Parallels or Virtual PC?

[Macjen]

Hi everyone,

I'm very new to Mac and recently I bought a MacBook Pro. However, I can't switch completely from PC to this Mac as I still have two statistics softwares required Windows. I know Parallels and Virtual PC are very popular, but which one do you recommend? My MacBook Pro is the basic 2G, but I have increased the memory to 1.5G and 100G for hard drive space.

Thanks in advance,
Jenny

[Mikuro]

Short answer: Parallels.

Long answer: Virtual PC is an emulator made for PowerPC-based Macs, not Intel Macs like your MacBook Pro. It was never ported to Intel Macs, so if it would run at all (I'm not sure it would), it would be running Windows under not one, but TWO layers of emulation. That means it would run like a slug. Think ~150MHz Pentium. If even.

Parallels, on the other hand, would not be using any emulation. It's made for Intel Macs, and it runs Windows at full speed.



The real question for you is whether you should use Parallels or Apple's BootCamp. The big difference between the two is that Parallels lets you load Windows within Mac OS X, whereas BootCamp just lets you boot out of OS X and into Windows. The advantages to BootCamp are: A) It's free, and B) It includes drivers for your MacBook's graphics card. If you don't need great graphics performance (like for games) and you don't mind paying a little money, Parallels is a much more elegant solution.

[Macjen]

Thanks Mikuro. I think graphics isn't a very big concern and I'm not using it for games and my statistics softwares don't produce extraordinary graphs, just some 3D plots in demand. Money isn't a concern as I'll get reimbursed. My big concern is crash/frozen. Will my MAc easy get crash if running Mac and PC together? One good thing about usign Parallels is I can copy or even import the data from Excel:Mac to my stat software; however, I'm afraid once the machine get frozen, I'll lose results or even data. If using Bootcamp, of course I can use this machine as PC and won't have that problem; however, I can't easily do the data transfer.
Sorry for the messy question asked.

[Macjen]

Thanks Mikuro. Graphics isn't a concern as I don't use this to play high level graphics games, and my stat softwares don't produce extraordinary graphs, just some 3D if demanded. Money isn't a concern either as I get reimbursed. My big concern is crash/frozen. will it easy to get frozen if using Parallels? Good thing about Parallels is I can copy or even import the data from the Excel:Mac to my stat software, but I'm afraid if it get frozen, I'll lose results and may even the data. Bootcamp won't be that but it is inconvenience to trasfer data.
Sorry for the messy question.

[Macjen]

Oh.....I think I have lost my 1st quick reply!

[Viro]

The question you need to ask, is whether the software currently freezes on your PC. If it doesn't, there should be no reason why it would freeze up on your Mac under Parallels.

[MisterMe]

Macjen,

Virtual PC does not run on Intel-based Macs like yours. Parallels Workstation is what you want.

[Lt Major Burns]

to clarify, Virtual PC and Parallels are different products, and aren't really comparable.

Virtual PC allows one to run windows on an old G3/G4/G5 mac. Parallels allows one to run windows on a new intel-based mac.