Parallels

[webwise]

I'd love to hear feedback from someone who has used Parallels 3.0 for at least 5 or 6 months...

[madmacmat]

MacUpdate bundle was 9th of may so I don't quite qualify, but I could give a little feedback:

+ there is a mode called coherence that (after some serious bugfixing) works like a charm! Setting up and running Your windows, filesharing right from the explorer (Your Mac drives appear as usual) and You actually have a fullsize Windows system additional to OSX... look at the description http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/features/coherence/... I think this is quite unique until now though I heard VMware is working on sth similar

+ I already got some of my games working in the parallels setup- being a great fan of Sam and Max this was the first thing running- but also some 3d first person shooters from last year worked fine... certainly for up to date stuff emulation is not the solution of choice...

+ You can use Your bootcamp partition with Parallels! That means: if You need full power windows (whatever that means), You boot windows, but if you only need to skip over to run that stupid program noone ported yet, You launch OSX and just load Parallels and shortly use it... this feature actually runs really well!

- sometimes switching between Mac OS and Windows is really slow- but once You're inside, You're in!- switching back is a charm of a millisec...

- My bootcamp partition was corrupted (as in: rendered unusable) after using Parallels in an older version-- but it never occurred in 3.0...

Hope this offers some perspective, chad and webwise ;-)... cheers!

[Xander1]

Thank you for the replies, I think I will go ahead and purchase Parallels, I just have some odd older programs that are not compatible with my MBP.

[madmacmat]

I should have mentioned the alternatives... <sheesh>...

- Q: free emulation software that still lingers in beta... for how long is not to be estimated, it is there for years now... but still, You can install a VM but You certainly need a little more knowledge about Your sys specs Windows-wise... so not so klick-and-go friendly....

- VPC7: on my PB I am not able to get any other virtualization than the Microsoft version called Virtual PC 7... and this thing works properly as well, even with older machines as mine is one!... running Windows 2000 though, XP is really resource hungry in this VM

- emulation of software only in the way crossover is doing it via WINE is rather not so advisable yet, I am amazed that these guys actually sell it for the people to alpha-test the software

- parallels and VMware were introduced earlier...

[ngbauer]

I bought Parallels last fall going into business school and needing to run some add-ins for Excel and other simulation software that were not made for Mac. Not to mention Microsoft Access. I think it was the best expense I had for my classes. It is reasonably priced and works great. I love being able to run Windows apps and Mac apps together so I don't have to leave the Mac world all together at any point. You can run a full screen Windows mode where you don't use Mac at all, you can run Windows in a window much like you would an internet application accept you have the Windows desktop in that window, or you can run what they call "Cohesion Mode" where you have the start menu bar at the bottom of your Mac screen and just run Windows and Mac simultaneously and basically on the Mac desktop.

Some of my Mac friends had Boot Camp. While it did work, it was a pain for them to have to restart the computer every time they wanted to go from Mac to Windows. Also, I forgot to mention, in Parallels you can drag and drop files between the desktops if you need to convert a file format if you don't have the Office 2008 for Mac but have Office 2007 on the Windows side.

I mentioned this before in a different thread. In one of my classes we had to run a simulation ad-on for Excel. The majority of the class could not get it to work on their home computers and had to do their work on University owned computers. I was one of the few who it worked for and the only person in the class running Windows XP via Parallels. What can I say, a Mac with Parallels runs Windows better than a PC.

Overall, if you are going to be using Windows with any frequency above maybe a handful of times a year, I would recommend Parallels. It is not that expensive when you think about what you get out of it. If you need to use Windows 1 time in your life, maybe try something free, but overall I highly recommend Parallels to anyone. (I think you have to have an Intel based Mac for it though)

[ngbauer]

Originally Posted by webwise

I'd love to hear feedback from someone who has used Parallels 3.0 for at least 5 or 6 months...

I meant to mention in my previous post that I have been using Parallels 3.0 since August of 2007. It runs flawlessly for me. I have never had problems with it in terms of downloading or running programs. If you have questions, just let me know via this thread.

[webwise]

Awesome. Thanks for the helpful posts (as opposed to the mostly useless ones around here)...

Parallels 3.0 will definitely be on my list as I migrate to Mac...