Crossover vs Parallels
Can anybody advise me about the choise between Crossover or Parallels
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), iOS 9.3.1, OS X El Capitan version 10.11.4
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After the notices we have recently received from Quicken about the coming changes with the transition from Intuit, I was afraid concerned. When Quicken issues a new release of their software, the good people at Codeweavers frequently must modify CrossOver to accommodate the changes. That didn’t use to be a huge deal since (a) such releases were infrequent, and (b) us users were able to wait for the impacts of the release to be analyzed and the modifications to be made, tested and released.
Now, however, Quicken is working hard to demonstrate a higher level of commitment to their customer base by releasing fixes and improvements much more frequently (called “continuous delivery”) and they presumably have deadline commitments to Intuit to stop depending on Intuit ID. Quicken issued five (5) new releases in just the last month! The other thing they’ve been doing is re-designing their update capabilities such that users will no longer be able to decide whether or when to update Quicken.
What this means for CrossOver is that the great people at Codeweavers is extremely challenged to keep up with the pace of these changes. For each release, it takes time, effort and resources to evaluate and resolve all the changes so Quicken can work again. New releases now frequently prevent us from using Quicken at all; I’ve had to “roll back” from new versions to previous versions several times.
I rely heavily on Quicken for Windows; I use it to manage not only my personal finances, but also a small investment partnership and two family trusts, so when I saw that the releases after R10 involved an irreversible transition from Intuit ID to Quicken ID, I realized that in order to keep using Quicken (at least in the near term), I had to find an alternative to CrossOver. However, I really did not want to load up my Mac with a virtual machine such as Parallels or VMware Fusion - AND Windows… They are incredibly bloated and use a LOT of disk space and RAM (and are not inexpensive).
Well, I found a solution that works well, at least for now, is not expensive, and is worth sharing. It’s similar to the alternative in concept (virtual machine plus Windows), but not in size or execution. A new virtual machine called Veertu Desktop (https://veertu.com/veertu-desktop/) is very lightweight (13.7MB!) and free. It uses Mac's hypervisor framework that Apple built into OS X. It is very secure, but has a number of limitations, However, those limitations are negligible for those of us who only want to run Quicken for Windows while simultaneously running Mac OS. Here are some articles: https://www.pcmag.com/review/345818/veertu , http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2016/01/native-mac-osx-virtualization-with.html . It’s no longer in the App store, but available from Veertu directly. Step one solved.
Step two: how to get a lean version of Windows, without Cortana and the dozens (if not hundreds) of unneeded, unnecessary junk to take up space on my 256G drive and 8G of RAM? Well, I learned that Windows makes such a version of Windows 10 for single-function mission critical applications in the enterprise market (e.g ATMs, manufacturing, etc.). It’s called Windows 10 Long-Term Service Branch (LTSB). According to this article (https://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-ex plained/): (1) It doesn’t come with Windows Store, Cortana, Microsoft Edge browser, Calendar, Camera, Clock, Mail, Money, Music, News, OneNote, Sports, and Weather. (2) It will be supported for 10 years. (3) "Because the LTSB version is designed for stability, it’s updated very differently from other builds of Windows 10. Microsoft will never publish a feature update like the Anniversary Update or November Update for Windows 10 LTSB. These ... will get security and bugfix updates through Windows Update, but that’s it." Perfect.
According to the same article, Windows makes 90-day evaluation versions to anyone and, "It’ll function normally for 90 days, after which it’ll begin nagging you to activate Windows. But Windows 10 is perfectly functional even without activation, so you should be able to use it as long as you like without entering a product key. You’ll just have to put up with nag screens.” A small price to pay for a clean, lightweight version of Windows.
And, best of all? It works!! So far, I’ve had fewer issues running Quicken than with CrossOver. I’ve been able to update to R14 (via the R14 Mondo patch), set up my Quicken ID, update my accounts online, reconcile accounts, etc. But there are limitations and it’s not very intuitive. This to be aware of include (1) supposedly one can share folders between OS X and the Windows as if they were both on the same network, but I haven’t figured out how to do that. Instead, I set up a OneDrive account and access that from both my Mac OS and Windows (i.e. to transfer Quicken files, Quicken release update files, etc.). (2) Veertu doesn't let you resize the window on the fly by dragging on the window border, so you'll have to use the control panel in the guest OS to set its screen resolution. (3) While Windows and Quicken connect to the internet, I have been unable to do the same with my printer. So, my workaround is to print to a file, save the file to OneDrive, and open/print it from there outside the virtual machine.
I hope this helps others who rely greatly on Quicken, and I hope the great people at Codeweavers eventually are able to catch up to Quicken's fast and furious release schedule.
