Parallels or VMWare for ASP.NET Developer

Recent benchmarks show Parallels Desktop as edging VMWare Fusion as far as pure performance goes, but I've had so many problem with Parallels compared to VMWare that I generally recommend VMWare in spite of the lower level of performance. For instance, I've found Parallels to be problematic in both stability - crashes and corruption of the virtual machine image as well as problems with some functions such as keyboard input, as well as regular problems with upgrades not correctly recognizing a virtual machine that was perfectly fine under the previous Parallels version. YMMV.

You can read the article of comprehensive benchmark tests on MacTech and make your own decision:

http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.25/25.04/VMBenchmarks/index-001.html

Regards.

I am a VS.net developer and I have been using VMWare with no issues. I haven't used Parallels so I can't comment on that at all. I use VMWare in unity mode and frequently copy things back and forth between the two environments to test in multiple versions of each browser, etc. I find the performance to be reasonably good and would not want to go back to just working on a Windows machine. My productivity has soared since I made the switch. It's particularly nice to know that my Windows VM will not have to be reformatted in a year due to virus, etc because I never use it to visit any websites...only to code. My old Windows-only machines would become so slow after a year or so that they were unusable, due to random spyware and viruses picked up just by doing some light web surfing. I don't have that problem anymore.

HTH,

Bob

Do you know if the entire VMWare "environment" is kept in one big file so that I can easily back it up?

Yes, the virtual disk for the guest OS is a single Mac file, so it can be backed up and duplicated just as with any other Mac file. And you can have multiple virtual disk files for different operating systems and/or configurations.

Do you know if I can use BOOT CAMP to boot into Windows and use my asp.net files from the VMFusion "partition"?

I don't think so, but I'm not sure. Windows would first have to be able to access the Mac partition which would take third-party drivers (MacDrive), and then there would have to be a way in WIndows to open/mount the VMWare disk image. You might ask about that on VMWare's own forums.

If you want to have both Boot Camp and VMWare, your best option might be to install Windows via Boot Camp and then point VMWare Fusion to that partition for it's OS. That way you can have both virtualization and native boot when you need it, but have only one set of files and one copy of Windows to maintain.