VWare Fusion or Parallels ?

VMWare Fusion or Parallels ?

Planning to install Windows XP in my iMac.
Please advise which one is reliable?

They're both reliable. VM Fusion has the advantage of being able to use both cores for Windows tasks, slightly better DX9 compatibility and having a slightly cooler sounding name.

Parallels is a little more user-friendly, better established on the Mac and is arguably a more mature product.

I use Parallels and am very happy.

janazr said:

Planning to install Windows XP in my iMac.
Please advise which one is reliable?

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They're both good. Download a trial copy of Fusion and Parallels to try out and then purchase the one that suits you best.

Regards.

Ok I will try first the trial version.

Thanks

The differences between the two, as it relates to Windows, are largely cosmetic. Many prefer the Parallels interface (although I prefer the Fusion interface, for me less is more). But as far as overall performance and stability go, they are essentially the same.

One thing about Fusion - if you plan to run additional virtual machines besides XP or Vista, Fusion is the better product. I am running Ubuntu Linux in a VM in addition to XP. Fusion is part of the VM Ware family of virtualization products, and is a much more mature virtualization platform - there are literally hundreds of "appliances" to download various flavors of other operating systems, etc.

Soooo - for just running Windows, they are about the same. For running other things, I think Fusion is the better choice but that's just my two cents, no knock on Parallels at all. I tried both as well - that's a good approach, and of course, your mileage may vary. Good luck!

Both are great. I did have a huge problem with Fusion when I had USB Overdrive installed. I confirmed the problem on more than one machine. That is when I tried Parallels. I really liked Parallels, but I ended up loading Steermouse and going back to Fusion since I already paid for it. I think you will be happy with either quite frankly!

mdfuller said:

Both are great. I did have a huge problem with Fusion when I had USB Overdrive installed. I confirmed the problem on more than one machine. That is when I tried Parallels. I really liked Parallels, but I ended up loading Steermouse and going back to Fusion since I already paid for it. I think you will be happy with either quite frankly!

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To use Fusion or Parallels, do i need to login as main account (admin) to lauch the Windows XP session or can I use other non-admin accounts? I just asked this question coz other than my Login id I had created an account for my younger bro which is control by Parental Control option and I'd let use him the Windows XP on his login id to play his pc games.

Pls advise. Thanks.

janazr said:

To use Fusion or Parallels, do i need to login as main account (admin) to lauch the Windows XP session or can I use other non-admin accounts? I just asked this question coz other than my Login id I had created an account for my younger bro which is control by Parental Control option and I'd let use him the Windows XP on his login id to play his pc games.

Pls advise. Thanks.

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You will be able to use Windows just like you would on a standard Windows machine. You can log into different Windows accounts as well. If he is playing games you might want to consider bootcamp and actually booting into Windows as gaming performance will be better that way.

RAM Needed

I want to run Fusion on a first generation MacBook [2 GHz Core Duo with currently 1 GB of ram although I will probably up grade to 2GB]. Does this look even remotely possible. I mean I run VM Workstation at work but that is on a Dell desktop running XP Pro with 7 GBs of ran.

I think you will be okay with 2GB of RAM, you might want more but 2 should be sufficient.

Golbasto said:

I want to run Fusion on a first generation MacBook [2 GHz Core Duo with currently 1 GB of ram although I will probably up grade to 2GB]. Does this look even remotely possible. I mean I run VM Workstation at work but that is on a Dell desktop running XP Pro with 7 GBs of ran.

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right now I have VMWare I installed on one of my iMacs that only has one gig of ram. The model I have is the old 2.4GHz 1GB iMac. It runs treaty but then again I am only using it to run office 2007.

2 GB is plenty for one VM. I run Fusion on my 2 GB C2D MacBook and it runs fine. You may want more RAM only if you often want to run multiple VMs simultaneously. It can get a little hitchy (but still works) if I am running OSX, XP and Ubuntu simultaneously, but it's very speedy if I am running either XP or Ubuntu alongside OSX. Even 1 GB will work fine for XP and OSX (for Vista, you might want a minimum of 2 GB).

Cheers

Golbasto said:

I want to run Fusion on a first generation MacBook [2 GHz Core Duo with currently 1 GB of ram although I will probably up grade to 2GB]. Does this look even remotely possible. I mean I run VM Workstation at work but that is on a Dell desktop running XP Pro with 7 GBs of ran.

Click to expand...

I have both Fusion and Parallels and they both ran fine with 2Gb - this was running XP and 2000. Vista is likely to struggle with 1Gb.

I upgraded my macbook a few months ago to install 4Gb and run Vista on a daily basis.

parallels worked great for me. no issues at all. easy to install and use.

One note: Fusion just released version 2.0 as a free upgrade. It claims better 3D hardware acceleration support. I have a MacBook so it doesn't matter for me (I don't game anyway) but it may be worth checking out the new version in a gaming environment to see how it works.

I upgraded to 2.0 yesterday, and am very impressed with it (and I was impressed with v. 1.1.3). It has a nicer interface and tons of new features, for both Windows and Linux VMs. Worth checking out.

Cheers

Have a copy of Fusion coming as well...more than likely it's v1.x, so should I install, then upgrade it to v2 before installing Windows? Or upgrade after the entire install is complete?

Tom

I would install what you have coming, but then upgrade to 2.0 BEFORE creating any virtual machines. That would be simplest in my opinion.

Cheers

I'm debating adding Vista to my iMac (see sig) and I'm wondering if it's (well VM Fusion or Parallels) really easy to use and not a resource hog when not actually in use. Is Windows OS "running" all the time in the background or do you select it like another APP and just run it inside a window? Also, if I download and try one or the other and I hate one or both, is it relatively easy to get rid of everything from my system? Last question... does running Windows on a Mac open it up to more viruses or attacks?

All your questions have been answered on the forum, but here goes:

1. When the VM is not actively running, it uses no resources. Even when "suspended." Which is how I leave mine (as opposed to "powered off") all the time. Has no impact on Mac performance when not running, only when the VM session is active.

2. It is very easy to delete the virtual machines - you literally just drag the relevant folder to the trash. Couldn't be simpler. Then just uninstall Parallels or Fusion, as the case may be.

3. As a Windows "machine," your VM will be subject to the same risk of viruses and malware as any other Windows machine, so you should install an antivirus program (and whatever else you want) - I use AVG 8.0 free antivirus, but there are numerous choices. And no, a virus on your VM will not affect your Mac OS. And, what's more, if you take regular "snapshots" of your VM, and you wind up getting a virus, you just restore back to a previous snapshot and you're all set. Cool, huh?

I've used Windows machines for years, but it is now abundantly clear to me that the safest, easiest way to run a Windows machine is actually to run it as a VM on a Mac under Fusion (or Parallels). Safer, simpler to run, easier to configure, better security, easier to restore, etc. Fast, too. Unless you absolutely need native hardware support (in which case Boot Camp is the better solution), I think you'll find the VM option very useful.

Cheers