Coherence Or Unity For Noob?

[Mr Skills]

I know that there are a lot of Parallels vs Fusion questions, but mine is quite specific.

I want to set up my noob parents' iMac so that it can run a few windows-only programs (e.g. IE for the occasional site that needs it). I want it to be absolutely as transparent as possible, so the programs seamlessly appear on the dock and are indistinguishable from mac programs. Ideally, when they quit the program, windows will also quit in the background, so it is not hogging resources.

So which is better for truly transparent, don't-know-windows-is-there operation?


(Obviously, really techie features are not important to me, except when they replicate the mac experience, like minimising and expose)

 

[Muncher]

IIRC, both parallels and fusion run all windows programs inside a single, self-contained mac window. If you really want something transparent (I don't know how well it works but it shouldn't be too bad), look up crossover mac.

 

[Mr Skills]

Crossover is a bit overkill, I think. I guess I'm just asking how transparent Unity and Coherence really are once they are set up. I can do the set-up at the beginning, as long as when I leave my parents and go back home I can say "if you find a website that doesn't work, just try using the big "e" icon in the dock"

 

[brkirch]

Parallels' Coherence is more transparent. It allows you to boot Coherence silently at startup, a feature that Fusion's Unity does not have. Not to mention Coherence also allows for documents to be opened from the Mac OS directly into Windows programs (Unity doesn't).

IIRC, both parallels and fusion run all windows programs inside a single, self-contained mac window. If you really want something transparent (I don't know how well it works but it shouldn't be too bad), look up crossover mac.

That is actually incorrect, both Parallels and Fusion have a mode to allow for each Windows program to appear in a separate window on the Mac desktop.

 

[plinden]

If it's just IE you want, install ies4osx - http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

Like Crossover, it uses Darwine, but for free. It's a port of ies4linux, that I use at work to access a couple of our HR-related internal sites that for some reason are IE only (despite complaints from annoying techies like me). All it really is, is a script to download and set up the version(s) of IE you choose - you can do that manually, but this makes it quick and easy.

One caveat, since WINE (which Darwine is a port of) doesn't support later versions of WMP, you won't get any Windows-only (ie DRM'ed) media playback.

 

[Mr Skills]

Parallels' Coherence is more transparent. It allows you to boot Coherence silently at startup, a feature that Fusion's Unity does not have. Not to mention Coherence also allows for documents to be opened from the Mac OS directly into Windows programs (Unity doesn't).

Just to complicate matters, I probably wouldn't want it loading on startup, wasting resources when it's not going to be needed *that* often (only if they ring up and go "why can't I use xyz on my Mac?"). I don't mind the app needing 30 seconds to start up as long as it just looks like a slow Mac program as far as possible

If it's just IE you want, install ies4osx - http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

That's a pretty cool little app! Unfortunately, windows media video sites (iplayer etc) are probably the number one most likely problem , as they are the sort of thing where you can run into a brick wall on the mac. (Of course, MS are tying up the video market to marginalise the Mac, and Apple are putting all their eggs in the iTunes basket, but that's a whole other thread!).

 

[brkirch]

Just to complicate matters, I probably wouldn't want it loading on startup, wasting resources when it's not going to be needed *that* often (only if they ring up and go "why can't I use xyz on my Mac?"). I don't mind the app needing 30 seconds to start up as long as it just looks like a slow Mac program as far as possible

Actually, I worded that incorrectly. Parallels can boot Coherence silently when it starts up. Parallels itself won't start until a Windows application is opened or it is opened directly.

 

[Mr Skills]

Actually, I worded that incorrectly. Parallels can boot Coherence silently when it starts up. Parallels itself won't start until a Windows application is opened or it is opened directly.

I think I understood what you meant - my concern is that Windows would be running in the background, which is a waste. I would rather it just loaded a snapshot when you clicked on the App's icon in the dock, even i it means waiting a little longer for the app to load. I just want it to be seamless, even if it's slow.

 

[ClassicMac247]

look up crossovers mac.

 

[brkirch]

I think I understood what you meant - my concern is that Windows would be running in the background, which is a waste. I would rather it just loaded a snapshot when you clicked on the App's icon in the dock, even i it means waiting a little longer for the app to load. I just want it to be seamless, even if it's slow.

Parallels won't start until the icon in the dock is clicked so for the most part it does what you want. The only problem is that, AFAIK, there is no way to set it up so Parallels automatically shuts down the virtual machine when no Windows applications are open. Although when command-Q is pressed it will automatically suspend or shutdown (depending on what you have it setup to do).

 

[Bill Gates]

If you just need IE and WMP, then it isn't Crossover that is overkill, but instead both VMWare and Parallels. CrossOver Mac fits the bill perfectly.

 

[Mr Skills]

If you just need IE and WMP, then it isn't Crossover that is overkill, but instead both VMWare and Parallels. CrossOver Mac fits the bill perfectly.

Well, it's not just WMP, it's other programs that use the codec like BBC iPlayer etc. Also, the occasional unexpected app - like, say, they buy a new satnav and the software doesn't work.