What is better for running Windows on a MAC, Parallels or VMWare?

These types of questions usually come down to personal preference I find. I can tell you what my experience is, and based on that I hope you find an answer. Before I get into it, you should know that both VMWare and Parallels offer a 30-day trial, so you can install both and give them a try before you decide.

I have a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM. I have run VMWare Workstation (the latest, 6.5 for Windows) and VMWare Fusion for MAC. I have never used Parallels.My experience began with VMWare and will stay that way.

Here is why I think you should go with VMWare Fusion. 1. VMWare's commitment to virtualization began a long time ago, compared to Parallels, which was recent.

Why is it important? Parallels just rebranded itself within the last 8 months as a virtualization company, and have recently acquired/merged with other companies. Parallels use to be known as SWSoft.

(Go to swsoft. Com and it auto-redirects you to parallels.Com). Why is this important?

Because VMWare has more experience and more stable software and a bigger user community, when compared to Parallels. VMWare has large Enterprise (Fortune 500) customers using their software. So any problems with buggy software that are encountered are likely to be fixed faster.

While there are many Enterprise specific products, the Workstation and Fusion product would likely receive the same attention. The Workstation and Fusion product is not just a consumer product, but also used in the Enterprise. Parallels is just starting out, they don't have the solid foundation like VMWare does.

Support: Go to the VMWare support site and check out the user community there. Lots of information and lots of tips. I've used VMWare Workstation for the past 3 years and its been rock solid and I haven't encountered any unusual bugs or issues that caused me to stop using the product.

For that reason, when I got a MacBook Pro, I decided to stay with VMWare Fusion.To contact technical support, there may be limited support. I personally have not had to call them. If I had an issue, I looked for it online.

For example, OS X was unstable (due to my own fault), and I needed to shut down Fusion and it wouldn't, and I had to shut it down before I could reboot. I found documents online that allowed me to power off the virtual machine from the command line. I currently have FreeBSD, Win2K and WinXP installed in Fusion.

Running both Win2K and WinXP at the same time can sometimes be a little sluggish, but that's to be expected. I have not had any experience running Office in a Fusion workstation instance. I've used Excel in a Workstation virtual machine with Win2K and it was fine.

I'd say make sure you have the max amount of RAM you can have. Also, back up your virtual machines. Just copy the directory to an external drive.

The files can get anywhere from 5GB +. You could burn them on to DVD as well. I'd say the range of features that are available for VMWare, the stability in the software, the knowledge base available to customers and the fact I've used the Windows product for a couple of years makes me choose VMWare.

They are the defacto leaders in Virtualization in my opinion. VMWare has been around a long time. Here is a link to an article about an online journalists experience with VMWare.

He went with Parallels. I personally question the guys knowledge has I don't agree with some statements he made in the article. But I thought the article might be helpful to your decision making.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10000 Good luck and let us know what you decide. To add: boot camp is different, you have to partition your drive and can only run either OS X "OR" Windows. You can't run both at the same time.

With either Virtualization product, you can run Windows while running OS X. I've also used Mac Office 2008. Feature set is also identical, and functions the exact same way it does for Windows.

Vmware, definitely. It is more stable and it can automatically to a partitioned hard drive (which keeps your windows and mac files separated). Sharing files between mac and windows is easy.

Not to mention, it is currently free. I used to be a huge parallels advocate but they seem to be dropping behind, fewer updates and no 3-d yet.

VMWare and Parallels are comparable from a performance perspective, but VMWare is the better product, because it is less expensive, it can support two processors, and it has been around for longer. For MS word and Powerpoint, VMWare and Parallels are virtually identical. For Excel, Parallels is faster for XP, and VMWare is much faster for Vista.

VMWare is also easier to install under MS XP, and doesn't have any glitches.

Personally, I recommend VMWare. VMWare is still according the the latest benchmarks faster than Parallels and it also feels more stable. However, with any form of virtualization, make sure you have a lot of memory because even guest running XP can still take over 2 Gigs of memory.

I'm personally running on iMac Core 2 Duo with just 1 GB of memory and anything besides web browser testing is barely usable. For further reading and a great comparsion I would recommend reading following article on ArsTechnica (Reviews Parallels but also compares VMWare) arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/parallels-4... Update: I found a promo code for vmware that saves 50% of the price: VMWHAPPYHOLIDAYS.

I think you need the latest benchmarks to evaluate your choice. Both Parallels and VMWare Fusion are closely matched programs. Ars Techica summed up the pros and cons of each one: Parallels 4.0 Better multi-core support OpenGL acceleration Interface is one step ahead VMware 2.0.1 Feels faster with all client operating systems Better disk performance Better USB device support Far more stable More conservative memory usage: The conclusion is: Both are good programs, but VMWare is inches better, because it is more stable and uses less RAM and disk space than Parallels.

Parallels also has a bit of an unpleasent integration of the Windows Start menu on top of the dock (picture bellow), which for me, is in itself a deal breaker. Recommended specs to run VMWare + Office Suite: They say 2 GB RAM, 400MB disk just for VMWare, so you should have 4GB RAM and at least 10GB+ free disk space.

It looks like Apple's Boot Camp beats them both macnn.com/articles/07/08/16/fusion.vs.pa... You know what they say: Nobody builds software for Macs like Apple :P apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html.

You don't need either VMware or Prallels to run the full MS Office package. Just get the OS X version of Office - it's just as powerful and feature rich as the Windoze version, except it's native to OS X.! If you already have the PC version of Office and don't want to buy another copy, then use VMWare. Bootcamp is overkill for simple Windows programs like Office.

Who wants to reboot just to use a simple Office suite?

Please use neither. Not really the answer you are looking for, but both have been known to crash the host Apple computer quite badly. Also look into if either program will void your apple care warranty.

Having two operating systems in one computer is like having both male & female sex organs in one body--it just doesn't work that well.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.