CNET's Tom Merritt answers the great VMWare vs. Parallels question. Which is best for running Windows applications inside of OS X? Watch the show and find out!
There's nothing wrong with running Windows on your OS X machine: all you need is Boot Camp, right?
Wrong. There's a better way: virtualization software, such as the Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMware's Fusion.
If you run virtualization software, you can run Windows operating systems like XP and Vista -inside- of OS X. Features like "Coherence" or "Unity Mode" even let you run a Windows application as if it were just another OS X app.
But which software should you choose?
Our friend Tom Merritt, the host of CNET's Buzz Out Loud has spent more time playing around with virtualization software and OS X than anybody we know... so we invited him to join us and show off his favorite tools and tricks for running Windows (and Windows applications!) on your Mac!
Now all we have to do is check out VirtualBox and see if this open source tool for running Windows in OS X works just as well!
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Posted by Technobob on 07/09/2008 at 03:29:40 pm in Systm
VirtualBox Rocks
Hey Patrick thanks for mentioning VirtualBox I had never heard of it before. I had been using VMWare and was going to buy a copy with the next stable release but not now. I have been playing with VirtualBox all day and love it, sure it lacks some of the polish that Parallels and VMWare has but it has one thing they don't have a free price tag :D
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Posted by rever75 on 07/03/2008 at 05:30:09 am in Systm
Hey I did like this episode although I do not run a Mac. I personally run VirtualBox on my systems. In the past I used VMWare and Parallels and liked them both but feel VirtualBox is faster and a better product. Then again I am all for FOSS. Would love to see a show on VirtualBox, I am sure Sun or the Developers would give you all the info you need.
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Posted by quantumfreak on 07/02/2008 at 10:02:14 am in Systm
I agree that such a demonstration would have been better suited for Tekzilla. No need to beat up on Tom over it. This was his experience on his machine. Patrick should have done this himself using all three programs, but instead brought in someone else for their thoughts. It was still a good episode, just on the wrong program.
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Posted by FierceDeityLink1 on 07/02/2008 at 07:19:06 am in Systm
This definitely was one of the least technical episodes of Systm (and the most subjective). What? No benchmarks? No Crossover or Virtualbox?
It's scary if that many people requested this... You can basically get the same information from the program's website (video walk-throughs, feature list, etc.).
Also, with XP, Microsoft doesn't care how many times you've activated it. You can use the keypad on your phone to enter the activation number if you don't want to speak every character. I think they ask, "have you activated this copy of XP on more than one machine?" And you just answer, "no". Obviously, only do this if this is true.
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Posted by trapper1204 on 07/01/2008 at 10:57:09 pm in Systm
VMware like the apps your tested, including Vbox ( my favorite ) do not emulate anything on intel Macs.
Emulation refers to tricking software into running on unsupported hardware... Windows on the old PPC Based macs would be a prime example
Virtualization is just how it sounds.. its virtual computer.. virtual system.. the software is designed to run on the hardware. Much better than Emulation.
Also.. VBox rules.. much much faster than both vmware or parallels.
Travis
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Posted by ddreier on 07/01/2008 at 01:48:27 pm in Systm
Besides me feeling this fits better in an episode of Tekzilla, this was a really good episode.
But I have one nit to pick: For some reason the 'edited in' ads in Tekzilla and Systm are really starting to get on my nerves. I don't mind them spread out, but cut in like that is getting annoying. Maybe Patrick needs to watch some more CrankyGeeks and study John C's segways :).
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Posted by samureye on 07/01/2008 at 01:22:38 pm in Systm
Great episode. As for the haters, chill out. Apple and Windows are the most popular OSs according to the results of a poll I made up.
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Posted by Plux on 07/01/2008 at 10:13:01 am in Systm
A feature that I relly love with Parallels that I miss in VMWare fusion is that Parallels let you take how many snapshots of the system as you want, and go back and forth how you want, while (at least the stable version) of VMWare only let you take on single snapshot.
For me as a developer it's really useful to have all thoose snapshots, for example with my Windows installations I have a snapshot taken when the system is clean and if something bad happens I can always go back to that, so if I screw up something, I just go back, and if that I wanted is working, I just make a new snapshot, test the next thing, make a new snapshot etc.
Snapshots can eat away some diskspace, but it is really useful, and can save alot of time sometimes. :)
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Posted by flashbak on 07/01/2008 at 09:00:08 am in Systm
Did Patrick really say "spring-loaded ass"...
Anyone care to elaborate? :)
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Posted by Bani-Banan on 07/01/2008 at 04:26:24 am in Systm
"
Tell me, what did he miss?
What is a difference between virtualization and emulation?
Emulation or simulation
The virtual machine simulates the complete hardware, allowing an unmodified "guest" OS for a completely different CPU (using a different instruction set) to be run. This approach has long been used to enable the creation of software for new processors before they were physically available. Examples include Bochs, PearPC, PowerPC version of Virtual PC, QEMU without acceleration, and the Hercules emulator. Emulation is implemented using a variety of techniques, from state machines to the use of dynamic recompilation on a full virtualization platform. See also Emulate or Simulate and List of emulators.
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