest machines. To a significant extent, I'm speaking from experience with VPC, and a couple of other emulators from years gone by.

What I really want is a means of running applications where OS X can handle file recognition, so I can double click; an application icon appears in the Dock; and the application runs in the same filesystem as the main system. Codeweavers CrossOver gets a lot closer to this than either VMware or Parallels, from what I've seen, though Parallels Coherence is a step in the right direction. I don't have an issue, so much, with running a full instance of Windows. If only a means could be determined to run it in the same way that a full instance of OS 9 was run inside of OS X to give us Classic.

 

[aristobrat]

I can't count the number of applications that were rock-solid in OS 9, but were either unstable or simply wouldn't run at all under Classic in OS X. Essentially, I gave all these applications up. Would I want to go back? Absolutely not.

That's cool. I'm a relative new switcher, so I have no Classic experience. I came with the first Mac mini I bought two summers ago, but I never messed with it.

I like your idea where OS X would be aware of the file extensions and be smart enough to handle the different document types, regardless of the OS of the handling application.

 

[Snowy_River]

That's cool. I'm a relative new switcher, so I have no Classic experience. I came with the first Mac mini I bought two summers ago, but I never messed with it.

I like your idea where OS X would be aware of the file extensions and be smart enough to handle the different document types, regardless of the OS of the handling application.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think the Classic model is a good analogy. After all, early on, for those of us who had OS 9 applications that we didn't want to give up, if they didn't work in Classic we had to reboot in OS 9. Now we have Boot Camp, which gives the same option to switchers for booting, but we still need the equivalent of Classic where most standard Windows apps can be run right inside of OS X. That will be the advancement that I'll cheer.

Of course, such an advancement will have to be done carefully by Apple, as they don't want it to be too easy to run Windows apps, or the number of people developing for OS X might drop...

 

[bbh]

Can't use upgrade disk

I have tried and tried to use an XP Home upgrade disk to build a VMWare virtual machine. It just won't recognize the previous version disk.

Parallels has no problem. Is it me, or have others experienced this?

 

[brianriceca]

(The problem may be, in Fusion's case, that it offers only 16MB of video RAM, and you can't adjust this. You don't appear to be able to adjust this in Fusion, though Parallels lets you configure up to 32MB, which my 'problem application' requires.)

You can adjust the amount of video RAM, although there's no user-interface for this in the current beta release. You must add a line to the virtual machine's configuration file (its .vmx file). For example, for 64 MB:

svga.vramSize = 67108864

I have successfully booted up a Windows XP SP2 VM with 64 MB of video RAM this way. Caution: don't expect arbitrary values to work; I tried 128 MB, and the result was a white screen.

Note: you can only edit a .vmx file while the VM it's for is powered off.

But then, Parallels also lets me to set arbitrary desktop sizes just by resizing the window, which is nice.

You can also do this with Fusion, as long as you have the VMware Tools package installed inside the guest OS. The installation is trivial for Windows guests (once the VM is powered up and you're logged in, pull down the Virtual Machine menu and pick Install VMware Tools) and a bit tricky for Linux and other Unixy guests, because a little additional command-line work is needed. This leads people to believe they've installed VMware Tools when they haven't. There's a link in the docs for the commands.

The thing that worried me about Fusion, though, was how unstable it made my MacBook, which goes against what people have said here about how reliable it's supposed to be. It installed three kernel extensions, and I found that on two occasions my MacBook suffered a serious kernel panic and had to be reset, even though I hadn't run Fusion itself.

That's the kind of problem that the current public beta is designed to smoke out. If you don't have time to file a bug report, you can post an account of your experience on the beta forum. A lot of VMware employees (including me) hang out there. Visit http://www.vmware.com/community/; once you make an account and log in, you'll see the beta forums, including Fusion's.

 

[brianriceca]

Let me go ahead and say that I haven't tried Parallels or VMware, so I don't know how seamlessly they have managed to implement file sharing between the host and guest machines.

In VMware Fusion, the host and the guests view each other as peers on the network. For example, I use Mac OS's Windows Sharing feature to share my Mac's home directory, and then I mount it in my XP guest as a share and give it a drive letter.

It's also possible to do this using Fusion's Shared Folders feature, which is especially useful in a workgroup+DHCP environment where your file server might change its IP address without telling anybody.

But the big catch is that applications in the guest see a different tree of files than does the host. For example, what's /Users/brice on my Mac is M:\ in my guest.

I'm not sure how Parallels Coherence handles this problem.

 

[tencargarage]

Your experience so far with VMWARE?

It has been awhile since vmware was made a public beta. I was wondering what has been the experience to date of those using this software.

Was the install easy? Software seem stable? Any major gotchas?

I would like to try this software once to has gotten a bit of a shakeout.