Pentad Posted August 6, 2007 Share Posted August 6, 2007 I have Parallels Beta 3.whatever running now on my spiffy MBP and am quite happy with it. How is Fusion compared to Parallels? Anybody running both? Is one faster than the other. I know Parallels has been out longer but VMware has been around a lot longer. Not sure who is ahead here. Also, I'm running Parallels on my Boot Camp partition. Can I run Fusion off my Boot Camp Partition too? I mean, will VMware screw up my Parallels/Boot Camp config now since VMware probably isn't expecting Parallels to be there too? I would like to try out Fusion but am hesitant since my Parallels/Boot Camp setup runs great now. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, -P Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
.aero Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/08/06/vmware...r-mac-released/ He says its a little faster. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-422037 Share on other sites More sharing options...
exscape Posted August 7, 2007 Share Posted August 7, 2007 I've had less trouble using VMware, speed and such. Also it supports SMP and 64-bit guest OS's. I bought it this weekend for $40 (pre-order cost), and I'm happy. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-422153 Share on other sites More sharing options...
d10sfan Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 I used parallels for a while but once fusion came out with a beta, I tried that and liked it much better. It doesnt slow the computer down as much as parallels does and it does boot camp like you asked. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-423142 Share on other sites More sharing options...
errandwolfe Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 I run Parallels on both my desktop and on my laptop. On my desktop I find the performance of Parallels (the latest beta (build 5060) to be nothing short of amazing. I can run several apps in my Windows environment, several more on the mac side (like web browsers, adium, azureus), and then even encode a video using VisualHub with a barely noticeable impact on the operation of either OS. On the visual side, Coherence on a dual screen system is amazing. The ability for Windows windows to be treated as Mac windows using Expose is a fantastic feature. While VMWare's Unity is nice, I think for Windows at least that Start bar is pretty essential. As far as performance, I found that if I tried doing video encoding while running VMWare under the same stress load Windows side performance would take a hit. HOLD HERE FOR EDIT: Have not tried the latest VMWare on my laptop yet, so I suppose I should try it before I give my opinion. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-423359 Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaE-V Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 just got my hands on the latest vmware today and i can confirm that its alot faster for me than parallels...very noticeable Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-423505 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 They're both pretty amazing! JaE-V, are you using the latest version of Parallels? Seriously, virtualisation has never been such a pleasure! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-423550 Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordMelkor Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 I just switched to Fusion, previously I had been using the latest Parallels. And you can definetly tell the difference in terms of speed. It starts up WAY faster and doesn't slow down OS X (noticeably) in the process. However, I do miss some things from Parallels, all though they are all cosmetic rather than issues of functionality. For Example when I switch to full screen there is no "cube" animation, and the VMware window itself is kinda ugly. VMware also has a preference (I don't remember exactly what it was) of something like priority to Mac OS apps or to the Virtual Machine (it was defaulted to virtual machine, and i switched it to Mac OS apps... but I felt like that slowed everything down very slightly... maybe its just me.) Another point is that unlike parallels' coherence you cant make the start menu show up for when you are using VM's Unity. It has it's own application launcher, which is rather unfortunate if you want to access the windows explorer so that you can use windows context menu items. (maybe there is a way to access windows explorer but its not as straight forward as it is with getting to folders from the start menu) Cometics aside, however, VMware seems to be much more resource efficient when running windows. (I was using it with Windows XP via Boot Camp partition) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-423885 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venom. Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 i have personally never used VMfusion but i've used vmware workstation 6 for windows and its very good,nothings matches up for it, i dunno about fusion but i will try it. right now on my x86 i recently uninstalled VIRTUAL BOX. it's good, but not good enough Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-424109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headrush69 Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Another point is that unlike parallels' coherence you cant make the start menu show up for when you are using VM's Unity. It has it's own application launcher, which is rather unfortunate if you want to access the windows explorer so that you can use windows context menu items. (maybe there is a way to access windows explorer but its not as straight forward as it is with getting to folders from the start menu) Have you tried this: VMware Fusion provides a hidden option that displays the Windows task bar in Unity view. To enable this option: Make sure that Windows Explorer is set to display hidden files and folders. In the Windows guest, go to: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Tools. Open the file tools.conf in a text editor such as Notepad. Add the following line to tools.conf: unity.showTaskbar = "true" Save and close tools.conf. Restart your Windows guest. The next time you enter Unity mode, VMware Fusion will show the Windows task bar . Edit: P.S. If you're updating from the betas you must manually delete the hidden Unity Windows Applications folder for each Unity Virtual Machine Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-424115 Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordMelkor Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 that option lets me see the start menu... but I can't use it... like when i click start, its like I'm clicking on an image, nothing happens. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-424272 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headrush69 Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 that option lets me see the start menu... but I can't use it... like when i click start, its like I'm clicking on an image, nothing happens. Can you select the window buttons in the task bar or are they the same? I can't test on my current machine, but if it doesn't work sort of defeats the purpose of showing it. (Could be a bug, does this work for anyone?) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-424401 Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordMelkor Posted August 11, 2007 Share Posted August 11, 2007 Well it's not entirely useless, because it can show you the items that are running in your Windows TaskBar. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-424863 Share on other sites More sharing options...
wingk1314 Posted August 11, 2007 Share Posted August 11, 2007 ^ ^ it works but only when you have other windows open. As soon as you close all the windows, the task bar will become unresponsive. I think it's just a bug. It was there since RC1 and I havn't found a way to fix it. So pray for the next release to have it fixed. Then I can ditch parallels 100%. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-425015 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJMoose Posted August 11, 2007 Share Posted August 11, 2007 Having read all these posts, it's beginning to sound like it's a matter of personal preference and system configuration. On my Mac Pro, I tried VMWare about 4 months ago and thought it was sluggish. Then tried Parallels (one of the early 3.x versions) and found nice features but still sluggish. Once I perfected my Hackintosh, I tried the latest versions of both again (on the Hack). I still found VMWare to be slow for me. Parallels was much improved (to the point where I actually purchased the retail version). Now don't get me wrong, it's not like running Windows for real, but it is pretty quick (quicker on my Hack than on my Mac). I wouldn't use it for things like CS3, but I do have all my minor editing apps installed (mpeg tools, splitters, joiners, subtitlers etc) installed and they work great. MSO2007 works pretty well too. I will probably stick with Parallels until I hear that VMWare has made a major jump. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/59204-fusion-vs-parallels/#findComment-425138 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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