Parallels or VMWare Fusion

HumbleCoder

HumbleCoder

HumbleCoder

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I'm fairly new to the OSX and I want to Visual Studio without having to reboot into Windows. I've looked at both of these and they seem fairly well priced and look like they do the same job. I'm learning towards to VMWare as I've used VMWare workstation with unity mode before extensively and ESXi but never on a Mac.

Any advice on which is best and do both allow you run an application in the VM like it is a local app? Any other alternatives worth looking at?
 
VMWare is the best in my opinion (I've used both). A lot of people have been complaining about the amount of 'pay for' updates that Parallels has had recently.

The programs behave fairly well within either application (Parallels or VMWare). The only exception to that rule are programs that require 3D graphics.
 
Make sure you give Sun VirtualBox a try too - it's free and I think it works perfectly well for most things.
 
OllyM said:
Make sure you give Sun VirtualBox a try too - it's free and I think it works perfectly well for most things.
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I looked at that but I don't think it does the whole seamless bit, VMWare workstation on the Windows side calls it unity not sure it's the same on the Mac.

Will give it another look now.
 
Slogan said:
VMWare is the best in my opinion (I've used both). A lot of people have been complaining about the amount of 'pay for' updates that Parallels has had recently.

The programs behave fairly well within either application (Parallels or VMWare). The only exception to that rule are programs that require 3D graphics.
Click to expand...

The last 'pay for' update that Parallels had was a year ago, that's not too bad is it?

I've found that I feel happier with Parallels, the Coherence (seamless) mode looks far nice than VMWare and performance on the new versions seems better with Parallels. 3D is significantly better with the new versions, I did some testing with Eve Online using VMWare and it was actually playable which surprised me. Parallels is reported as being faster.

I use VMWare for work, I've been creating VMs at home with Fusion and then taking them into work and using them on my PC so if you want cross platform machines then VMWare is the way to go - Otherwise I'd suggest Parallels.

Virtualbox is OK but it's far behind the others on performance.
 
Feek said:
The last 'pay for' update that Parallels had was a year ago, that's not too bad is it?
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I'm a little ticked off with Parallels. v4 doesn't work properly on Snow Leopard and it's unlikely to get patched. I was on the original beta test and bought v2, then upgrades to v3 and v4. I've now got to cough up again for v5 if I want to run it on Snow Leopard. So the MBP is still running Leopard and Snow Leopard remains in the box. I'm halfway to switching to VMWare.
 
MagicBoy said:
v4 doesn't work properly on Snow Leopard and it's unlikely to get patched.
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Hmm, I've been using it on Snow Leopard without any problems at all, what's the problems you've found? It wasn't that long ago that they pushed Snow Leopard users to Parallels 4 when Snow Leopard was released because Parallels 3 wouldn't work under it.
 
Feek said:
Hmm, I've been using it on Snow Leopard without any problems at all, what's the problems you've found? It wasn't that long ago that they pushed Snow Leopard users to Parallels 4 when Snow Leopard was released because Parallels 3 wouldn't work under it.
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I'm getting random kernel panics when running VMs. They work fine on Leopard.
 
Thanks guys, just installed the VMWare fusion demo.

Feek makes an excellent point about compatibility and I have ESXi dev envs I use at work that I could use at home.

Edit: sorry I spelt your name wrong, I'm prone to the odd typo
 
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I have Parallels 4 and Fusion 2. My preference is for the former.

I have just downloaded Parallels 5 to my back-up system to see how it goes.
 
I've been using the trial of VMWare Fusion and I've noticed when the VM is running it destroys battery life. When i suspend the VM my estimated battery goes from 1hr to 3 hrs, that is not an exaggeration.

Is this normal? Is Parallels any better?
 
Dudes, glad this thread is about. I prefer Fusion, and I have in the basket Fusion 3 upgrade, got it down to $33.99.

Is that a good price? ((without hitting piratebeach of course...))

I like to pay for software that works well, and Fusion has always got better for me!

Ta.
 
With Parallels you can configure the battery/mains power to be passed through to the VM operating system.

The problem you have about battery life is because the VM operating system is probably running in performance setting (assume it's windows). If that's the case the VM OS will not pause.
 
Think of the VM as an empty machine. You need windows or linux etc running inside them todo anything. So if you want to run windows then you'll need it.

I've run four operating systems at once on my MBP (OSX, VM'd windows, VM'd Redhat, VM'd ubuntu) for work before.. so it's not just for running windows.
 
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