Which is better (Boot Camp) or (Parallel / VMware Fusion)???

http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.24/24.02/VirtualizationBenchmark/
Note though, if you want to avoid viruses, but still have good support of applications CrossOver may be better, as it requires no Windows:

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/

See also my FAQ* on suggestions for migrating to Mac OS X native applications:

http://www.macmaps.com/crossplatform.html

- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Based on my experience, Parallels and XP are the best combo for Windows. If you intend to run Linux, then VMWare gets the nod. Their tech support is about equal - great for nerds, not so great for mere mortals. BootCamp is the undisputed winner if your program is graphics intensive.

I use both boot camp and vmware fusion. A neat feature of vmware fusion is you can access your boot camp partition as a virtual machine from vmware. This way, you can have both. I believe parallels might also let you do that but I have never used it. This has been helpful to me if I need to access a file from the boot camp partition quickly and easily without rebooting my computer.

I agree with dwb that xp is probably going to be the best os to run through a virtualization software.

I honestly don't think you can go wrong with either parallels or vmware fusion. There is also a FREE software package created by sun called VirtualBox.
Here is the link to there home page: http://www.virtualbox.org/
I hear and read that it is excellent as well.

Hope this helps.

I chose to use Bootcamp on my computer since I am running a lot of graphic-intense programs (such as Rhino, AutoCAD, Adobe CS4, Solidworks, etc). It works perfect. Since I can't access my Mac partition I basically have to treat my two partitions as two separate computers. It isn't too bad since my Mac partition is mostly just for surfing the net and making movies, editing home photos, etc. My Windows partition is for work, rendering, editing projects, etc...

So far I'm liking my system. I bought a wacom tablet recently and that came with 2 free programs so I installed Photoshop Elements on my Mac partition alongside Corel Sketchpad. So I guess in emergencies, I can still do a little editing on my Mac partition.

If you will be using graphic intense software, you will want to use boot camp. Apple is wonderful for graphics and design, but as rakquel mentioned, sometimes you need to use a windows only program such as Solid Works or Autocad. Also, to be fair, Windows is great at graphics and design. Just depends on what software you use.

If you are going to just be using microsoft office or other simple programs, then you will be fine to use virtualization software. If you will be gaming or using programs like Solid Works, then go with boot camp.

Or you can use both, like I mentioned above. This will give you the most flexibility. If you need to run a graphic intense program, you can boot into windows, or if you are already in os x and need to run microsoft office, just fire up your virtualization software, and access your windows boot camp partition that way.

Try Sun's open source virtual box VM software. It's free and works well.

Guitarcal wrote:
I use both boot camp and vmware fusion. A neat feature of vmware fusion is you can access your boot camp partition as a virtual machine from vmware. This way, you can have both. I believe parallels might also let you do that but I have never used it. This has been helpful to me if I need to access a file from the boot camp partition quickly and easily without rebooting my computer.

I agree with dwb that xp is probably going to be the best os to run through a virtualization software.

I honestly don't think you can go wrong with either parallels or vmware fusion. There is also a FREE software package created by sun called VirtualBox.
Here is the link to there home page: http://www.virtualbox.org/
I hear and read that it is excellent as well.

Hope this helps.

I just installed parallels and you can use your bootcamp partition for the vm with parallels as well. Its pretty slick. Use it for light applications with parallel, reboot to bootcamp for graphics intensive ones.

Cheers.

Thanks, thats good to know!

Hello! I am running Snow Leopard and also using Boot camp to partition my hard disk to run Windows 7. It works great and all, but I just got VMware Fusion 2.0 (couldnʻt wait for the 3.0), and I wanted to convert all my Boot Camp partition to the VMware Fusion which I havenʻt installed yet. I know that I COULD run Boot Camp and VMware Fusion on my computer, but I have a limited hard drive which is filling up quickly (160gb).

Two questions: How do I transfer the info I have on the Windows 7 Boot Camp partition to the VMware Fusion? Also, I like how Windows 7 works on Boot Camp. How is it running on VMware Fusion as a parallel? Anyone know?

Thanks!

m

Does Parallels run better by itself or with Boot Camp?