Running Windows software on a Mac

Hey everyone,

I have a program called PCDart that I would like to use on my mac, but it is designed for windows. I downloaded, installed and registered a program called 'virtualbox'.

VirtualBox

It was supposed to allow windows software to run on a mac OS. But my computer still does not recognize the windows software even with virtualbox installed.

Do I need to install windows?

I would really appreciate any advice you can offer, and please excuse my ignorance.

Thanks!

-Mandy

Try using VMware fusion, or paralells desktop. Should work better for you.

Also you can install windows using bootcamp. But that means you have to reboot your Mac everytime you want to use Windows.

If the application you need is not that demanding resource wise I would go for one of the two applications mentioned above.

You have three options, you can use any virtualization software, VirtualBox, VMWare Fusion, Parallels to run a copy of Windows within it. Then you can install your program.

The second option is to install Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp and then boot into it to run your software.

A third possibility is that you might be able to use Crossover for Mac to run your software as long as it's supported.

Now, with the first 2 options, you actually need a copy of Windows to install/run to run your software, just getting VirtualBox isn't enough..

Regards

kilcherm said:

It was supposed to allow windows software to run on a mac OS. But my computer still does not recognize the windows software even with virtualbox installed.

Click to expand...

You misunderstood what VirtualBox (or any virtualization product) does. To quote the VirtualBox wikipedia page, "It is installed on an existing host operating system; within this application, additional operating systems, each known as a Guest OS, can be loaded and run, each with its own virtual environment." As you can see, you can use VirtualBox to install Windows. Instead of installing to a partition on a disk though, you install Windows to a virtual hard disk which is really just a file on your hard drive. For instance, my Windows VM (virtual machine) is completely contained within a 4.27GB file. When I boot up my Windows VM, it can't tell that it's running in a virtual machine and acts as if it has a 15GB HD (I told VBox to create a 15GB HD for Windows).

My best advice would be to watch some videos on YouTube of people using and installing VirtualBox. This will give you the best sense of what virtualization encompasses.

And yes, you need to purchase a copy of Windows to use with VirtualBox, VM Ware Fusion or Parallels to create a virtual machine.

Cheers