VM Fusion / parallels / bootcamp - MBPr

  • Thread starter Thread starter Izi
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Elric said:
I've created a bootcamp partition with Win7. Which is then VM'd under OSX by using VMWare Fusion. Best of both worlds.
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Yep, what I do!
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Vm Fusion user here.. I don't have any problems with it speed wise (at least since I upgraded my RAM to 8GB).
 
Elric said:
I've created a bootcamp partition with Win7. Which is then VM'd under OSX by using VMWare Fusion. Best of both worlds.
Click to expand...

I've got an MBA 13. can I install W7 via a USB or do I need a portable DVD drive?

Cheers

Oh I only got a 128 GB SSD maybe 60 GB is enough for W7?
 
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I run 60GB on my W7 partition. It's enough for my needs. I'm not sure if you can USB boot the W7 install, I've not tried it, I used the superdrive
 
Bootcamp partition and Parallels to use the same partition from OS X in a VM is about the best solution for me, plus its in the iStack bundle which works out to ~£35 so it's a no brainer at the moment. Would only by VM Fusion if I didn't want to pay the price for Parallels.

VirtualBox is a great free solution but paid for ones perform better and are nicer to use.
 
reygjabla said:
I've got an MBA 13. can I install W7 via a USB or do I need a portable DVD drive?

Cheers

Oh I only got a 128 GB SSD maybe 60 GB is enough for W7?
Click to expand...

Within Parallels you can create a VM from an image on a USB stick fine. Not sure about Fusion but I'd guess it supports the same thing.

For what I use my Windows 7 VM for (solely Visual Studio development), 60GB would be plenty - I could probably use 40. Really depends on what you are using that copy of Win for.
 
I've been using Parallels to run a linux vm, a test win7 vm and to fire up my bootcamped win7 instance nicely.

My only issue is that I'm using a previous version and parallels tools don't seem to install on the newer versions of the linux distro I need to use.

I believe one way to get them working is to upgrade (my linux skills are low so no idea if it's possible to get them running another way), which could turn out to be a yearly cost every time the distro has a major update.

No idea if Fusion has these issues, if not I may switch.

I will say that so far Parallels has been able to create a VM from pretty much anything I've thrown at it format wise which has been good.
 
I use Parallels which is fine although virtualbox and VMware all seeemed fine when I used them.

Parallels had a nice issue whereby it asked you to register it everytime you started it up. There was a button along the lines of "**** off, never remind me again; no I haven't changed my mind since yesterday" but it never did jack. 6 months after I got Parallels 6 they released parallels 7 for the ridiculous upgrade fee of about 70% of the initial value of the product with tiny additions to it so I passed.

The issue with the registration on startup annoyed me so much that I wouldn't use parallels again but thats just me being a bit silly.
 
You can get parallels in this bundle (expires in 45 mins though) for £32ish:

https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/the-istack-mac-bundle

However we are over 6 months into Parallels 7 life cycle now so P8 is only a few short months away and you will be expected to upgrade and pay again. You can also only use it on one Mac where as VM can be used on any Mac you own.

Those are the two reasons I switched to VMWare much longer between major releases (no aggressive yearly road map) but plenty of updates and bug fixes and cheaper upgrade paths.
 
Has anyone installed W7 on their MBA 13 2012 with Mountain Lion? can't seem to find the windows support software. Anyone care to give a noob any idea?:rolleyes:

PS. First MAC by the way.:D
 
Surprised no one has mentioned Virtual Box - it's a free VM, I use it to make a Virtual Machine for Linux (I already have Windows 7 via Bootcamp).

Used it for a couple of years now, very easy to use and best of all, free!
 
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