VMWare, Parallels or Boot Camp?

[WCWalker]

Hi Everyone: This is my first time posting to a Mac message board.

I am a fairly new Mac user and unfortunately, I still have to use Windows to run a few programs that I just cannot find in the Mac Os. Here is what I'd like to do with Windows on the Mac and I would like to get feedback from people that have experience with these programs to help me determine the best Virtual software to use. I will be buying a new Mac Mini for the following tasks.

I will need to run a radio station automation software program called Raduga. It is only available in the Windows OS right now. I will also be using Microsoft Streets and Trips since there does not seem to be a suitable equivalent to it in Mac. I will also be using a Davis weather station software program called Weatherlink to upload weather data each half hour to a website.

Raduga automation software and Weatherlink will need to run continuously and simultaneously at times. Raduga will run 24/7 while Weatherlink will also run 24/7 but it will only upload data to the website for a few seconds every half hour. But the software will run constantly just like Raduga.

Should I use VMWare, Parallels or Boot Camp? And which editions of Windows XP are compatible with each? I've read that certain editions of Windows OS will not work with Virtual software programs like these.

Speed is important since the segues between audio files will need to be seamless especially when overlapping songs.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

 

[JSchwage]

Actually, I'd recommend Boot Camp AND VMware Fusion. The cool thing about VMware Fusion is that it can use your Boot Camp partition. Thus you have the option to either boot into your Boot Camp partition or just run Windows XP on Boot Camp partition from within VMware.

 

[Sky Blue]

VMWare.

 

[gkroeger]

Actually, I'd recommend Boot Camp AND VMware Fusion. The cool thing about VMware Fusion is that it can use your Boot Camp partition. Thus you have the option to either boot into your Boot Camp partition or just run Windows XP on Boot Camp partition from within VMware.

Agreed! This combo works great with XP. Works with Vista, but not as well since Vista seems to get confused about which video driver to use depending on whether it's running in Fusion or standalone.

 

[MRU]

^ Parallels allows exactly the same.


The best bet would be to download both parallels and fusion trials and give them a go before committing to $80 purchase.

 

[WCWalker]

Which XP?

Can I run an OEM edition of XP with VMWare and Bootcamp? Will I be able to use XP's OEM Home edition with VMWare and Bootcamp?

 

[snberk103]

Add RAM

Hi Everyone: This is my first time posting to a Mac message board.

...

Should I use VMWare, Parallels or Boot Camp? And which editions of Windows XP are compatible with each? I've read that certain editions of Windows OS will not work with Virtual software programs like these.

Speed is important since the segues between audio files will need to be seamless especially when overlapping songs.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Which ever one you choose, max out the RAM. When Windows is running as a guest virtual machine it will use whatever RAM it needs, plus OS X acting as the host machine will want some RAM. My wife tried both VMWare and Parallels as trials, and we settled on VMWare. It just seemed more mature and more responsive. Good Luck.

 

[WCWalker]

Is it possible to configure only VMWare or Parallels with Windows and avoid using Bootcamp? It appears as though Bootcamp will not permit me to switch simultaneously between Leopard and Windows. I'd rather not have to try to use a copy of Windows twice on the same computer. From some of the strings I've read here it appears to create some problems.

 

[Tonerl]

OEM on VMware Fusion

I'm about to switch and definitely need to run XP for the foreseeable future.

On my PC, I created a VMware Workstation VM for XP Pro SP2 OEM but I see that some posters seem to think that OEM versions won't run with Fusion.

I want to create a new VM because my Workstation VM has become a bit 'cranky' (updates, maybe?).

TIA

 

[WCWalker]

Thanks Toneri. Yeah, I've seen that same consensus too that OEM will not work with these programs. Your experience seems to contradict that theme. Vista stinks, pure and simple. XP is much more stable and reliable. The HP I bought with Vista is hosed thanks to Vista.

 

[WCWalker]

Another Question For Everyone

I have an OEM version of XP Home that predates SP2. Can I load it onto the Mac Mini with Bootcamp, VMWare or Parallels and have it function well enough to get onto the internet to go to the Microsoft website to download the appropriate updates to make it SP2?