However, I find that SmartSelect can result in a very cluttered “Open With” menu in the Finder, so it’s not all roses. This feature can be quite useful, and there’s no equivalent in the current version of Fusion. doc file in the Finder, it opens in Windows. doc file on the Mac with Word on the Windows guest OS, so that when you double-click a. Parallels has a feature called SmartSelect that lets you associate file types on one OS with applications on the other. Combine this with the “hide the Windows desktop” mode (known as Coherence in Parallels and Unity in VMware), and you hardly even know you’re running Windows. You can even right-click an icon and choose Keep in Dock you can then launch the Windows app just by clicking the icon, even if Parallels/VMware isn’t running at the time. In contrast, Parallels’ Applications menu only allows you to choose from recently-run apps, or display the Start menu – not as slick.īoth Parallels and VMware show running Windows apps as Dock icons, as if they were Mac apps. This basically mirrors the Windows Start menu, making it easy to launch Windows apps without having to deal with the Start menu: One nice feature of VMware is its Applications menu. I’m pleased to say that Fusion’s UI is a breath of fresh air in comparison, and behaves more like I’d expect a Mac app to behave. I have to say, I’m not a big fan of the Parallels user interface it always seems odd how it opens new instances of itself for new VMs, and some of the dialogs seem like they were written by someone with English as their second language. Once I’d successfully converted my Parallels VM to a Fusion VM, I fired up Fusion. The Importer was a bit ropey – it spent 15 minutes converting the drive before informing me that the VM was suspended, so it couldn’t finish the import – but to be fair, it’s still in beta. I didn’t want to muck about installing a fresh copy of Windows, or deal with Windows XP reactivation grief, so I used the VMware Importer to migrate a Windows 2000 Parallels virtual machine across to VMware Fusion. The versions I’m reviewing here are Parallels Desktop 3.0 (Build 5582) and VMware Fusion 1.1.2 (87978). So I thought I’d give Fusion a quick spin and see how it compares. It does the job well enough, but recently the nice folks at VMware gave me a review copy of VMware Fusion. I’ve been using Parallels Desktop since I bought my Mac back in 2006 (in fact I bought Parallels before the Mac!). There are two applications that you can use to run Windows simultaneously with Mac OS X: Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. By running Windows on your Mac as well as Mac OS X, you get the best of both worlds – the loveliness of MAC OS X, and the compatibility of Windows. Why would you want to run Windows on a Mac? Well, there are many applications – including most games – that are only available for Windows. There is only a downside if you want to run it on multiple machines as Parallels is a single-use license.One of the great things about Intel Macs is that you can run Windows on them. It boots very quickly, is simple to get to grips with and does everything well. If you’re a home user who wants to play a little with VM, I would say Parallels might be more useful. It works very well, can run most programs and is very stable. I would say that if you’re tech savvy and a quick study, you may prefer VMware Fusion. There is no clear winner here as they are too close to call. So which is best for virtualization on a Mac, VMware or Parallels? It offers good value for money, while a little less than its competitor and is easy to install and use. Overall, I found Parallels to run faster than VMware Fusion. Despite this extra attention, it doesn’t get too much in the way and will leave you alone if you need it to. This is ideal for that market as it takes much of the guesswork out of using VM. You can tell Parallels is aimed at consumers as the UI is more friendly and it holds your hand more as you use it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |