Switching from Parallels to VMWare
As much as it pains me to do so, occasionally I have to run Windows software on my Mac. In my case, the main uses are to run Internet Explorer to check on web compatibility and to run SAS for statistical analysis. Fortunately, there are two software packages that make this brief diversion into the Windows world tolerable: Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion. Both are good products and a nice complement to Apple’s own Boot Camp. While Boot Camp requires you to reboot your computer into Windows, Parallels and VMWare let you run Windows programs alongside your Mac program, a great convenience that makes them easily worth the small premium.
I used Parallels exclusively since it was released, but it became erratic after upgrading to Leopard. A recently released beta seemed to help with networking problems, but I developed some graphics problems that made me take a look at the competition. Parallels, with their latest version, has a clear goal in mind. Their goal is to integrate Windows apps completely into the Mac, so that you don’t think of them as being part of a different operating system. Sure, they will look different (the windows are clearly Windows-esque, the menus are stuck in the windows), but they get their own dock icons and can access your Mac files (if you so choose). You can set your Mac Documents folder to by your “My Documents” folder in Windows and you can set files to open with Windows applications by default. If you have Word 2007 for Windows, you can make this default application for opening Microsoft Word documents from your Mac.
The problem is that Parallels is a bit sluggish, and this sluggishness can quickly become annoying if you try to integrate Windows into your life. It’s especially a problem if you don’t leave Parallels running all the time, because sometimes a file type will somehow get associated with a Windows app. I’ll double click it, expecting a Mac app to open, and will be instead tortured while I wait for Parallels to launch then then load a Windows program. No matter how much I try to disable this, it always seems to return at a most inconvenient time. Furthermore, I don’t want Windows, with all its inherent security flaws, to open up all my Mac files to the potential hazards of WIndows viruses and malware. I want to run Windows in a an isolated environment for specific tasks only (granted, this may not be everyone’s goal).
Therefore, I’ve made the leap to VMWare, and so far am quite happy. VMWare is considerably faster, and is bereft of the annoying integration “features” of Parallels. The only Parallels’ niceties I’ve missed so far are the mappings of Mac shortcuts for copy, paste, and save (command-c, command-v, and command-s) to their Windows equivalents (control-c, control-v, control-s). This results in some occasional errant characters as I switch between the two systems, but at least it is fast and reliable.
Macworld has a set of instructions for converting a Parallels virtual machine for use in VMWare. I used these instructions with great success.