What to choose for Window program on the Mac?

[stevendyhuang]

I have installed Windows XP directly to my MacBook Pro once, and it runs very well. But the disadvantage is that I always have to restart and click on option key to switch to Mac Operating System, instead of using both system simultaneously. Therefore, I quit using Windows in my system since I installed it, yet it took up more than 30 GB of my precious HD space as well.
In the late 90's and early 2000's, I have experienced nightmare with Virtual PC on my Powerbook 540c and Powerbook Pro, and were very disappointed with the snail speed with Windows in my Mac and finally, I paid for a few hundreds dollars twice for different version and used it just twice and never wanted to touch it again.
Recently, I came across and check out a few software such as "Parallels Desktop; Virtual PC or VMware Fusion." Seems like every company claimed that they are always the best. So, I wondered would it still be the same situation I faced a long time ago. This time, I wouldn't want to throw my money away again for the stupid investment I have been through twice.
May anyone kindly advice me which three of these products will be best to invest?

 

[kkat69]

I have installed Windows XP directly to my MacBook Pro once, and it runs very well. But the disadvantage is that I always have to restart and click on option key to switch to Mac Operating System, instead of using both system simultaneously. Therefore, I quit using Windows in my system since I installed it, yet it took up more than 30 GB of my precious HD space as well.
In the late 90's and early 2000's, I have experienced nightmare with Virtual PC on my Powerbook 540c and Powerbook Pro, and were very disappointed with the snail speed with Windows in my Mac and finally, I paid for a few hundreds dollars twice for different version and used it just twice and never wanted to touch it again.
Recently, I came across and check out a few software such as "Parallels Desktop; Virtual PC or VMware Fusion." Seems like every company claimed that they are always the best. So, I wondered would it still be the same situation I faced a long time ago. This time, I wouldn't want to throw my money away again for the stupid investment I have been through twice.
May anyone kindly advice me which three of these products will be best to invest?

From personal experience, stay away from Virtual PC. That will give you the closest experience to what you have had before.

The newer version is that bad but it's still far from good.

Again from personal experience, both Parallel's and VMWare Fusion are both good products. Depends on what and how your using your virtual windows for. I have used both and they are both pretty good. They both have a nice coherence modes which pretty much makes the windows application 'seem' like it's running in OSX and drag and drop from windows to osx desktop is good on both.

I haven't had any issues with either one (Parallel's or VMWare), speedwise or function wise.

 

[Father Jack]

I did have Parallels Desktop 3 installed and found it worked fine ...

But as using Windows is against my religion, I uninstalled it.

 

[aaronw1986]

I use vmware. It works great. It's nothing like virtual pc was. This is because the computers have intel chips now, instead of having to emulate the architecture. You can even use 1 partition of xp so that you can either use fusion or paralles within os x, or reboot to take full advantage of the hardware.

 

[nikopolidis]

I use Parallels Desktop to run such Windows apps as Abby Finereader, Auto Cad, Office apps, Adobe Photoshop e.t.c... It works perfect and I have no issues with it. I like its nice interface, useful tools.. Easy to install, easy to run..
I also use Boot Camp for gaming. Sometimes I do run them thru Parallels if there are ones with not very high system reqs..

 

[stevendyhuang]

I use Parallels Desktop to run such Windows apps as Abby Finereader, Auto Cad, Office apps, Adobe Photoshop e.t.c... It works perfect and I have no issues with it. I like its nice interface, useful tools.. Easy to install, easy to run..
I also use Boot Camp for gaming. Sometimes I do run them thru Parallels if there are ones with not very high system reqs..

Thank you to all of the opinion.
I greatly appreciated for the time and help you've given.
Thanks again.

 

[stevendyhuang]

From personal experience, stay away from Virtual PC. That will give you the closest experience to what you have had before.

The newer version is that bad but it's still far from good.

Again from personal experience, both Parallel's and VMWare Fusion are both good products. Depends on what and how your using your virtual windows for. I have used both and they are both pretty good. They both have a nice coherence modes which pretty much makes the windows application 'seem' like it's running in OSX and drag and drop from windows to osx desktop is good on both.

I haven't had any issues with either one (Parallel's or VMWare), speedwise or function wise.

Hey, thank you very much for your sincerely reply, I deeply need opinion and advice like this more often from you guys.
Thx.