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Windows Virtualization on Intel Macs

There goes Aiden again...

jared_kipe said:
Wow, thats weird that it emulates hardware. I would have assumed it would use the native hardware. Maybe in due time.
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It uses the native instructions for normal computing and arithmetic - if you're just playing with numbers (for example, encoding a WMA file) you'll get near native speed.

When the guest machine tries to execute kernel code that changes the state of the emulated hardware - that must be prevented to keep the VM from modifying the host.

Instead, the VMM (the Virtual Machine Monitor - the OSX program that's controlling the emulated virtual machine) has to see what the instruction is trying to do, and to modify the state of the emulated hardware so that it appears to the VM that its kernel instructions did the right thing.

VT makes it much faster to find and emulate these privileged instructions.

On VMware, Virtual server/PC - after installing the OS you then install a special package of drivers (VMware Tools or Virtual Machine Additions). These drivers bypass some of the full hardware emulation and talk to the VMM directly - for example a network call can be passed through to the host network driver without doing full emulation of a network card.

VMware/VPC are much slower without those special drivers.
 
paulchen said:
Now I'm asking me: Should I install this or Boot camp to chat with my friends in Msn with a cam. (I install my old webcam)
But even my girlfriend who has an windows pc told me: are you fool?? Why would you like to install windows? :)
Click to expand...

Whatabout installing aMSN ?
 
anthonymoody said:
This is another great step but IMO the holy grail is still missing. I want to be able to install and run windows apps directly in OSX. It might still look and feel like a windows app, but I wouldn't have to "run" windows or a windows environment. It would run directly in an OSX window.

That said, I'd want that OSX window fully protected from the rest of my 'stuff' :)

TM
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right: I was thinking the exact same thing, we need something like Rosetta for windows apps, that way you have windows applications running at native speeds, and because there is no windows, there are no security breaches in your OS, and no viruses.
This may seem improbable, or even impossible, but that would be the "nec plus ultra" for Mac users
 
AidenShaw said:
It uses the native instructions for normal computing and arithmetic - if you're just playing with numbers (for example, encoding a WMA file) you'll get near native speed.

When the guest machine tries to execute kernel code that changes the state of the emulated hardware - that must be prevented too keep the VM from modifying the host.

Instead, the VMM (the Virtual Machine Monitor - the OSX program that's controlling the emulated virtual machine) has to see what the instruction is trying to do, and to modify the state of the emulated hardware so that it appears to the VM that its kernel instructions did the right thing.

VT makes it much faster to find and emulate these privileged instructions.

On VMware, Virtual server/PC - after installing the OS you then install a special package of drivers (VMware Tools or Virtual Machine Additions). These drivers bypass some of the full hardware emulation and talk to the VMM directly - for example a network call can be passed through to the host network driver without doing full emulation of a network card.

VMware/VPC are much slower without those special drivers.
Click to expand...

Listen, why don't you ALL wait until the word comes in on exactly what this is like. Your all just guessing and reading off the product page which, believe it or not, just might not be the %100 truth

just wait for a short while
 
I just installed it on a 1.83 MacBook Pro. So far speed wise I am VERY impressed. Boots faster the any XP machine I have ever seen (makes no sense but its great). I would say speed wise apps feel like they are running native. This is not for running games but if you just want to run some windows apps it is amazingly fast and stable. Big congrats to Parallels for pulling this off.
 
Experience with it so far...

I'm running it on my MacBook Pro.

Pros - LIGHTNING FAST!

Cons - Definitely still a beta. It didn't like my DVD drive, so I had to put in the raw device name ("/dev/rdisk1") in the program. Also caused my MBP to reboot during the Windows install (yes, the entire machine).

I'm trying Win XP Home, but if it crashes in the install again, I'm going to opt for XP Professional.

I'll post more details when I get them.
 
Thank You For Making And Sharing A Video Carlos

LosJackal said:
OMG, I woke up this morning and my wife had already been awake for a couple of hours, downloaded the Parallels beta, and was in the process of installing XP!

I can tell you firsthand, on an high-end Intel iMac (128 MB VRAM, 1.25 GB memory I think), Parallels and Windows XP just SCREAMS!

It is faster than any Windows XP machine I've seen. I know my words won't do it justice, so I made a quick screen capture movie of it reinstalling Firefox, surfing around in IE, and rebooting.

The virtual machine reboots in like 10 seconds more or less, and surfing is almost instant. I'm on the train in to work now (Bluetooth through my RAZR, gotta love the ease of Mac) so I'll upload the video to one of my sites as soon as I get there, shortly after 9am CST.

-Carlos
www.prodedgy.com
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Excellent report. Thank you for the video Carlos. Can't wait to see it. :)
 
From mixed to all-Mac

I can't opine yet on which (dual boot or virtualization) is the better solution for me, but it is definitely the case that for those of us worried about replacing an older PC desktop (and the cost of buying Mac versions of all the software we've accumulated over the years--yikes!), going Mac is now a no-brainer. I like my iBook very much, and expect to go all-Mac when I eventually replace my PC desktop, and just use the Windows operating system to the extent I continue to use my legacy software.

One observation from my limited experience dual-booting XP and Ubuntu Linux: dual booting is fun at first, but I've found that it gets old fast. I find that after 3 months or so I now tend to leave the computer on one operating system or the other for long periods of time, rather than do task-based rebooting.
 
vamp07 said:
I just installed it on a 1.83 MacBook Pro. So far speed wise I am VERY impressed. Boots faster the any XP machine I have ever seen (makes no sense but its great). I would say speed wise apps feel like they are running native. This is not for running games but if you just want to run some windows apps it is amazingly fast and stable. Big congrats to Parallels for pulling this off.
Click to expand...

well, frankly I don't believe it (I can't as it goes against everything i've ever seen)

I have a very hard time after having used a polished product like VPC which was like looking at a snail crawl

But I hope to stand corrected.
 
sishaw said:
One observation from my limited experience dual-booting XP and Ubuntu Linux: dual booting is fun at first, but I've found that it gets old fast. I find that after 3 months or so I now tend to leave the computer on one operating system or the other for long periods of time, rather than do task-based rebooting.
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I completely agree. I installed Boot Camp but what I really wanted was what Parallels appears to have pulled off.
 
mac jones said:
well, frankly I don't believe it (I can't as it goes against everything i've ever seen)
I have a very hard time after having used a polished product like VPC which was like looking at a snail crawl
But I hope to stand corrected.
Click to expand...

The big difference is that VPC was entirely emulated. Every instruction was translanted on the fly from Intel to PPC.

This solution eliminates the on-the-fly translation, since the new Macs use the Intel processor.

arn
 
just installed and testing - very easy very quick (although the mouse capture is a bit odd until the Tools are installed)

I have an iMac 20/2.0 2GB
OK, It's VERY fast - I would say, yes, close to native spped - equal to VMWare on a P4 1.8
Haven't installed office or other pgms yet - actually have to go to work.
But, so far, very pleased.

:p
 
Multimedia said:
Forget Boot Camp. It's dangerous and irrelevant now. Are you daft? :) :eek: :D :p
Click to expand...


Will you knock off the FUD? It's getting tiresome. Boot Camp is a perfect solution for a lot of needs, 'XP-in-a-window' is a solution for other needs. You're spouting a lot of nonsense that you don't understand.
 
Multimedia said:
Boot Camp is a dangerous and bad solution. Parallels' Workstation 2.1 for Mac OS X is a SAFE and Superior solution.
Click to expand...


BootCamp is NOT DANGEROUS. Virtualisation is NOT SAFE AND SUPERIOR. I know what you're saying about being able to replace the image file with a 'clean' one, but similar solutions will/do exist for the native partition method that BootCamp uses as well. There are lots of reasons why running a dedicated session on bare metal is desireable. Quit spreading bad information.
 
Baron58 said:
Will you knock off the FUD? It's getting tiresome. Boot Camp is a perfect solution for a lot of needs, 'XP-in-a-window' is a solution for other needs. You're spouting a lot of nonsense that you don't understand.
Click to expand...


I agree. You make it sound as if installing Boot Camp will automatically crash your computer, destroy your data, kidnap your children and drive away with your lawn tractor. Give it a rest. Apple wouldn't release the Beta if it thought that it would trash their computers. If Windows is really that dangerous why is 95% of the world using its products? XP is safe, stable and reliable. Yes its prone to viruses but a lot of it is due to stupid users who download crap from the internet or don't use virus protection wisely.
 
mac jones said:
well, frankly I don't believe it (I can't as it goes against everything i've ever seen)

I have a very hard time after having used a polished product like VPC which was like looking at a snail crawl

But I hope to stand corrected.
Click to expand...
This kind of stuff has existed for a while with Virtual PC and VMware on x86 boxes. The main difference here is it's using special new technology in Intel's new processors.

Watch this video if you don't believe it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC_DuAUTHWI
 
I have to use Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions at work, which is PC only. Because of this, I have a crappy old PC laptop in addition to my eMac. I tried to convince our network guy to let me run it on my Mac with VPC, but he was reluctant because he's afraid there could be data corruption. Now, I can use BootCamp and he can't make any arguement. My question is, what are the risks of any kind of data loss while using the virtualization option? Dual booting would be a pain just to access this one app. but if it's truly safer, I guess that's what I've got to do.
 
Baron58 said:
Will you knock off the FUD? It's getting tiresome. Boot Camp is a perfect solution for a lot of needs, 'XP-in-a-window' is a solution for other needs. You're spouting a lot of nonsense that you don't understand.
Click to expand...

I second that! It's gonna have awesome built-in "boot camp" when Leopard come. No more searching the best crappy programs that will enable you to run XP on it! No offense but that's my opinion. Apple is tryin' to make it simple as possible. :D
 
whooleytoo said:
The Parallels site seems down now - too much traffic?
Click to expand...

seems that way. Darn, I just got home from work and wanted to try Parallels on my Intel iMac, after having been utterly disappointed on the Mac Mini...
 
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