ToMo75 wrote:
So I will have to install Parallels, then install Windows 7 and then install Visio to make it work. That sounds like a solution. Does anyone have experience with this?
Running Windows in a virtual machine is a very common solution for Windows only apps. While I only do limited work with Visio, I have several Access databases and Crystal Reports I need to use (and of course, no Mac versions of either,) and I run those in a VMware Fusion virtual machine. (Basically the same as Parallels.) No need to have to reboot to Boot Camp. 🙂
...want to use my 2006 MacBook Pro...
Where you may run into problems with virtualization is that you need "double the RAM." Meaning you need enough RAM to run Windows simultaneously with OSX. With Windows 7, you'll want to allocate 2GB of RAM, which means you want a Mac with 4GB of RAM so that the Mac doesn't run out of memory. I don't know what the specs are of your MBP but if yours maxes out at 2GB, then you'll probably have to limit the Windows virtual machine to 1GB of RAM, which may be too little to run Visio effectively if you have large files. In that case, you may be better off with using Boot Camp to install Windows, which then would provide all your RAM to Windows.