Parallels Desktop Windows Virtual Machine?

miscrms · 08-09-2006, 01:54 AM

Has Anyone tried this yet?

http://www.parallels.com/en/

If I understand correctly it uses the virtualization capabilities of the intel chip set to allow intel based macs to run multiple independant virtual environments at the same time. Each can run pretty much any x86 OS, OS X, Solaris, Linux, Windows etc. Seems _way_ better than the dual boot option for running windows on a Mac, assuming this is truly a virtual machine (ie near full CPU speed), not an emulation. Seems I heard speculation that this is how 10.5 will do windows....

I'd love to run all mac, but the tuning software I'm looking at is windows only and I hate the idea of having to reboot to windows everytime I want to switch ECU settings.

Rob

aaardal · 08-09-2006, 04:12 PM

Here's a good discussion on Parallels vs Bootcamp.

Click Here

I've used BootCamp before on a iMac and found it to be simple. Everything seamed to work fine and operated like Windows. I have no personal experience with Parallels, but the one main benefit of running Parallels is not having to reboot which is a pain to do in a car enviroment.

airforceruss · 08-10-2006, 09:46 AM

Does anyone have the speeds the Parallels provides? Also, if you install a version of Windows via Bootcamp or Parallels, can you access that partition from the other program? For example, if you install a partition of Windows with Parallels can you boot from that partition with Bootcamp or vice versa? That'd be nice.

miscrms · 08-10-2006, 12:50 PM

I was wondering about the speed too. I would think that as a Virtual Machine (rather than emulator) it should be almost as fast as running native. This review from Arstechnica seems to agree, but I don't get the feeling they actually ran it.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/parallels.ars

As far as accessing the other partitions my guess would be no, but I'm not sure. In the Parallels case the VMs act like seperate machines, which you can network. This should work pretty well as the mac talks windows (smb), ftp, and nfs (if you were running linux on a VM). In Boot Camp, when in mac you might have a fighting chance of mounting the windows partition, but probably not the other way around.

I am very curious how well this software actually works, particularly with regard to accessing external ports and peripherals. There are also rumors that the final release of Boot Camp will be a virtualization, not dual boot when it ships with OS 10.5.

Rob

godraj · 08-10-2006, 03:45 PM

I currently use Parallels on a core solo with 1gb ram, and booting into windows is as fast as my P4 windows machine..

DJFriar · 08-10-2006, 09:13 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by miscrms

I was wondering about the speed too. I would think that as a Virtual Machine (rather than emulator) it should be almost as fast as running native. This review from Arstechnica seems to agree, but I don't get the feeling they actually ran it.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/parallels.ars

As far as accessing the other partitions my guess would be no, but I'm not sure. In the Parallels case the VMs act like seperate machines, which you can network. This should work pretty well as the mac talks windows (smb), ftp, and nfs (if you were running linux on a VM). In Boot Camp, when in mac you might have a fighting chance of mounting the windows partition, but probably not the other way around.

I am very curious how well this software actually works, particularly with regard to accessing external ports and peripherals. There are also rumors that the final release of Boot Camp will be a virtualization, not dual boot when it ships with OS 10.5.

Rob

They did run it. ArsTechnica is very very upfront when they report things they don't know themselves. I've been a member of their site for years, and all their reviews and stories are top-notch.

Parallels runs very well. I have problems with 3D programs, but I have a MacBook which has a integrated video rather than discrete video. I have a friend who has a full video card in their iMac, and he said it runs great. I only have experience with the MacBook though, my MacMini isn't here yet.

Also, Apple has bascially confirmed that virtualization will NOT be a part of 10.5 (Leopard).

As for accessing data between a VM in Parallels and in Mac OSX, it works fine. Parallels makes a shared drive taht OS X can access, and vice-versa. Its works fine.

miscrms · 08-10-2006, 11:41 PM

Very cool! One more tool to help me convince work to buy me a Mac, as only windows app I need is Lotus Notes (arghh).

Rob

link91504 · 08-11-2006, 01:12 PM

What about using Parrallels to display a GPS program running in Windoze and keep everything else (music, movies, phone) in OS X? Does anyone have this set-up on their system?

Basically I'm wondering is this a "usable" solution. Yes, I know it will work and run fine, but in a car environment is this convient and usable.

raceer · 08-11-2006, 04:51 PM

was using parallels at local apple store on a imac code duo with 2G and it was really fast...with the sleep/wakeup process fast. The base xp install was using 256Mram with 512 allocated to virtual machine. Suspect 512 is the absolute min so you would need about 2G to run stuff well. Usb support is not the best...

link91504: search is your friend :-)

carbot · 08-11-2006, 04:58 PM

in my experience parallels runs full speed (except no 3d graphics/graphic acceleration) and runs almost everything.

If you DO install boot camp as well, make it a fat32 (not ntfs) drive and map it to parallels as a shared drive - then the mac and the parallels and the rebooted native bootcamp windows all use the same volume.

-d

airforceruss · 08-11-2006, 11:12 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by carbot

in my experience parallels runs full speed (except no 3d graphics/graphic acceleration) and runs almost everything.

If you DO install boot camp as well, make it a fat32 (not ntfs) drive and map it to parallels as a shared drive - then the mac and the parallels and the rebooted native bootcamp windows all use the same volume.

-d

So it is possible to share a volume between Bootcamp and Parallels. Am I reading that correctly?

Can it only be a Shared Drive or can you have a single partition shared between Parallels and Bootcamp?

www.workingcars · 08-19-2006, 12:09 PM

I ran parallels on a mates MacBook Pro the other day, as he only needs to be able to use 1 web based probram that is not available to the mac.

I was very surprised as to how quick it runs, and was very impressed with the fact that it seems to take nothing away from the Pro OS that you are using.

I would love to be able to get a graphics card in the mac that allows 2 screens seperately so could drag windows into 1 and use the other on mac, would look so cool at shows....!!!

lifteri · 02-15-2007, 07:35 AM

Parallels Desktop is great and it gets even better with each version.
I completely switched to developing on my mac, which previously I used only for testing.
Now I don't use any other machine - I run my windows/linux tests through parallels.

BTW, if you wanna be frugal you can get it with 20% discount from this link.

stokestack · 02-19-2007, 06:51 PM

Parallels works pretty well. There's no Firewire support though, and the shared-folders method of making volumes available to Windows does cause some weird problems when installing software. Sometimes the installer just won't see files, even though you can browse to them. The workaround is to copy the entire raw product to the virtual drive (your Windows desktop will work).

Also, USB 2 ports seem to be seen as USB 1, which is a serious problem.

Mouse tracking is also a little weird. Hard to determine exactly what's wrong with it, but something is.

Audio playback isn't perfect; it seems there are some crackles occasionally.

Overall, though, it's a pretty satisfactory replacement.

kandyman676 · 02-20-2007, 12:01 AM

The beta of Parallels works fine for most office applications on my Single Core MacBook Pro @ work. Unlike VM desktop/server, you can only run one VM at a time, which I don't like.

However their coherance mode rocks and gets rid of the Windows XP VM if you tune XP and your Mac right. I've been trying for a while to consolidate to one computer, but hard to do.

Anything dealing with rapid graphics is garbled and unreliable. Sometimes it causes crashes in my system.