Comments on: Ask iBAM: Parallels vs Boot Camp

By: xaroc

xaroc — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:35:10 +0000

I can Agree with the last comment about Viruses. I use the New Parallels 4 which supports multi cores now and is much better then the earlier releases.
But i mainly use it for Windows only Games, because any windows has a Brother/sister Version for Mac or some one else hosts an App that can easily do the same job.

I use to use BootCamp, But on my MacBook Pro the new Version released few months ago i have the Sound issue , with the red light comming out the Audio jack. But not on Parallels.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:05:07 +0000

With any program that allows you to run mac and windows on the same computer you're getting into that virus stuff and do need an antivirus.

By: Ephriam

Ephriam — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:53:57 +0000

I am newbie… taking a major bite out of the apple (Granny Smith's-LOL) But does running Fusion or Parallel make your os x available to viruses? Or would it be just a windows thing only applied to the windows in bootcamp side? or…. LOL… would it be an anti virus software thing? Or is this a stupid kind of question thing? I also have a MacBook 2.2 MB062LL/B. What is max SDRAM for it? I hear 6GB and now I hear 8GB. Which is it? Also,… sorry so many questions. Why is there NOT a 7200RPM 500GB hard drive for MacBook or Pro? Is there one coming soon? Higher maybe? I ask because I would assume that both cases… More is Better. TIA. Like I said… a newbie.

Ephriam

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:31:06 +0000

My advice would be to first setup Boot Camp and get everything you need installed and configured on XP/Vista (use XP unless you NEED Vista). Use XP/Vista as needed and see how often you use it. At that point, evaluate if you actually need Parallels or Fusion. E.g. is one of those programs worth the cost to you. If they are, buy one and then point the program to use your Boot Camp partition as a VM. Done. As noted above, you can how run Windows native or through a VM.

One difference in Fusion and Parallels is that Fusion supports dual cores while (as I last checked about a month or so ago) Parallels does not. Both run on dual core systems, but only Fusion actually takes advantage of both cores. I think Fusion runs faster too (and it’s built in Cocoa).

By: Ralf

Ralf — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 03:17:38 +0000

BootCamp gets my vote. I recently installed BootCamp and XP on my friends new MacBook with great results. Installation was a snap and the speed in Windows was the same as on a regular Windows machine. We did a little resource/speed test using AutoCAD on both machines – couldn’t tell the difference.

By: Scott McAndrew

Scott McAndrew — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 02:18:41 +0000

@tim heuer: The posts I wrote earlier this year are on my other (older) blog…http://smcandrew.com – just search on Parallels. I actually took my MacBook Pro under the knife and upgraded the hard drive to 160GB. I then Bootcamped Vista, and finally pointed Parallels’ latest release at it. Vista is now telling me that due to a “hardware change” it requires I re-register Windows. I haven’t had time to fiddle with it yet but hope it doesn’t become a big deal. XP us IMO tgecqay to go if you don’t gave a specific need for Vista and/or don’t have at the VERY least 2GB of ram…

By: Dom Barnes

Dom Barnes — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:12:18 +0000

I’d put in a vote for VM Ware. I’ve used it for a few months and couldn’t be happier. The Unity mode is nice in Windows, and the support for the varous *nix’s is great.
The only reason I’d suggest using Boot Camp would be if you had a hardware intensive app (video editing, etc) and then its probably better to be running it fully natively.

By: dain

dain — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:04:50 +0000

For the VMware Fusion vs. Parallels debate:

“Coherence” in Parallels does basically the same exact thing as “Unity”, running your windows apps just like they were native on the mac. Also, the 3d support in Parallels is better IMHO.

Parallels can use your bootcamp partition which is also cool. This way you get the best of both worlds. I tried this setup however, and once I opened Parallels, Windoze of course flipped out because it thought all of the hardware had changed (likely due to all of the virtual devices). It told me I would need to re-activate! I called the m$ activation line and got it sorted in about 5 minutes.

-Dain

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:22:21 +0000

Another vote here for Fusion. The “Unity” view is the killer feature. It puts all of your Windows apps into their own container, so you can Cmd-Tab through your Mac and Windows apps at the same time. You’ll forget you’re even running Windows in the background!

For the best experience, get as much RAM as you can afford.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:56:29 +0000

I joined the dark side (a comment from my co-workers) by purchasing my first Mac about a month ago with the idea of using Parallels to run the two Windows apps that I absolutely needed to continue running.

When I told the sales rep at the Apple store that I was planning on running Parallels he suggested that I get 2 GB of memory with my MacBook, which I did. The first thing I did, after initially familiarizing myself with my new Mac, was to install Parallels. That all went very smoothly but installing XP did take some time with all of the updates that needed to be installed. My plan was to try Boot Camp at some point in the future but I’ve been so happy with Parallels that I doubt that I will ever get to it. I run in coherence mode all day long and it absolutely works as advertised.