# VMWare or Parallels?



## UnleashedLive (Aug 9, 2004)

I need to run 1 maybe 2 windows apps on my MBP. The one major one is a 3D CAD program. From what I've read the latest build of Parallels handles the 3D processing much better. How is VMWare?


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## pent675 (Feb 5, 2005)

*Win 95 on Parallels*

I vote Parallels simply because of price, features, and ease of use. Here is a pic of Win 95 on my Mac Book Pro (2GB RAM). This took me about 2 hours to setup and configure, now why did I install win 95 well because I can. I wanted to see how this worked and to prove the only way to keep win 95 safe is to turn off networking support so Win 95 does not get infected. I don't recommend trying to setup Win 95.

Windows XP took me about 15 min or so to setup as this process is all automated and very very simple. I now also have have various Linux distos setup to play with. I have created DVD's of my images on my MBP and have been able to use these images on my IBM Thinkpad with Paralelles for Windows. VM is very powerful and tends to be more focused the corp market. For the price you can't beat Parallels.

Now on to Windows 3.11 and Windows NT 3.51 just for fun.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

Haven't used VMware except on a PC, but I can say Parallels is impressive and continues to improve with each beta. 

Parallels seems like a very dynamic company that puts a lot of ongoing effect into their products. I haven't seen any other major application progress at the same rate as Parallels.


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## mikef (Jun 24, 2003)

I would think the Parallels people are running scared, if anything. I think VMware will eventually overtake them. They have a far more mature product (albeit on Windows) than Parallels.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

Steve Gibson from the security now podcast (With Leo Laporte). Did a head to head virtualization software comparision in which the Windows version of Parallels was a much better performer than the VMware which has been out for years. From Steve's pointo of view it's VMware who's going to have to play catch up.

The only thing VMware had on Parallels was it's ability to save a state and revert to it at a later date (useful if you botch your system up, but not very useful to a normal consumer). In many cases it's easy enough just to back up your 6GB virtual disk to another HD in case you need to restore.

see here episode #59


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2007)

mikef said:


> I would think the Parallels people are running scared, if anything. I think VMware will eventually overtake them. They have a far more mature product (albeit on Windows) than Parallels.


You can call it mature .. or "old". They have a nasty habit of sitting on their behinds once they get a product out the door and don't roll new features into it. At the very least Paralells is doing circles around them in this regard.

I've used VMWare for many years (on linux) and not once did I see a single update that actually increased the speed of the virtualization. Paralells has done this with almost every major update so far . . .


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## mikef (Jun 24, 2003)

jdurston said:


> Steve Gibson from the security now podcast (With Leo Laporte).


With all due respect, Steve Gibson is a pompous idiot. He couldn't grasp the concept of server consolidation by server virtualization. He literally laughed at the idea on an early podcast. It was clearly obvious that he was out of his element and still trying to play the bigshot. Stick to security, Steve!

I've spent a good time of my professional (read- salary earning) life in and out of VMware in the past 12 months. I'm very pleased to see it's finally available for the Mac.

My company's products will eventually support Parallels as well, but I am most comfortable in VMware.


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## da_jonesy (Jun 26, 2003)

VMWare is THE defacto leader in regards to virtualization.

Parallels might have a more mature Mac product, however VMWare is the only player in the Enterprise Virtual Server market space. In addition their brilliant VMTN (VMWare Technology Network) has lead to hundreds of out of the box virtual appliances, most of which are open source based and free.

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index.html

I love being able to fire up Ubuntu, Redhat, Suse, etc... whenever I want without having to go through a tedious install process.

My guess is that IF Parallels survives they will be relegated to being the small niche player that they currently are. VMWare is a huge company in comparison.

Disclaimer: I am currently using Parallels on my Mac, but will switch to VMWare once their beta matures.


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## 8127972 (Sep 8, 2005)

VMWare hands down. My company has an alliance with VMWare and they go out of their way to ensure that all of their products work with as much stuff as possible (not the least of which is the products that my company makes). I'm not saying that Parallels isn't doing the same thing. But VMWare has *much deeper pockets* to do this sort of thing. 

Having said that, VMWare is watching what Parallels is doing as they see them as being in the way of getting mindshare on the Mac platform.


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## UnleashedLive (Aug 9, 2004)

Ok all this is good but how does VMWare handle CAD programs and 3D work?


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## mikef (Jun 24, 2003)

The same as Parallels- poorly.

There is no video acceleration in a VM, so don't expect miracles. If you need to run those apps, you have little choice but to use Boot Camp.


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## 8127972 (Sep 8, 2005)

altrodesigns said:


> Ok all this is good but how does VMWare handle CAD programs and 3D work?


I wouldn't even attempt it. It will run, but you will not like the experience.


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## Krasnol (Nov 14, 2006)

*vmware*

Vmware runs so smooth, and unity is amazing. Being able to run windows apps right in OS X without all the additional windows junk is a boon.

highly recommended.


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## RISCHead (Jul 20, 2004)

I'm waiting for my new MacBook Pro and trying to figure out whether I should go VMWare or Parallels. Reading this thread so far, I don't see a discussion of technical merits one way or another. Perhaps that is simply a reflection of the fact that there is little to choose between them or more likely, that no one has really run both.
In any case, it would be interesting if people could comment on their negative experiences with either.

cheers.

[edit]: My apologies. I found this link on a different thread.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9760910-1.html

While this is mainly a CPU comparison where Fusion does better due to its multi-core support, it's better than nothing.
VMWare has typically suffered from poor IO performance in the past, and I would assume that remains the same. I would be surprised if Parallels is any better.

Anyway, VMWare Fusion at least for now appears the clear choice at least from a performance perspective (in addition to the other comments already made).


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

I have used both extensively (starting with Parallels) and I've just made my switch to VMware. It really is faster than Parallels and I notice it most when I'm switching between my Mac apps and Windows apps. There is less lag time between the switch. Parallels has some nice features (it seems better integrated with the Mac than VMware is), but for the most part they do the exact same thing.

It came down to speed for me. VMware was less of a strain on my system than Parallels was. If Parallels can fix that problem and speed it up then I honestly would probably recommend Parallels because it is better integrated with the Mac (if thats important to you).

Trev


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## MACSPECTRUM (Oct 31, 2002)

I keep trying out newer versions of Parallels on my blackbook and keep deleting them in favour of re-booting into windows XP via bootcamp


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## RISCHead (Jul 20, 2004)

I expect that I'll use Windows for things like Visio and wierd corporate programs and IE 6 dependent webpages, assuming that Lotus Notes 7 and MS Office run well enough under OS X and my Mac VPN client continues to be supported by my IT org.

Don't think I'll need to use bootcamp unless I end up doing some heavy duty Windows compilation work.

btw, do I need separate XP licences for bootcamp and Parallels/VMWare or can I reuse the same one? obviously, they're not running simultaneously and the XP bootcamp image is not the host for WMWare workstation.

I'm leaning towards VMWare Fusion also because it should let me reuse my VMWare images from other sources - I have a bunch of SuSE and RedHat images that I use today.

Can you give me some examples of what you meant by Parallel's better integration with Mac as compared to VMWare? Not sure if that's important unless I know what the differences in integration are.


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## lindmar (Nov 13, 2003)

Ive had to run a variety of PC apps lately, and I've been using VMware for 6 months. It's great..

Way better than parallels was for me..

But, my PC useage isnt slowing down so Im unfortunatley ghoing to have to buy a PC...


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## powz (Apr 25, 2007)

Having used both VMWare and Parallels (trials of the latest releases), I'd have to agree with TrevX that VMWare is definitely better. It's significantly faster. Everytime Parallels starts up I can feel it lag on my 2.2 ghz MBP while VMware is seemless. It's also cheaper now than Parallels since they offer a rebate. The only area where Parallels might have an edge is 3D, as I think VMWare does not support 3D acceleration in Vista (but does support DX 8.1 in XP). But in any case, VMWare is definitely better overall. Here's a link to a CNET article with objective tests comparing the multiple ways to run Windows on a Mac, showing how much faster VMWare is:

Inside CNET Labs: Windows virtual machine performance on the Mac | Crave : The gadget blog


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## jhollington (Jan 29, 2007)

VMware in principle would win out over Parallels, but I've been very unsuccessful in getting it to handle my Boot Camp partition, even after much hacking about with it.

Regardless of what I do, VMware fails to boot past an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD when starting from my Boot Camp partition, whereas Parallels continues to boot from it with no problems.

It's really too bad, as I prefer VMware in principle, I've heard numerous reports of it being less resource-intensive, and I'm not fond out Parallels' method of swapping in its own proprietary HAL.

I'm still hoping I can figure this out eventually, but thus far there have been numerous reports in the VMware forums and nothing conclusive other than an implied driver conflict somewhere....


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## krana (Oct 15, 2005)

*VMware is better in my opinion*

i am using both on my MBP 2.4 and VMware feels faster than parallels.it always run in background and i can do my stuff in mac os without any problem.if i use parallels i cannot use my mac side smoothly,i have to close it if i want to use many apps in mac os.
i have 3GB Ram.


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## 8127972 (Sep 8, 2005)

krana said:


> i am using both on my MBP 2.4 and VMware feels faster than parallels.it always run in background and i can do my stuff in mac os without any problem.if i use parallels i cannot use my mac side smoothly,i have to close it if i want to use many apps in mac os.
> i have 3GB Ram.


The difference in speed is because of the fact that VMWare can use both cores in your Core 2 Duo (if you enable that feature). Parallels can only use one. Having said that, even with using one core, VMWare is still faster as they've clearly done more work to make it run well.


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## cdnbacon (Feb 26, 2001)

UnleashedLive said:


> I need to run 1 maybe 2 windows apps on my MBP. The one major one is a 3D CAD program. From what I've read the latest build of Parallels handles the 3D processing much better. How is VMWare?


I use Parallels for running BricsCAD and Visio, most of my CAD work is 2D, but for the occasional 3D work I do, it's acceptable, however not as zippy as it would be under bootcamp.

You might pose your question in the forums at Architosh - Welcome to the #1 Mac CAD/3D/AEC Website perhaps this question has already been answered there. As an alternative, there may be some Mac CAD programs out there that might fit your needs. I know ArchiCAD and Vectorworks are top notch programs, and run circles around AutoCAD.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

I just upgraded to the latest version of Parallels and it is so darn easy to run. I have tired VW Ware many times and asked for support, but they couldn't be bothered to send me any help. Parallels always responded to my questions, albeit never quickly enough.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

jhollington said:


> VMware in principle would win out over Parallels, but I've been very unsuccessful in getting it to handle my Boot Camp partition, even after much hacking about with it.


I have had no issues with running Fusion on my Bootcamp partition. Sorry to hear about your issues.

This is not any kind of evidence nor a full list of tests, but here are my scores when comparing "cinebench 10" tests on my iMac in different scenarios:

OS X
WinXP
Fusion

iMac Alu Core 2 Extreme 2.8 / ATI 2600 Pro:

OS X: 
1 CPU: 3009
2 CPU: 5327
coef: 1.77
OpenGL: 5536​
Win XP 32 bits on Bootcamp:
1 CPU: 2789
2 CPU: 5323
coef: 1.91
OpenGL: 4883​
Fusion + WinXP 32 Bit (using bootcamp partition + 768Mb RAM + 2 cores):
1 CPU: 2688
2 CPU: 4847
coef: 1.80
OpenGL: 144​
As you can see, OpenGL is a joke on Fusion, but the raw CPU performances are almost as good as on the native test.


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

RISCHead said:


> Can you give me some examples of what you meant by Parallel's better integration with Mac as compared to VMWare? Not sure if that's important unless I know what the differences in integration are.


With Parallels, you can assign Windows apps to open your Mac documents (and vise versa). For example, if I have Office installed in Windows I can double-click on an excel file on my Mac desktop and have Excel in Windows open it. That could come in handy in some scenarios. Likewise, if I have a file on my Windows desktop I can make it open a Mac app instead of a Windows one. In the Parallels start menu it also shows you all of the Mac apps that can work with this feature. That could be handy if you constantly switch back and forth between the two environments. Parallels also is a bit more intuitive and more "Mac-like". Setting up a shared folder in VMware, for example, is not immediately obvious. You go into the Guest environment prefs and click "Sharing" in the list, but there isn't anything for you to configure. You have to press the + sign below the list to add a "Shared Folder" option. Its not a deal breaker by any means, its just not really intuitive. In Parallels its much more intuitive.

However, these things are small annoyances. VMware is definitely faster and you'll appreciate the responsiveness.

Trev


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

jhollington said:


> VMware in principle would win out over Parallels, but I've been very unsuccessful in getting it to handle my Boot Camp partition, even after much hacking about with it.
> 
> Regardless of what I do, VMware fails to boot past an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD when starting from my Boot Camp partition, whereas Parallels continues to boot from it with no problems.
> 
> ...


This happens because you've installed Parallels tools. It modifies the Windows system files slightly to better work with Parallels. I had this same problem trying to use VMware on my Boot Camp partition after using Parallels for a while. Short of reinstalling Windows I am not sure what you can do.

Trev


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## jhollington (Jan 29, 2007)

TrevX said:


> This happens because you've installed Parallels tools. It modifies the Windows system files slightly to better work with Parallels. I had this same problem trying to use VMware on my Boot Camp partition after using Parallels for a while. Short of reinstalling Windows I am not sure what you can do.


Yes, that's exactly what I suspect the problem is, but I'm obviously not interested in doing a full reinstall.

Granted I haven't put as much time in it as I could, but I've been through the registry and BOOT.INI a few times and tried to eradicate any traces of the Parallels tools and configuration. It's more than just the "Parallels Tools" app that installs in any Parallels VM, but also likely has something to do with the HAL/ACPI messing about that Parallels does.

If anybody has any ideas as to exactly where Parallels digs into the registry, or a proper cleanup tool, it would be much appreciated, but thus far I can't seem to get rid of everything that might be having an impact...


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

jhollington said:


> Yes, that's exactly what I suspect the problem is, but I'm obviously not interested in doing a full reinstall.
> 
> Granted I haven't put as much time in it as I could, but I've been through the registry and BOOT.INI a few times and tried to eradicate any traces of the Parallels tools and configuration. It's more than just the "Parallels Tools" app that installs in any Parallels VM, but also likely has something to do with the HAL/ACPI messing about that Parallels does.
> 
> If anybody has any ideas as to exactly where Parallels digs into the registry, or a proper cleanup tool, it would be much appreciated, but thus far I can't seem to get rid of everything that might be having an impact...


Messing with the Registry wont help because you're receiving an error long before the registry is read. It likely has to do with drivers Parallels loads into the guest OS that are causing problems. Again, I don't have specifics, but its not the registry.

Trev


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## jhollington (Jan 29, 2007)

Actually, the registry _is_ read at that point to load up some of the initial drivers in the hardware profile, but only within certain hives like HKLM\CurrentControlSet and so forth.

I know Parallels replaces the HAL and ACPI on the Windows side, but it also offers a dual-hardware-profile configuration so that you can boot back into Boot Camp. I've dug that part out of the BOOT.INI and the Hardware Profiles, but it hasn't helped. My thinking is that there might be an actual _driver_ somewhere that has been overwritten by Parallels.

(All reasons to make me dislike Parallels in principle -- it messes too much with things it really _shouldn't_ mes with).


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## Elric (Jul 30, 2005)

Just a question, I am trying to install gOS Ubuntu and Xubuntu in Parallels and NONE are working, I get the exact same error (probably because they are essentially the same), I can't find a way to fix this and Parallels people are totally ignoring the problem.
So this is a screenshot of my error and apparently it is very common. The Linux are all basically 7.10 and I have the latest Parallels on Leopard.


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## da_jonesy (Jun 26, 2003)

I have not had the greatest luck installing Linux with Parallels. I'd stick to the Virtual Appliances from VMware. There are 100's of distributions already preloaded into a VMware image.

For example, I needed a webserver sandbox so I downloaded a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) distribution which had Unbuntu preloaded and the Servers and DB loaded and pre configured.

Just download and unzip, couldn't be easier.


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## 8127972 (Sep 8, 2005)

da_jonesy said:


> I have not had the greatest luck installing Linux with Parallels. I'd stick to the Virtual Appliances from VMware. There are 100's of distributions already preloaded into a VMware image.


The same is true for Parallels:

PTN - Parallels Technology Network


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## da_jonesy (Jun 26, 2003)

8127972 said:


> The same is true for Parallels:
> 
> PTN - Parallels Technology Network


Ahhhh very Cool. Good for Parallels. Thanks, this will be very useful for me.


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## Elric (Jul 30, 2005)

So judging by those posts I have to install 7.04 instead of 7.10....


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## ifade (Oct 19, 2007)

I use VMware Fusion on my MacBook DueCore 2.16GHz, but I also see a message that 3D may not supported on the graphic card "Intel GMA 950", so I think it could be a problem, any one has the luck to set up LInux Beryl on MacBook ?


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## Fox (Oct 4, 2002)

Elric said:


> So judging by those posts I have to install 7.04 instead of 7.10....


I didn't get the error you did when I tried to install Ubuntu 7.10 on Parallels. My problem was that I couldn't install Parallels Tools on it; it would scutter my video. I have 7.04 working all right on my iMac running Leopard with the latest version of Parallels 3. However, I couldn't install the shared folder; the option wasn't available on any Linux install I tried on Parallels. My experience with Suse was worse. I got 10.2 working and could install Parallels Tools, but it wouldn't stick. If I rebooted, I would lose Tools functionality, and I never got the shared folder either. 

The site for Parallels virtual appliances may be the answer - thanks 8127972 for posting this! The company doesn't exactly make this well known - try to find this site from their home page. I have used both Parallels and VMware and I find in general that they've done a great job with Windows installations, but you really have to know what you're doing if you want to install a Linux distribution.


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## Elric (Jul 30, 2005)

Fox said:


> I didn't get the error you did when I tried to install Ubuntu 7.10 on Parallels. My problem was that I couldn't install Parallels Tools on it; it would scutter my video. I have 7.04 working all right on my iMac running Leopard with the latest version of Parallels 3. However, I couldn't install the shared folder; the option wasn't available on any Linux install I tried on Parallels. My experience with Suse was worse. I got 10.2 working and could install Parallels Tools, but it wouldn't stick. If I rebooted, I would lose Tools functionality, and I never got the shared folder either.
> 
> The site for Parallels virtual appliances may be the answer - thanks 8127972 for posting this! The company doesn't exactly make this well known - try to find this site from their home page. I have used both Parallels and VMware and I find in general that they've done a great job with Windows installations, but you really have to know what you're doing if you want to install a Linux distribution.


Thanks for your input, I was able to install 7.04 then upgrade to 7.10 of Ubuntu, but I could get a decent Screen resolution... every "answer" I got just made it all scrambled. Still cannot install gOS which is really what I need to try out.


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## Fox (Oct 4, 2002)

Did you try the screen resolution with 7.04 first? I think that if you upgrade that installation to 7.10 you scuttle the Parallels Tools. That's why I've stuck to 7.04. How much difference is there between them anyway?

I've played around with several of these Linux distros on both virtualizers, just for fun. I installed Fedora 7 (which came with the book, Linux for Dummies that I took out of the library) on my mini with VMware, and had no problem with VMware Tools. Fedora is very nice; I think I prefer it to Ubuntu. I also tried the latest Mandriva, which defaults with KDE instead of Gnome (my Fedora and of course Ubuntu have Gnome); I couldn't get VMware Tools to work with it.


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## zenith (Sep 22, 2007)

VMWare gets my vote.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

" ... btw, do I need separate XP licences for bootcamp and Parallels/VMWare or can I reuse the same one? ..."

Microsoft's Vista license specifically prohibits use with a Virtual Machine unless you buy the enterprise ("Business") or Ultimate edition. If you pony up for one of those, you can install one copy only, and that can be either a virtual or actual machine but not both.

With a NTFS or FAT32 partition on your Mac created with BootCamp, you can use any version of Vista. You can use any version of XP with a Virtual Machine or via BootCamp and stay within the license terms.

Amazon Dot CA sells Windows Vista [Upgrade/Full; December 2007] Business Edition for $C 250/380.00 and Ultimate for $C 290/474.00; Vista Home Premium is $190/290.00.

It gets expensive if you intend to stay legal:

Via BootCamp you can get a legal copy of Vista Home for about $300, and you can get that down to $200 depending on if you have an upgrade path from XP Home or not. If you use an OEM version it can come down below $150.00.

Under Parallels or VMWare, the minimum cost is $250 (Business upgrade from XP Professional) and it could go as high as $475. If you already own Vista Home from a BootCamp installation, there is another issue to deal with, since it's not easy to transfer an activated copy to recover some costs. If you end up eating it, there's another $2~300 addded on. Alternately, you might be able to use Vista Home as an upgrade path, but in that case you can't resell it at all. Again, OEM versions would save a few bucks.

At worst, two copies of Ultimate (to run one each on BootCamp and via one form of VM) is roughly $C 1000.00.

It seems ironic that most savvy users would be installing OEM versions of Vista Home on a VM; and going through the trouble of paying for it to boot; yet in the end it's non-compliant use and, according to some  at least, tantamount to piracy.


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## 8127972 (Sep 8, 2005)

I used to be a VMWare fan, but I changed my mind and went to Parallels because I am using a remote access device called the MobiKEY made by a company called Route1 here in Toronto:

Route1 Inc. » MobiKEY » TruOFFICE » MobiNET » MAP » MAG » MobiVDI »Secure Access Control » Virtualization » Identity Management » Remote Desktop Solutions » VPN

This device basically does the PC equivalent of Back To My Mac, only it's extremely easy to use and extremely secure (it uses smart card based 2 factor authentication) and runs from a USB token. VMWare Fusion doesn't even see this token, so if I were to rely on VMWare Fusion, there would be no way for me to access any of my company computers from my Mac (granted, I could get a PC box, but that would be the ONLY reason to get one, and I'm trying to become PC free at home). With Parallels, it works just like a real PC so I can have my Mac and use this device too.

So if you use a "unique" USB device of some sort, that may be a deciding factor between the two.


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