If you have a MacBook, I think you're supposed to take your BMW X5 to a Starbucks with wireless connectivity and order a Tripple Grande Soy No-Whip Caramel Machiato and do something "creative", like checking your e-mail.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/30/39-apple-products/
[I keed. I keed. I will now avoid PC/Mac baiting.]
Tim Baxter wrote: Boot Camp (built into OS X) lets you boot into OS X or Windows (or Linux, for that matter). Parallels lets you run both at the same time. It runs at native speeds, as far as I can tell, but you need a buttload of RAM to run two OSs at once and get much done. I use parallels a lot. It's good stuff--if you've got the RAM.
How much ram and how much does it affect speeds?
I am guessing you are saying I can't leave 87 windows open like I do right now?
If you've got 4GB of RAM, you can do whatever you want, although you'll notice a very slight performance hit. If you're running 2GB, you're not going to want to leave Parallels open unless you are using it. I've got one of each configuration (desktop w/ 2GB; laptop w/ 4GB), so I know whereof I speak.
Full disclosure: Even with 4GB, I don't leave Parallels open unless I'm using it, which isn't often.
Do they play nice with each other?
Virtual PC purported to be fast and easy and to allow easy moving of files between the OSs, but it wasn't.
I need to run only 1 program on a PC but I need to be able to bring emails in from the Mac side (we don't allow the PC to connect with the real world EVER to keep my maintenance down)
Virtual PC was trash. Parallels isn't an emulator. You're running windows directly on an Intel chip, same as a windows box.
As Billy said, speed is really dependent on RAM. If you've got enough RAM to run both OS X and Windows (that's almost 2 gigs, minimum, right there) and whatever apps you have open, there's no noticeable performance hit. If you don't, things start going to virtual memory and get real slow real quick.
But is it easy to transfer files back and forth between the OSs?
I haven't done much of it, but I'm pretty sure it's just a drag and drop thing.
do you have a prius and an ipod to go with your mac yet?
Tim Baxter wrote: I haven't done much of it, but I'm pretty sure it's just a drag and drop thing.
Cool! I sense a new computer with Parallels in my wife's near future!
Now if only there were some good, color, wireless, laser printer/fax combos then I'd be set.
As far as a Prius and an iPod, neither one. But then I have an iPhone so don't need the iPod and "They" say there will be a hybrid S2000 in the near future so who knows!?
The first version of Parallels was a little wonky about sharing files between the OSs. It's transparent in the current version. Effectively, the Windows virtual machine is networked with the Mac.
Another neat trick is that, you can right click (or ctrl-click or click and hold) on a file in the OSX finder and tell it what Windows app you want to open it with.
Example: I was just messing with an RTF file a few minutes ago. Word for Mac couldn't open it, nor could TextEdit. To make sure the file was really toast, I right clicked and had WordPad from my virtual machine try. Parallels wasn't running, so it started, booted XP, and tried to open the file, which I could see was corrupted.
The other cool thing about Parallels is it has a "Coherence" mode, which allows you to have Windows windows and Mac windows on the same screen at the same time. It's just as if the programs are running side-by-side, without regard to OS. It's a weird feeling, and you can have both a Start Menu/Taskbar and a Dock at the same time. It really is the best of both worlds (except it acts sort of goofy if you have dual monitors).
Parallels really is pretty great, and way better than Virtual PC. It occasionally gets unstable, but no more so than Windows ordinarily is, at least in my usage.
So... for all you Mac folks... what is the projection on when I'll be able to run OSX on a home-built PC?
Will running parallels allow for gaming?
I suspect it's going to be a long time before I change. I like my home-built gaming rigs. $250 got me the parts I needed to build a kickass machine that runs all the latest games.
Another benefit:
If you install more than 3 gigs of RAM you can use it!!! Nice of Microsoft to fix the "problem" eh?
One developer we consulted about the issue noted, "consumers are being scammed by [PC] OEMs on a large scale. OEMs will encourage customers to upgrade a 2GB machine to 4GB, even though the usable RAM might be limited to 2.3GB. This is especially a problem on high-end gaming machines that have huge graphics cards as well as lots of RAM."
"Microsoft even changed the way the OS reports the amount of RAM available; rumor is, due to pressure from OEMs," the developer told us. "In Vista and prior, it reported usable RAM, while in SP1 they changed it to report installed RAM ignoring the fact that much of the RAM was unusable due to overlap with video memory." And so many PC users are installing 4GB of RAM in their PCs and thinking that it is being used by the system, when in fact it is no more beneficial than if the RAM were simply poked halfway into the CD slot.
Yeah, but it's a Mac, that can't run games anyway. So you haven't got anything that will really make use of all that extra RAM.
Don't use many Adobe product do you...
No kidding. Adobe=RAM usage that would make any game developer blush.
Favorite thing about Parallels: Snapshots. You can one-click store a version of your Windows install and one-click switch between them, which means I can easily run both IE6 and 7 on one machine. Nice.
aircooled wrote: If you install more than 3 gigs of RAM you can use it!!! Nice of Microsoft to fix the "problem" eh?
It says in the article that if you run vistax64 you will be fine. I guess microsoft fixed it?
The article doesn't make any mention of XP64. I imagine that's okay, since it only mentions 32bit OSes. I refuse to use Vista until it has been around for at least a year... probably at least two.
You'll need to log in to post.
