Parallel vs Fusion

[ultrablue662]

No! I did not be knowing dis! so I haves to a reecharing the ting? I thoughts it was only feeefty!

lol. -_-

I pay at the gas station.

[dandantheitman]

I also recommend VirtualBox, if u only want few apps and not playing games, then it will do the work, the best thing is its free, and its open source, means it will develop with time.

I second medopal on this one. I run virtualbox on both linux and have recently tried it on OSX and the performance on OSX, whilst not as good as on my linux box is comparable to that of fusion and parrallels.

Dan

[fangpyre]

No! I did not be knowing dis! so I haves to a reecharing the ting? I thoughts it was only feeefty!

lol. -_-

I pay at the gas station.

LOL

I never knew you could.

[michl]

Windows is a necassary evil.
Consider VirtualBox.
Its not as strong as either one.
But it does the job for me.
Its very basic, but its free.

That's a nice little poem %^) Ok I know these posts are not too recent, but precisely... I just want to highlight that VirtualBox has come a long way in one year. It's very solid now, and still free.

VB is still 'bare-bone', as Ars' review will tell you, but more than enough to run a Windows workstation. Mac integration is still lacking, for instance, but then so does Bootcamp (anybody using that anymore? apart from gaming I mean)

Also for those interested Wikipedia has a page comparing VMWare Fusion vs. Parallels Desktop. And one page on VirtualBox of course.

I've used all three, and I own Parallels Desktop which is still performing best on my Macbook Pro, but VirtualBox is getting close. Now if only there was an easy way to migrate from PD to VB...

Cheers,
-Michl

[fangpyre]

I have to say that I got VM Ware since this post.
Mainly because I need to access a Boot Camp partition.
And it was 50% off at the time.

I don't see the point of getting VB if you paid for Parallels.
Parallels is still better than VB, no matter how good VB is.
Note: Snow Leopard doesn't support Parallels.

[gierran]

I have to say that I got VM Ware since this post.
Mainly because I need to access a Boot Camp partition.
And it was 50% off at the time.

I don't see the point of getting VB if you paid for Parallels.
Parallels is still better than VB, no matter how good VB is.
Note: Snow Leopard doesn't support Parallels.

yes it does

[fangpyre]

Cool.
Last I checked it was still blacklisted.
Thanks G.

[michl]

I have to say that I got VM Ware since this post.
Mainly because I need to access a Boot Camp partition.

Well PD does boot from a Bootcamp install alright, and it has for quite a while...

I don't see the point of getting VB if you paid for Parallels.
Parallels is still better than VB, no matter how good VB is.

Simple: I purchased PD v2 when it came out for about US$ 70, if I recall correctly, then the upgrade to v3 cost me another US$ 50, then there was the upgrade to v4... So frankly I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that kind of money again for v5 whenever that one comes out -- especially when the free VB alternative is getting better all the time...

Cheers,
-Michl

[fangpyre]

You are right. What I meant was VB doesn't.
If it did, I probably wouldn't have bought VMWare.

Also true.
One forgets that sometimes keeping updated is not cheap.
But the question you need to ask, does the current version of VB offer what you need?
Is it better than the version of PD you own?
I wouldn't be surprised if the day comes when I switch back to VB.
As geeks we tend to have the requirement of always having the latest version.
But that isn't always necessary.

[dandantheitman]

I also recommend VirtualBox, if u only want few apps and not playing games, then it will do the work, the best thing is its free, and its open source, means it will develop with time.

I definitely like VirtualBox. I run it box on both my Apple and my Linux. I obviously like its open source ness, but what I like about it more than Fusion or Parrallels is that it can run in seemless mode. So I don't even have to look at that nasty windows logo. Seemless Mode makes the application appear as though it is almost native to the OS. and pop ups such as meeting requests from Outlook appear and cross virtual desktops.

You may also want to consider crossover office as well.

Dan