Evaluating Parallels, Bootcamp question

J

John1234

Junior Member
I have a 2010 macbook pro 15 running yosemite. The HDD is a 300 gb hd with a 100 gb bootcamp partition running windows 7 pro.

I have autocad lite 2009, and a couple of other programs I use loaded and running on the Windows 7 side of the machine. Rebooting back and forth is getting to be bothersome.

I don't really understand how Parallels and virtual machines work - but I'm wondering if I can essentially recover the bootcamp partiton space if I use Parallels instead of bootcamp. If I can, do I need to reinstall all my windows software? I also have several spreadsheets that have macros that are windows only macros and will not run in the OS/x environment. So i have an old version of office on the bootcamp partition. I don't want to loose the spreadsheets (they are commercial spreadsheets, I did not write them)

Ultimately I'd like to upgrade the drive to a bigger drive, possibly an SDD drive, trying to clone/copy/migrate a partitioned drive seems to be a pita. If I could get this thing setup with OS/x and parallels wtihout haveing to do major reconstruction and program reloads it would be much more convenient.

John
 
I do not know how to migrate from a bootcamp to VM. I am a developer and not a SA! I can however tell you that once you go to a VM you will never look back. I am a windoze developer who finds using a Mac/Parallels VM solution so much faster and simpler than the traditional developer "box".

Just be sure to max out your box with respect to memory and SSD/disk space. You can never have too much of either of these. I am running a 16 GB system with approx. 1 TB of SSD space.

As to why Parallels versus bootcamp? The ability to cut and paste between host/guest OS'es is by itself worth all the money it costs. The fact that I can run office on my mac, develop under windows, and transparently move files back and forth (all at the same time) is all sauce to the goose.
 
There's a KB article here which says that the VM is a separate 'thing' from the bootcamp partition: http://kb.parallels.com/en/113658.
So after migrating you should be able to see the VM at either Documents/Parallels folder inside your user folder, or /Users/Shared/Parallels. If it's there then you can verify your stuff still works and delete the old partition to recover the space.

+1 L2Lensman on the benefits of using VMs. 16GB and SSD are sweet too. I'm also a dev and doing some security work (requiring some specialised distros), and the case for Mac/Win/linux all on the same physical box is really really strong.
 
Thank you. I ended up buying Parallels 10 and installing it. It gave me the option to install on the bootcamp drive, which I did. That may have been a mistake, I'm not sure, I think what it in effect does is make the bootcamp partition a windows only storage device for something. It's going ok, but just ok, not great. Some issues are just from starting the climb up the learning curve. I've managed to kill the coherence mode once, and got it back, I think. I'm having some issues with the jerky mouse problem in autocad. Attempts to fix that have caused other issues - but I'm up and running. I've been thinking of adding an SSD, if I do that I think i will just do a completely clean install rather than trying to clone disks and migrate. I can always move documents over from the old HDD if I mount it in an external enclosure.
 
@John1234 that doesn't sound right... I'm no expert, and I'm not using BootCamp. I probably wouldn't have put Parallels on the BootCamp partition though - you've likely just got Parallels in a Windows 7 host.

All I did was install parallels into Mac OS X like any other app. Then I launched it and used File | New... to set up a bunch of VMs. They generally go in very smoothly and run up fine (assuming they have 2CPUs and 4-8GB RAM to play in). I guess then you'd use the KB article I referred to convert your Win7 Bootcamp into a Parallels VM so you can get the partition back.

Get an SSD if you can afford one - reliability much improved over 4-5 years ago, and so much quicker as a boot disk. You know you want to.

Coherence mode (wibble):
If you tend to run your Windows apps in full-screen then the difference between coherence and full-screen modes isn't apparent anyway.

I usually run guests in full-screen mode, which allows my small brain to keep track of what's what by doing a clean mental context-switch between OS. After a month of that I'm confident enough of Parallels to play with Coherence and it seems fine, although a bit clunky when starting up the guest OS. I'm still _slightly_ confused about where my files are though.

The worst part about coherence is the design clash between the various OS UX. I can be running Mac OS X + 3 VMs in a day, and although Yosemite has cleaned up some of the horrors of Mac OS X putting it next to Windows 8.1, Ubuntu Unity and an XFCE desktop... makes me wince.

The best bit about coherence - there's almost no friction. You just do your thing.
 
Thank you. I ordered a 500gb samsung 840 evo ssd last night. Hopefully I can get it installed and clean up my messes! I'd like to just bite the bullet and do a clean o/s install and get parallels up and running before I install any windows software. It will be a bit of a learning curve.
 
John1234 said:
It gave me the option to install on the bootcamp drive, which I did. That may have been a mistake, I'm not sure, I think what it in effect does is make the bootcamp partition a windows only storage device for something.
Click to expand...

It just means it found your Bootcamp Windows installation and asked you if you wanted to use that in Parallels as a Virtual Machine, so either you boot this partition natively or via Parallels it will have the same files and programs, the other options would be:
1. To install a new copy of Windows under Parallels, create a new Virtual Machine but with a Virtual Drive/Hard Disk instead of a real partition (the harddisk will be a file).
2. To migrate the Bootcamp installation to a Virtual Disk. Clones Bootcamp to a separate Virtual Hard Drive.

Any of the above options are still available.

In terms of performance between basing the Virtual Machine of a real Partition or a Virtual one there isn't any noticeable difference, all else being equal.
 
If I proceed with a clean O/S install and install parallels then windows, is a native bootcamp partition ever created - or even needed?
 
John1234 said:
If I proceed with a clean O/S install and install parallels then windows, is a native bootcamp partition ever created - or even needed?
Click to expand...

Bootcamp partition is only created if you run Bootcamp Assistant.app. It's only needed if you wish to boot natively into Windows at any point, meaning, not run it as a Virtual Machine.

You might want to backup your Windows files from the current Bootcamp partition.
 
If I were to install and run the Parallels Transporter could I then migrate everything off of the bootcamp partition into the VM? Then I would have the ability to just do a carbon copy clone to populate the new SSD and ignore the bootcamp partition altogether. From what I gather from my question on activation license for P10 I still would need to uninstall Parallels Desktop and reinstall on the new drive after the cloning operation.
 
That's too complicated, there is an easier solution, that has already been referred at least 2 times, Parallels has the ability to migrate/import a bootcamp partition to a virtual disk.

2. To migrate the Bootcamp installation to a Virtual Disk. Clones Bootcamp to a separate Virtual Hard Drive.
Click to expand...

There was a link posted earlier ( http://kb.parallels.com/en/113658 ) that has instructions on how to do that.
 
Ok, that answers that.

The kb article indicates that after doing the import you would still be able to use the original bootcamp partition. Does this mean that for licensed programs you are using 2 seats? One on the bootcamp partition and one on the VM? Also, are files linked - i.e. if I open auto cad on the VM and work on a dwg file, is the dwg file on the bootcamp partition updated as well - or is it now totally independent of the VM files? I presume it's 2 seats/licenses on the software, and independent files.
 
First, before continuing reading, please consider if you really need to know the answer to all these hypothesis if you are going to ditch Bootcamp anyway, I mean, I don't want to sound impatient, but why waste everybody's time if you already decided otherwise.

That very much depends on what exactly does the corresponding EULA permit. For example some will consider per seat, others per copies installed, or even per machine, these are subtle differences, but a VM running in the same machine as the Bootcamp would be able to use the same license in the later case (per machine, which the case of the Windows EULA). I have no idea of the wording Autodesk uses, but I'm sure they have a FAQ about it, also, AD now also has an ACAD for Mac if that's a viable option for you. But you are ditching Bootcamp anyway, aren't you, so it doesn't matter.

The second question depends on where the file is saved, physically, that very much depends on the sharing configurations. If it's there when you boot into Bootcamp, then it's saved in the bc partition, upon importing it to a virtual disk and thus making a copy of Bootcamp, it will bring that file with it but it will be no longer in sync, however, if you just use the Bootcamp partition in Parallels without importing then it remains in sync.

Sounds confusing? Well, you really need to grasp these concepts, of where exactly are the files being saved, I suggest reading the User Guide.

But anyway, again, if you are ditching Bootcamp, it doesn't matter.
 
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Thanks for your patience, I do appreciate it.

I'd love to trash bootcamp - but being still unsure of the specifics of a VM I'm having trouble losing my security blanket.

Auto cad lite 2009 is working under P10 - but it's a bit jerky and a bit unresponsive. Copying entities, selecting and moving entities is jerky for a number of folks on parallels, but it isn't a problem on bootcamp in native windows. So i'm trying to come up to speed on setting up a VM, learning how to work Autocad in a virtual environment, and while i'm at it, do a hdd to SSD upgrade on the machine, and understand licensing issues because I can't have the software down when I finally make the transition to the new drive. I think some of the Autocad issues will go away with fairly precise tuning of various software and hardware packages - but it's hard to be sure, and any number of people gave up trying to make it work. There are many, many try this and try that KB articles on auto cad forums, parallels forums, mac os/x forums - but really its hit and miss.

I know I can solve the auto cad problem by sending autodesk a check for $1200 or so and get a new copy now available in os/x environment. Which I probably will do eventually, but it's not in the cards right now. Unfortunately the other software I use costs about $5000 to replace - and it is not available in an OS/x version anyway.

When all is said and done, I just need it to work. The OS and the hardware are tools for me, a means to an end.
 
5k, that sounds like SolidWorks, well considering these are graphic a RAM intensive apps, I would use Parallels with a Bootcamp partition, that would give you the option of booting natively if you need more power.
 
No, not solidworks. Its an older finite element structural analysis package: beams, columns, plates, static and dynamic response. More computationally intensive than graphics. Lots of large matrix operations. There is some rendering done for model viewing, my version of the package is old enough that the graphics modules are pretty limited. I have not yet tried running it under parallels.
 
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