Parallels running Windows XP virtualized on my MacBook Pro:
After going cold-turkey
from Windows to my MacBook Pro, I found that there were only a small handful of programs that I still needed my windows machine for. These were:
- Microsoft Money
- Microsoft's VPN client (OS/X had a weird incompatibility with my VPN server)
- Visio
- Microsoft Enterprise Manager/Query Analyzer
I have been using my Windows machine with
Remote Desktop Connection--while looking for native alternatives. I tried
OpenOS/X's WinTel (too slow/unreliable) and thought about following the hacks on
osX86Project.org, but didn't like the sound of frying my MacBook.
Needless to say, I was happy to see Apple's release yesterday of
Boot Camp. I followed a painless install, and had a dual-booting alternative to satisfy my final Windows XP reliance. I barely had time to sleep on the idea that I would be able to retire my Windows machine, when Parallels released their
virtualization software for MacIntel machines. I went through the XP install process again (albeit much quicker with a disk image of XP) on Parallels VM and now have another option run my old XP apps. By the way--don't forget to install the Parallels drivers for the guest Windows XP session. This gives untrapped usage of the mouse and a bit snappier graphic performance. Also--don't try and full screen XP within Parallels. I've seen nothing but crashes from this option.
Boot Camp enabled dual-boot of XP.
My initial usage of the two options leads me to believe that Parallels is a better approach. I like not having to reboot my computer to edit a Visio ER diagram--and I'm not a gamer, so I don't mind the drop in performance. For reliability and performance, I'm hoping that Apple is heading towards a virtualization approach in
Leopard so that all of this multi-OS power is available from the OS itself.
Boot Camp enabled dual-boot of XP.
2 comments:
I am a little nervous that some portions of the Parallel application seem to run in kernel mode. Adding thir party kernel drivers to OSX could prove to cause an instability even when the application that uses them is not running. And hooking the kernel while it is running can be risky if it is not thread safe.
http://macslash.org/comments.pl?sid=6081&cid=108843
I know for sure in Windows that you can get unlucky (threading issues) and blue screen
Scott--Thanks for the link on this. I have not kept up to date on Intel's hypervisor support, so Parallels use of hardware virtualization was a surprise to me. That said, it definitely makes for a fast VM. I hope that they are incented to remedy their app if it is setting OS/X for instability... and I have heard rumors that Apple may be bringing virtualization (I definitely hope they do) to Leopard.
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