New to OS Virtualization, what's best to use?

[Gordon Bombay]

So finally last night I was able to get a copy of Windows XP. I was all set to to get XP running on my Macbook pro with Tiger OS so that I could play counter strike and half life again! Unfortunately to much chagrin it seems that with the release of Leopard you can't run the boot camp beta, nor download it, for Tiger anymore, and the only way to get boot camp is if you have Leopard! So then I came on here and read about Parallels and considered it, however an 80 dollar activation key is a pretty steep price for me at the moment. Is there any other sollution out there besides one of these two programs? I did my best to search and browse these forums the past few days but didn't come up with much. Thanks in advance for your help.

[artov]

VMWare Fusion, which costs about the same as Parallels. You can download the trial version, so you can check if it is worth the money.

[Just_Kris]

I'll second the vote for Fusion. I downloaded the trial of Parallels but never received the trial activation key. I downloaded Fusion and received the trial activation promptly. Easy to run and this is my first mac!

[aicul]

I have not tried VMfusion but am glad to hear a trial version is available.

I spent money on Parallels (v 2.0) and it runs perfectly. The only inconvenience I found is that the cloning of machines does not allow for attribution of a name that is reflected in the file name (the machines name is actually stored inside the virutal machines files). This means that when you wish to delete a clone, you actually have to open it to identify what machine it actually is.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

A word of warning: don't expect to be able to play any games (Half-Life, Counter Strike, etc.) with either Parallels or VMWare Fusion -- they don't do 3D very well.

If you're looking to game, you'll either need a Windows PC to do it on, or you'll need to use BootCamp to run Windows natively.

[eric2006]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

A word of warning: don't expect to be able to play any games (Half-Life, Counter Strike, etc.) with either Parallels or VMWare Fusion -- they don't do 3D very well.

If you're looking to game, you'll either need a Windows PC to do it on, or you'll need to use BootCamp to run Windows natively.

If you want to run games at their full potential/at all, you will need to run them natively with Bootcamp or a PC. Unfortunately, there's not really any other solutions, as emulators lack speed and compatibility, and there's no Bootcamp alternative.

[aicul]

I have tried VMware Fusion as per info that trial was free on this thread) here is some comparison with Parallels v2.

1. VMware is definitely more sexy in how you interact with it. Examples:

VMware : drag and drop directly from OSX to windows
Parallels : use a shared folder to swap files

VMware : ability to have windows from the windows environment without the PC background
Parallels : the fully windows environment is required either in a window or full screen

2. Cloning is a menu function in parallels and in VMware this involves files copy and XML-SETUP file manual edits.

3. Parallels v2 seems faster than VMware on a macbook

4. VMFusions files are bigger than Parallels (windows, pro suite, specific apps = 2.5Gb on Parallels and 3.2Gb on VMFusion)

5. I lost patience with both VMware and Parallels to get USB integration - this means I did not bother with network integration either.

Generally speaking, if you plan to run one instance of Windows on your mac, I think VMware is better. However, if you need to play around with multiple windows virtual machines then probably Parallels is a better option.

Oh, I did try running both Parallels and VMware simultaneously, appart from dramatic slowdown, it did work :-)

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Originally Posted by aicul

I have tried VMware Fusion as per info that trial was free on this thread) here is some comparison with Parallels v2.

1. VMware is definitely more sexy in how you interact with it. Examples:

VMware : drag and drop directly from OSX to windows
Parallels : use a shared folder to swap files

On my Parallels 3.0 build 5582, I can drag-and-drop directly into my Parallels Windows VM, and vice-versa (back to the Mac Desktop) without issue. I had to first install the Parallels Tools inside of the Windows VM, but after that, drag-and-drop works perfectly for me.

VMware : ability to have windows from the windows environment without the PC background
Parallels : the fully windows environment is required either in a window or full screen

If you use Parallel's "Coherence," then your Windows applications integrate into the Mac OS X environment, and you can use Windows windows alongside Mac OS X windows, almost as if they were native Mac OS X applications. I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but there are actually 3 options for how Windows is displayed in Parallels: you can have the entire Windows VM in a Mac OS X window, you can display the Windows VM full-screen so it appears as if you're running nothing but Windows, and you can go into "Coherence" mode, where Windows windows integrate into the Mac OS X desktop as described above.

5. I lost patience with both VMware and Parallels to get USB integration - this means I did not bother with network integration either.

All of my USB hard drives and printers work with Parallels without issue, as does networking.

This is all done pretty much "out-of-the-box" with Parallels for me, without having to jump through hoops or anything.