“For the past few weeks, I’ve been working with Parallels Desktop for Mac OS X on my MacBook Pro, and I have to say, I’m impressed,” John Welch reports for EarthWeb’s Datamation.
“First, note that I said ‘working with’ instead of my usual verb for testing software, ‘playing with.’ That’s a deliberate choice, because I’ve been getting work done with Parallels from the start. Currently, I have two Virtual Machines for Windows, one running XP SP2, and the other running Vista RC 2. I’m in the process of creating a Linux VM running Ubuntu as I write this,” Welch reports.
“While I did set up my MacBook for Boot Camp, and installed Vista on that partition as well, I’ve not had to reboot into that partition in weeks. Parallels has been useful enough to me that I haven’t felt a reason to reboot just to test out Vista functionality, or things like IE 7 under Windows XP,” Welch reports. “It’s been as convenient as I’d hoped it would be, and with a couple of exceptions (like drag and drop of files to and from the VM and some other minor things), it’s as nice to use as Virtual PC Mac ever was, and obviously much faster.”
“Now, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when running Parallels. First, more is better,” Welch reports. “More CPU, more RAM, more hard drive space… Parallels is really quite usable on a MacBook Pro… It’s perhaps not as fast as Boot Camp, but then again, Parallels doesn’t make you reboot, so it’s a more than fair tradeoff. It really is an IT person’s best friend… In short, it’s probably the best eighty dollars I’ve spent since getting my MacBook Pro in August. If you have an Intel Mac, and need to run other OSes, regardless of reason, my advice is: run, don’t walk, and get Parallels.”
Full article here.
More info about Parallels Desktop for Mac: http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/
Related articles:
Parallels makes installing Windows on a Mac easier than installing Windows on a PC – November 01, 2006
Best of both worlds: only Apple Mac can run both Mac OS X and Windows – October 30, 2006
Running Windows on an Apple MacBook is ‘fabulous’ – October 30, 2006
Apple Macs can run more software than Windows PCs – October 30, 2006
Parallels updates Desktop for Mac – October 12, 2006
Mossberg offers advice on switching from Windows to Mac – October 05, 2006
Embrace and Extinguish in action: TechIQ’s ‘The VAR Guy’ dumps Windows, switches to Mac OS X – September 25, 2006
Apple Boot Camp’s ‘Windows Insecurity Blanket’ helps buyers decide to switch to Macs – May 19, 2006
Macs that run Windows will calm potential switchers’ irrational fears – April 06, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
InfoWorld: Nothing can compare to Apple’s new Power Mac G5 Quad – true workstation at desktop price – October 24, 2005
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Does Parallels allow you to log into a Windows Server 2003 domain?
Parallels lets you run a virtual Windows machine – I’ve been using it for months and it works great. The windows install acts like any other windows machine – so if you can configure a windows machine to log into a WS2003 domain then I would imagine you could do this with Parallels (but I haven’t tried it…)
If I remember correctly you can try Parallels free for thirty days – try it out!
WELL!!
I guess every IT support person in the world who is worth their sh*t is going to get a MacBook Pro then to meet any needs.
Of course Windows will dominate through assimulation eventually.
The processor advantage is gone, it’s purely a OS war and Vista is supposely secure.
God, I hope not.
Rabid Dog,
Believe whatever you want to believe, but its Mac OS X that will dominate through assimulation. Embrace and extinguish, as MDN terms it.
I know this because every single Windows person I have introduced to Mac OS X prefers Mac OS X immensely. Vista is lipstick on a pig. I’ve been testing Vista and Tiger kills it in comparison. Leopard will annihilate it.
Vista will suffer it’s first major exploit in the wild on January 31st, so it won’t stay secure for very long…
… what Dev said.
I have an Intel iMac setup on one of our campuses with WinXP SP2, and it’s joined to a Windows 2003 Active Directory domain and it works beutifully. The teacher using it is new to the Mac platform, but is diving in and loving it!
Hopefully before much longer (after this school year) I can wean her off of Windows completely (we have a few admin apps that are Windoze only – they’ll be gone soon), and she’ll never have to touch Windoze again.
That’s one PC gone, I have about 500 more to go!
Anybody want to buy a coupld of cheap PCs? I hear they make great dev machines if you like to code viruses and malware!
Ubuntu is nice to play with. Unlike Windows or OS X, you can’t drag the title bar of a window below the bottom of the screen. I also like how it handles double-clicking the title bar: if you continue to hold down the mouse button on your second click, it shrinks the window into its pre-maximized size so that you can drag the window around.
August? LOLZ he got jipped.
Suppose one were to use Parallels to run OS-X and Windows-2000. Since there is some virtualization going on, does one need to obtain the Windows-2000 drivers for the MAC hardware? If so, is it easy to find these drivers?. Your response will be appreciated..Thanks.
The concept of virtualization means that the Windows 2000 drivers are ALL there, already. Provided by Parallels.
Thanks! Cartoonasaurus.