So i am new to macs (about 7months old) and have never used scripts or anything like that, so i am a little wary about running parallels on my macbook. How easy is it to run windows on a mac without having any experience doing it?? I really have no reason for running it other than the odd game since the new parallels has 3d graphics now. Please help me out. Also how easy is it to uninstall the windows if i do not like the way it works?
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How easy is it to run windows for a noobie??
- Thread starter brando06
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It depends
I"m assuming you don't want to install bootcamp and dual-boot your laptop between mac and windows.
Parallels desktop 3.0 isn't out yet and still in beta phase for the moment. But if the install is similar to the previous version, you install parallels like any other mac application. No scripts are needed.
When you start Parallels, you can create a new system - which is actually a file on your disk. This file will contain the whole windows xp or vista installation, and the contents are only accessible via Parallels. You then use windows as normal and install the game in windows.
If you don't like windows, or want to try something else and need space, the uninstall is fairly simple - just delete the file via the management console of parallels. All point-and-click, nothing to script (ofcourse, I'm not talking about windows here
).
I"m assuming you don't want to install bootcamp and dual-boot your laptop between mac and windows.
Parallels desktop 3.0 isn't out yet and still in beta phase for the moment. But if the install is similar to the previous version, you install parallels like any other mac application. No scripts are needed.
When you start Parallels, you can create a new system - which is actually a file on your disk. This file will contain the whole windows xp or vista installation, and the contents are only accessible via Parallels. You then use windows as normal and install the game in windows.
If you don't like windows, or want to try something else and need space, the uninstall is fairly simple - just delete the file via the management console of parallels. All point-and-click, nothing to script (ofcourse, I'm not talking about windows here
).Dont forget Bootcamp!
When I ran Windows through Parallels it was very sluggish even when doing simple tasks like Msn and Internet (I have an iMac Core 2Duo with 1Gb Memory). I can imagine the reason for this being that the poor iMac had to run 2 big OS's at the same time. I also found when using Vista that Parallels dont do sound too well and music jutters and it's not an enjoyable experience (Vista never is!).
Bootcamp can now run Vista or Xp and when I had Bootcamp running Xp the OS ran so much better, games ran very well (tried HalfLife 2 and Sims 2) and the entire OS worked with no trouble with drivers or sound/video.
Bootcamp is a slightly harder method of getting Windows on a mac but it's very good at doing it. Go to the apple website and download Bootcamp. You will be prompted to also download a Firmware Update which sorts out some deep system data which requires a restart ... it's all done through wizards so there is little chance of errors, the only pain is the long long windows installation.
Hope this helps
Alex
When I ran Windows through Parallels it was very sluggish even when doing simple tasks like Msn and Internet (I have an iMac Core 2Duo with 1Gb Memory). I can imagine the reason for this being that the poor iMac had to run 2 big OS's at the same time. I also found when using Vista that Parallels dont do sound too well and music jutters and it's not an enjoyable experience (Vista never is!).
Bootcamp can now run Vista or Xp and when I had Bootcamp running Xp the OS ran so much better, games ran very well (tried HalfLife 2 and Sims 2) and the entire OS worked with no trouble with drivers or sound/video.
Bootcamp is a slightly harder method of getting Windows on a mac but it's very good at doing it. Go to the apple website and download Bootcamp. You will be prompted to also download a Firmware Update which sorts out some deep system data which requires a restart ... it's all done through wizards so there is little chance of errors, the only pain is the long long windows installation.
Hope this helps
Alex
Funny how experiences differ. I also have an iMac core 2 duo (2 gig ram though) and using Parallels I have no stuter/pause/ sluggishness whatsoever.
Maybe it's the RAM ? Either the overall system memory (2 Gig) is better ? I usually assign 512 MB ram to Windows XP, what size do you assign ?
Maybe it's the RAM ? Either the overall system memory (2 Gig) is better ? I usually assign 512 MB ram to Windows XP, what size do you assign ?
It is all down to the RAM. When I first used Parallels with XP, I only had the stock 512MB in my MBP and it was unusable. I upgraded to 1.5GB and was able to allocate 512MB to Parallels which was loads better.
I've now got the maximum 2GB and can let Parallels have 768MB which runs XP really well. You also have to remember that Vista needs at least a gig of RAM to run anyway, so it was always going to really struggle running virtually on the system with only 1GB of RAM to share with OS X which AlexApple tried.
I assigned the maximum allowed to the virtual Vista system - 700Mb, I did not have a problem with the sound when I had XP running through parallels.
I looked on the parallels website and aparently many others are having the same problem with sound, it said that it was because of problems with parallels drivers for Vista and the tech team said they dont know when it will be working...
LINK - http://forums.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=9747&vista+sound
So I dont think it's got any connection to the amount of RAM allocated, it's just a bug infested driver.
!!! If anyone wants to install Vista on mac using parallels, wait till this problem is sorted out. !!!
Alex
I looked on the parallels website and aparently many others are having the same problem with sound, it said that it was because of problems with parallels drivers for Vista and the tech team said they dont know when it will be working...
LINK - http://forums.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=9747&vista+sound
So I dont think it's got any connection to the amount of RAM allocated, it's just a bug infested driver.
!!! If anyone wants to install Vista on mac using parallels, wait till this problem is sorted out. !!!
Alex
I think Rams the key. I've got 3 gb and have no problems with Parallels and Windows XP. Once it's set up the process involves only 2 clicks--to open Parallels and log on. For me, the process is very fast; in fact booting up XP is much faster on my Mac vs my PCs in the house.