Parallels vs. VMware fusion

G

gypsy

Junior Member
Hi there,
It is my understanding that parallels uses much more RAM then vmware fusion, and vmware fusion is offering more functionality with it's latest release. Anyone using/used both that can offer pros/cons? My main purpose is to use IE7 to print paypal shipping labels, as paypal does not support macintosh. So i need to run software for dymo printer as well as an HP printer. I would also like to run an older version of Quickbooks. Aside from this, I have limited need for a PC. I am trying to determine best option as I understand that with either, XP freezes commonly. I love the ability to drag and drop files from pc to mac. Thanks for your honest feedback!
 
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I have used both and recently switched to Fusion because of stability issues and suspend/resume.

I've found the USB support to be far superior in Fusion so I have no doubt your label printer will work. BUT... I have never tested that sort of thing.

Quickbooks, IE7, no problem. I'd download the eval version of Fusion and try the printer thing. Once you make a VM in Fusion you can keep it. IE if you decide to buy Fusion your same eval VM will remain fully functional.

Mark
 
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All great info, thanks so much to you all!
I will try the trial, of course "after" i find the XP OS, I hope it is an easy process.
My biggest concern is I often hear XP freezes a lot in fusion. As for support, I thought you must buy support tickets for fusion? I just want whatever solution is fast, but stable.....and does not slow my system down which is the concern with parallels. WIth fusion can you drag and drop word doc's etc? Can you also copy all files from PC over to it via back up/thumb drive? Life will be so much easier! Thanks
 
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The process is very easy. In fact if you are worried you could install XP but do not activate it. This way you would run it for 30 days without killing an XP install.

Where did you hear XP freezes in Fusion?

I run a MacBookPro 2.6 ghz machine with 4gb of RAM. I have the following Fusion VMs:

1) Windows XP pro (converted from Parallels)
2) Windows XP pro (converted from Parallels - Same license as above but wit different compilers installed - I can't run #1 and #2 at the same time.
3) Windows XP pro - Different license
4) Windows XP home edition
5) Windows2000

At any one time during the day I have usually:

#1, #4 open for sure. Sometimes I open #3 at the same time. Three distinct WinXP VMs all running at the same time!

The uptime currently on my MacBookPro is reported at 10 days. Here is the process line from (ps) for my VMWare:

0 10370 1 4140 0 53 0 1058120 587340 - Rs 8442de0 ?? 2155:23.11 /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmx/Contents/MacOS/vmware-vmx -E en -D l4Kn0rF9n4MDQgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA= -# product=1;name=VMware Fusion;version=1.1;licensename=VMware Fusion for Mac OS;licenseversion=6.0 build-62573;

Note the time: 2155:23:11 that the process has been running. In the last 10 days I've had WinXP home edition open almost continuously. I think I did one reboot after a program I was writing hung. I've had Win XP pro (converted from parallels) running most of the time too.

In fact since switching to Fusion from Parallels, I've never had a "freeze". The VMs all run great. Only stupid user things like trying to open more VMs than I have memory for once caused a bunch of swapping but not a freeze.

So not sure where you heard that. I don't get that behavior at all. Rock solid.

Mark
 
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wow, pretty impressive! What was your main reason for switching?
And would you say just as user friendly to use fusion? Keep in mind I am new to Mac.
It appears I just need to purchase the OS at a decent price (and office) and then I can start my trial. Too bad I cannot just download the OS, since it means waiting until it is delivered.
Thanks again!
 
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Main reason for switching was that Parallels 3.x which was highly recommended and sold by Parallels had many different problems that never seemed to get fixed. Performance went down from the earlier version and biggest issues were suspend/resume sort of quit working. Often your VM would hang resuming.

It is really this simple:

1) You install Fusion. You run it. It asks you about creating a VM. This is where you need the Windows disk. I'm not sure but I think you need a full copy not an upgrade version.

Perhaps for your trial you can beg/borrow a copy to try.

2) You put the disk in. You supply the windows key off the disk.

3) You sit back and wait.

After the install is done you will have in your Fusion window a list containing the WinXP you just installed.

You click on it. It boots and it runs.

There are some tricky parts to both Parallels and VMWare that are centered around sharing network, USB and other system resources. Remember you have MacOS co-residing and hosting WinXP under Fusion.

So things like USB are shared, as well as CDROM, network etc. Most are pretty easy but for example you have several different network types for your VM: NAT, bridged, and host only.

As a new user knowing which to choose takes some reading or asking questions. In short:

NAT means that Fusion gives your WinXP an IP address and handles all translation to go out the Mac net adapter. To the world your Mac looks like it has one OS and one IP but really MacOS and WinXP are sharing the network adapter.

This mode is great for places like Starbucks where they only give you one IP.

Bridged is better for guys like me that want their VM to look like a totally separate machine. The VM goes out and gets an IP address from any DHCP server. So my MacOS has a different IP than my WinXP. Good for development, bad for places where they kind of want one IP per physical machine.

Host only means your WinXP can not get to the outside world. It is limited to networking inside your machine I believe. Never tried this one though.

So there are things like that, that you will have to play with.

M
 
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wow, sounds like i have much to learn! Well I would think NAT is best for my needs, although uncertain. But question is do I "need" to get to the outside world in order to download? This sounds silly but do I need virusware? I have none on the Mac as is but although I know it is necessary for bootcamp unsure about fusion. I am concerned about this of course. Doesnt sound like I will need bootcamp at all. And just twice the work, any thoughts on this? Maybe some benefit to having it but not sure what.
 
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gypsy said:
wow, sounds like i have much to learn! Well I would think NAT is best for my needs, although uncertain. But question is do I "need" to get to the outside world in order to download? This sounds silly but do I need virusware? I have none on the Mac as is but although I know it is necessary for bootcamp unsure about fusion. I am concerned about this of course. Doesnt sound like I will need bootcamp at all. And just twice the work, any thoughts on this? Maybe some benefit to having it but not sure what.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that you have much to learn... you have much to play with. Different options will be better for different things.

If you need to download then yes you will need access from your VM to the outside world. IE7 is by definition an outside world program. IE it is supposed to connect to websites.

WinXP is extremely vulnerable to viruses and threats. Especially if you run IE7. (better than 6 but still can be crashed easily).

There are several things that should offer you piece of mind:

1) The MacOS is not very prone to virus and other attacks. So far the virus pep boys have not targeted this OS strongly. While they exists they are not common and do not transmit well through Windows machine (which are the vast majority out there).

2) Since your WinXP is in a VM you can sort of hide it behind the MacOS by using the NAT feature. However once connected to a website via IE7 you have opened a conduit directly from the outside world into your WinXP VM. So yes you should have some kind of AV stuff installed on your WinXP to be safe.

3) Since your WinXP is a VM and as such resides in a set of files you can very easily copy and save off "clean versions." This to me is one of the biggest and best features of VM technology. I can now run WinXP install ANYTHING I want and if it blows up my XP install (as many bad programs can) I simply stop the VM, copy over my recent clean copy and move forward. I cannot tell you how many times I have re-installed WinXP because my son (on his computer) started to click on pop ups. Some of the pop ups got around pop up blockers and installed free shopping desktops and thousands of other things. At one point his computer was impossible to turn on as it would start popping up window after window of free offers and would bog down the CPU. It required a full wipe and re-install. With VM technology, life would have been MUCH MUCH simpler.

So when you finally decide on Parallels or Fusion here is the path to take:

1) Install your XP. After it has installed, let it download all service pack updates from M$. Once it is done. Shutdown windows (like normal) and this will stop the VM. Now copy this VM file somewhere safe and name it: Clean XP install. You now have a base XP machine to revert back to.

2) Now start installing your printer drivers, IE7 and whatever you want. At each point where you have success, repeat step 1 but name the VM something different like: Clean XP with printer driver working.

3) Finally you will get to a state where you have everything installed and working as you want it. Including AV. Make sure you save this machine before you start doing any real work. It is your primary recovery too.

I make sure to have on hand about 3 different backups of my VMs. I have clean, recent good working and a few others. They have saved my bacon more than once.

The only way to do something similar to this in bootcamp is to use an imaging tool liek Acronis. I can do all this copy/restore while I work in MacOS.

Also bootcamp eats up some number of gb of your drive for the partition. While the VMs do the same in Fusion or Parallels you can host them on an external drive if you wish thereby leaving your entire Mac HD for the Mac.

M
 
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For me parallels is better than vmware. Opengl aplications i need in some 3D programm's work better. Office is faster.

The interface off parallels is much nicer and easier to use.

So far no problems with unstable build's (working with parallels from build 1970).

Both programm's are good so at the end it is a personal matter. When i look at vmware forums they also have their problems.

Here is a good article :

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...shots_in_mactech_virtualization_shootout.html
 
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For me parallels is better than vmware. Opengl aplications i need in some 3D programm's work better. Office is faster.

The interface off parallels is much nicer and easier to use.

So far no problems with unstable build's (working with parallels from build 1970).

Both programm's are good so at the end it is a personal matter. When i look at vmware forums they also have their problems.

Here is a good article :

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...shots_in_mactech_virtualization_shootout.html
Parallels earns additional recommendations for those who depend on a tight link between Mac OS X and Windows, though VMware's solution may be better for Windows software that depends on multiple cores.
 
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For what you wanted to do, either Parallels or VMWare will do. Running on OS/X 10.4.11, the latest build (5582) of Parallels has been quite stable. Its CPU footprint has been greatly reduced as well with only about 5% CPU at idle. As a result, I can now afford to have an XP Pro VM running all the time. The current session has been up for five days without any problem.

Drag-and-drop files from XP VM to OS/X works fine but dragging from the other direction is broken. Parallels has acknowledge that problem. Hopefully, they can fix it soon.
 
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Thanks so much, this will help me a great deal! Seems that some still really prefer parallels. I am looking for ease of use, and it appears Mac supports vmware over parallels for some reason, that says something?
 
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I don't know about Apple supporting Fusion or not. They used to also sell Parallels in the stores.

As far as drag and drop, not sure what you mean.

Within the Windows XP VM you can do everything (almost) windows allows.... IE you can drag and drop in there just fine.

Outside in Mac world you can drag and drop out there too.

As far as dragging something from mac into the VM... I don't think it works that way. Cut/paste does work. IE you go into some document in WinXP, select, cut or copy and then go out to MacOS and paste and you will get what you cut/copied in WinXP.

Both Parallels and Fusion have "shared" folders which allow you to designate Mac folders that are visible to the WinXP VM. You can copy and move files easily that way.

You can also use standard windows drive sharing. You can publish your WinXP drive as a shared drive and Mac can see it.

Lots of ways to move files.

M
 
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gypsy said:
Thanks so much, this will help me a great deal! Seems that some still really prefer parallels. I am looking for ease of use, and it appears Mac supports vmware over parallels for some reason, that says something?
Click to expand...

This is a Parallels forum so you are going to get Parallels bias here. For a full picture of Fusion, you need to visit VMWare forum.
 
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Actually to get the full picture you need to use both VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop yourself. Fortunately both VMWare and Parallels offer fully functional trials of their software, so you can try both and see which works best for you.
 
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Awesome forum, thanks so much for all of your help!
I just ordered my XP and will try both. I hope not too much on my Mac though to have both running, yikes! Just having Leopard has slowed me down much as that beachball is all too regular a visitor lately!
Cant wait to get started. Thanks
 
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gypsy said:
Awesome forum, thanks so much for all of your help!
I just ordered my XP and will try both. I hope not too much on my Mac though to have both running, yikes! Just having Leopard has slowed me down much as that beachball is all too regular a visitor lately!
Cant wait to get started. Thanks
Click to expand...

Sounds like you need more RAM. Whether you end up using Fusion or Parallels you will need as much RAM as possible (1 GB minimum, although I would recommend you get at least 2 GB or running Mac applications while Fusion or Parallels is running won't really be possible). If you have any difficulties installing or using Parallels just make a post on these boards.
 
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