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The secret has been out for a while: Microsoft's Windows Vista runs better in many instances on Apple's Mac hardware than on other PCs. But figuring out the best way to run Vista on a Mac is an entirely different story.
The market now boasts at least three strong ways to go, starting with Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple's own Boot Camp on the Leopard OS, and then on to Fusion from Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware and Parallels Desktop for Mac from Seattle-based Parallels.
The Test Center recently looked at all three solutions to figure out which was the best bet. These solutions achieve the same end—getting multiple OSes to run on a single platform—but by different means. VMware and Parallels are virtualization solutions while Boot Camp allows for dual-booting.
All three programs were loaded on a brand-spanking-new Mac mini, outfitted with Leopard 10.5.2, a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 1 GB RAM.
Parallels Desktop For Mac
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac was cake to install. Setting up a Vista virtual machine from loading the CD to the last reboot after the install of Parallels Tools took 37 minutes. Parallels offers control options that are pretty granular: boot sequence, memory allocation and network adapter emulation options are among the configurable features for the virtual machine.
Dragging and dropping between the host OS and guest caused no problems. Too bad that was not the case with USB support. USB support was enabled to "connect to guest OS." The USB keyboard and mouse worked fine in the VM, but a USB thumb drive went undetected in the VM, and was only detected in the host OS. The network adapter, sound and display drivers were detected and caused no issues.
The Vista VM locked up a few times, with the following message: "An unexpected error code -600." This crashing ceased after restarting the VM two times. With Parallels Desktop, a VM can run in Coherence mode. This allows the guest OS to integrate into the Mac OS X environment. For example, when running a Vista VM in Coherence, a separate window for Vista does not appear on the Mac desktop—instead, the Vista Start menu becomes anchored as an item on the dock. This is a great way to work seamlessly, and quickly, between Mac and Windows applications.
Want to delete a no-longer-needed VM? It's simple in Parallels. Deleting VMs can be done right from the Parallels menu, named Delete Virtual Machine Assistant.
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