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Hackintosh and Parallels

Kosta88

By Kosta88,
in OSx86 10.8 (Mountain Lion)

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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They are offering a trial so I decided to ask before downloading and trying, before I fubar something ;-)

 

Now my hack is running pretty well, no problems detected really, however I still have some programs in W7 that I simply can't find replacements for in OSX. So I thought about running Parallels - but omg, how sick is it running a Windows 7 virtual machine on a Hackintosh, hahahaha?

 

Anyway, two simple questions:

1) should this work well, do I need more than 8GB RAM, is what I have now...(no, not going to be running Photoshop nor anything like that under W7, just some light programs)

2) can I use Parallels to load up my current W7 installation? I mean, I understand that Parallels was never meant to do that - load a W7 on a Hackintosh, it's native environment

 

Anyone having a little bit of experience with it?

 

Thanks

 

(uh sorry, posted to wrong forum, please move as needed!)

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theconnactic
theconnactic
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I don't understand your second question. OSX is the "native environment" (SIC) of Parallels Desktop, which is precisely made for doing that: running virtualized Windows alongside OSX. So why shouldn't it work? My copy of Parallels 7 runs fine on all my hacks (even when virtualizing other systems, like Ubuntu).

 

All the best!

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3.14r2
3.14r2
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1) Even half of that would probably do (depending on the W7 version that is 32 or 64 bit) if no gaming involved :)

 

2) Don't know (I'm a VMware fanboy), but you may find useful this info.

 

There is a VMware Fusion with XP installed on my SL notebook. The notebook has only 2GB of RAM nevertheless XP runs well (as for VM).

 

@theconnactic

I guess the question is whenever it is possible to run the existing physical (read NOT the virtual) Windows 7 installation FROM WITHIN the Parallels Desktop to eliminate the need to reboot to Windows or to reinstall it, this time in VM...

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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I don't understand your second question. OSX is the "native environment" (SIC) of Parallels Desktop, which is precisely made for doing that: running virtualized Windows alongside OSX. So why shouldn't it work? My copy of Parallels 7 runs fine on all my hacks (even when virtualizing other systems, like Ubuntu).

 

The question is rather simple: I have windows 7 on my hackintosh installed, had it previously to OSX. And I would like to keep using it. Current way of things is use OSX, then reboot, selecting Windows in Chameleon, and booting up W7. Parallels offers W7 usage in a virtual machine. Can I use the existing W7 installation, the one I separately boot into, also as a Parallels OS? Like ability to either open that installation in a virtual machine OR boot separately into it, but having all the time one same installation. I simply don't want to have two W7 installations, if not needed. It's a lot to maintain.

 

1) Even half of that would probably do (depending on the W7 version that is 32 or 64 bit) if no gaming involved :)

 

2) Don't know (I'm a VMware fanboy), but you may find useful this info.

 

There is a VMware Fusion with XP installed on my SL notebook. The notebook has only 2GB of RAM nevertheless XP runs well (as for VM).

 

@theconnactic

I guess the question is whenever it is possible to run the existing physical (read NOT the virtual) Windows 7 installation FROM WITHIN the Parallels Desktop to eliminate the need to reboot to Windows or to reinstall it, this time in VM...

 

1) yeah, exactly, I want to reboot if I want to game only, rest want to run from the VM

2) thanks for the link, it helps

 

And yes... now, is it possible? I see the whole list, honestly didn't read completely through it, overflew it, I see no answer to this question, however why even, because hack is not an official way to run an OSX...

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theconnactic
theconnactic
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You could try, as long as OSX can see your disk, to select your windows disk as primary disk for the VM in the settings, when creating it: i don't know if it's going to work because i never did it, but it's worthy of a try. But OSX must be capable to see your Windows disk: if it's a PATA (IDE) disk, forget it.

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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Hmm, three problems:

- I can't find any options to use the current windows installation - it gives me the option to either install, migrate (copy data) or use bootcamp (which I tried yesterday, and it hang the complete machine and osx, so no go)

- hangs the Finder - after I install Parallels, Finder doesn't show anything else in Favorites, Drives etc... on the left side of the window, even force restarting it is of no help

- can't install windows - it says 64-bit is not supported on this CPU, and also that my virtualization is not activated on my Mac (yet I activated VMM in BIOS, don't know if that's relevant though)

 

I'm restoring my OSX for the 2nd time today already...

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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And update to anyone going to try VMWare or Parallels: be sure to back up WELL. I made Time Machine backup, Acronis Backup and a Disk Utility Image. Acronis was too late, DU failed (internal error on image restore) and the only good backup was from yesterday on the Time Machine, however I had to reinstall the bootloader afterwards, but what happened:

- after installation of either of the two packages, Parallels 8 or VMWare Fusion 5 Trials, I experienced huge Finder hangs, completely missing/empty Sidebar in the Finder and ultimately a complete user reset (all applications and settings missing)

 

Fortunately, Time Machine backup from yesterday, which was a first and complete backup I did, worked out and now I am back where I was.

 

Also both VMs were unable to install Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, even from the original discs (I have images for installations, because the discs are in German). I really have no idea why this happened, if someone has some idea, please shoot me over, but I wasn't able to find anything on it in on the internet.

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Xpsycho
Xpsycho
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I know this is a late reply but Parallels and Hackintosh work PERFECT together. I have a hackintosh running i5-3570K / 32GB Ram / Dual GTX 660 Video cards and have dedicated W7-64 / W8-64 virtuals with 8 gig ram dedicated just to the virtual. I am able to play games like Diablo 3 and the new Sim City just fine. Make sure that you dedicate a little more video ram to the virtual and it will be fine.

 

As for using your existing windows installation, I have not been able to do it. It will not completely boot properly. It is designed with the EFI bios in mind and not a typical UEFI bios setup that most pc's have.

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Gringo Vermelho
Gringo Vermelho
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I've been running XP Pro SP3 in Parallels on my Hack since I went retail at 10.5.7. This was on a Pentium 4 651 with a 7600 GT AGP video card and 2GB RAM. Parallels did not require VT-x at the time and I kept using an old version until I finally got my Core 2 Duo E8500. The E8500 is somewhere close to 3 times faster than the P4 was and has VT-x, the quality/performance jump was overwhelming. I still have the same install going, it just scaled right along with my hardware upgrades.

 

The most amazing thing to me is how well older DirectX 6 and 7 games run on it, using the virtualized Parallels video card. It's nice to be able to do this so easily, some of these titles need complicated workarounds or won't work at all on 64-bit Windows 7.

If you have a second display plugged in you can reserve it for the virtual machine entirely. It's exactly like having a second PC.

 

If you look deep enough in the "multibooting and virtualization" sub forum, there are topics from the early days about booting your physical Windows installation in Parallels on a Hackintosh. I've never done this myself though.

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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Well, don't know what else to try, but Parallels as a program is running fine now, the problems I had, that I thought were connected to Parallels were in fact connected to my NAS crashes, which I stil didn't detect why, but that'S another story.

However, I still can't install WIndows on it. x64 Ultimate, I have it running as a standalone, and yet under Parallels, no go: it says when I try install that it might run slow and that virtualization is disabled on my Mac.

And this screen appears:

post-1144831-0-43321000-1366092254_thumb.jpg

 

Do you guys do anything special to get Parallels running on your machines? I mean, my hardware is as typical as it comes, BIOS is reset to it's defaults, and yet no proper hardware detection.

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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Honestly, I was expecting a bit more fluid experience. The mouse is laggy, it's not like under OSX. Should it be the same?

 

Also, when moving windows, they seem to stutter - I know it's a VM, but this is not a complicated task.

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Kosta88
Kosta88
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VM's suck... I would just buy a cheap HDD for your system just for windows. Just my opinion on the matter.

 

I do have Windows and Mac both on separate disks, I just generally hate switching, because usually have to do it for the small things, some single programs. However, when I want to game, then I switch (which is lately quite rare to be honest).

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3.14r2
3.14r2
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Should it be the same?
More or less. It greatly differs from system to system. My virtual XP machine is perfectly usable. Can't say it's the same experience as with XP run the usual way, but still quite good.
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Xpsycho
Xpsycho
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Have you tried to give yourself a little more ram in the virtual? Generally 4 gigs of ram is a minimum but if you are pulling too many resources from the main system then yes you will lag more. Make sure you install parallel tools 2 times because it seems that the first time doesn't take very well and needs the second one.

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Gringo Vermelho
Gringo Vermelho
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Windows 7 is utter overkill if you only need to run some simple MP3 retagging software. Use XP instead.

 

Windows XP SP3 runs great with 1GB RAM (or, for your purpose, less than that) allocated to it.

 

If you want to stay with Windows 7 disabling Aero and other unnecessary fluff (there are guides online for this) should get you some performance back and allow you to allocate less memory to it without sacrificing performance.

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