Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

stuff99

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 11, 2007
394
0
I want to install Windows Vista on my iMac.

Just wondering what are the pros and cons from installing Parrallels or Boot Camp to run on my mac?

Thanks!
 

freeedge369

macrumors member
Jul 12, 2007
39
0
I went with Paralells

I am a long time PC user, (very) new mac user.
I just bought a Macbook Pro, and decided to go with parallels. You have the freedom to run the two side by side, with no rebooting. With boot camp, you need to restart the computer every time you want to use a program from the non active OS.
The upsides of Boot camp are:
A:It's free(You can download it from apple.com)
B:You can dedicate all your resources to Windows, whereas with with Paralells you can only give your virtual machine a max of 1.5 gb ram.
I peronally love the freedom and simplicity of Paralells, but it's really something that requires your own judge. I recommend downloading the trial of paralells, trying it, delting it after the 30 days, then downloading Boot Camp and trying it as well. I feel Paralells to be superior, but whether or not it's $80 worth of superiority depends on your priorities.
I hope I've managed to help you out.
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
^ Yes you can run vista on parallels.


There are other options such as the ability to install bootcamp, and parallels.

You can then have the benefits of bootcamp when you need full hardware acceleration / support (so you get Aero etc.) - and the benefits of parallels when you want to run without leaving osX
 

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
VMWare does the same job as Parallels, except better, as it integrates with Exposé properly, and isn't as slow.
As a long time Parallels user, I like VMWare Fusion a lot better.

stuff99, VMWare Fusion is free for now, while it's in beta. You can download the beta on the link below. (free registration required) If you like it, you can pre-order it for 50% off the price it'll be when it's released.

http://www.vmware.com/beta/fusion/
 

mainomega

macrumors 6502
Jun 5, 2007
311
98
We installed Bootcamp 1.3 with Xp when we have to play some hardcore games and Parallels for when we just need to run some basic programs. Its the best of both worlds BUT loading the VM by reading the bootcamp partition is slower than having parallels load the VM.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.