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ibook_steve · Nov 14, 2007, 06:41 PM

I've been using Parallels for most of this year since I got my MBP, but the resource usage, single core support, and poor customer support are starting to get to me. With the announcement of the 1.1 release of Fusion, I think I'm going to try it out with my Boot Camp volume currently being accessed with Parallels. I've requested a license and downloaded the trial.

How easy/difficult will it be to switch to using Fusion with BC instead of Parallels? Will it be difficult to switch back?

Does anybody else have more experience with running both environments? Which one do you like better?

I've been Googling for comparison reviews and which one people like better, but I've found few good comparisons. I'd be very interested as to what people who have extensively used both tools feel about them. Remember, I'm coming from Parallels having never used Fusion.

Steve

64stang06 · Nov 15, 2007, 12:44 PM

There is a Fusion importer that is supposed to convert Parallels images into a Fusion image, though it's in beta and I have no idea how well it works.

Personally, I love Fusion over Parallels and won't be going back. Luckily I only downloaded the trials of each and paid for Fusion.

mdc · Nov 15, 2007, 01:31 PM

Initially I downloaded Fusion and have been using it on a second monitor at work.
Yesterday I decided to try out Parallels before I buy Fusion. Parallels would not start its VM. The app would beachball and then finally I'd Force Quit it. I looked on the forums and some people have been having this issue. They say that a restart sometimes fixes it, but I couldn't be bothered to try.
I uninstalled Parallels and am still using VMWare.

I will try Parallels again shortly before my VMWare trial expires since I would like to use both before I make a decision.

MacosNerd · Nov 15, 2007, 02:14 PM

I've been using Fusion since they released their beta to the public and from my experiences I think the product is much better then parallels. before the beta, I was using parallels 2 was about to use upgrade to 3 - until I heard the horrid problems people were having with 3.0. Personally I kept getting BSODs, the VM would crash and on some occasions parallels took down my mac completely.

With fusion, life has been much better, the VM is much more stable, seems to use less resources. I'm able to use both cpus. I've not regretted going to vmware.

angelmb · Nov 15, 2007, 02:25 PM

To me is just a matter of which one works since it is not like I am a heavier user… just a silly app that doesn't run under OS X… I wasn't able to get Parallels to work while VMware did it from the day I installed Leopard.

Nodnarb · Nov 15, 2007, 04:25 PM

That's funny, i was just about to start a thread exactly like this this morning. I've got the same question, I installed Boot Camp first, then Parallels to use my boot camp partition. It's been working OK, kinda slowing down my computer (I was expecting this, I only have 1gb of RAM ATM), but it's also frozen a few times.

My 15 day trial is almost up with Parallels so I was about to buy it, but I just uninstalled it and am now downloading fusion (I uninstalled because I didn't want fusion to try and import parallels virtual machines, I want it to just work with my boot camp partition). vmWare gives you a 30 day trial, so I will try it for a bit and pick which one I like more.

Where's the best place to buy either one from? Amazon seems to have the best prices of what I've seen so far, but anyone else know of anywhere cheaper?

ibook_steve · Nov 15, 2007, 07:14 PM

Thanks for the feedback, though I'm not sure if your reports are in reference to using BC with Fusion or not and the ability to switch between Parallels and Fusion using a BC volume.

Steve

cgc · Nov 15, 2007, 10:06 PM

I tried using Parallels and Fusion with BootCamp and it does work, however they each install their own tools to integrate themselves with BootCamp which I don't like. It's VMWare Fusion all the way for me. Love it (and I can play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 in Fusion too).

besson3c · Nov 15, 2007, 10:36 PM

Originally Posted by angelmb

To me is just a matter of which one works since it is not like I am a heavier user… just a silly app that doesn't run under OS X… I wasn't able to get Parallels to work while VMware did it from the day I installed Leopard.

Have you checked out Virtualbox or Q? Perhaps these might be an option should you ever need a VM on another machine of yours and don't want to pay for another license...

angelmb · Nov 16, 2007, 10:36 AM

Thanks for the suggestions besson3c, while I am more than satisfied with VMware I will check those out.

besson3c · Nov 16, 2007, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by angelmb

Thanks for the suggestions besson3c, while I am more than satisfied with VMware I will check those out.

You probably won't find them to be better (although I find VirtualBox to be faster), but you might find them to be suitable, free replacements should you ever need something of the sort.

angelmb · Nov 17, 2007, 05:07 AM

And they come handy when someone asks you about running a Windows only app on your Mac… am I wrong or was an app that doesn't even required a copy of Windows to run 'windows apps'?, that is a good way to save some bucks…

besson3c · Nov 17, 2007, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by angelmb

And they come handy when someone asks you about running a Windows only app on your Mac… am I wrong or was an app that doesn't even required a copy of Windows to run 'windows apps'?, that is a good way to save some bucks…

WINE, although WINE doesn't work with all apps. Crossover Office is a commercial version of WINE that is preconfigured to install and run a list of apps.

UnixMac · Nov 17, 2007, 11:19 PM

I'm running Parallels and having all kinds of problems with Coherence not working, and always having to force quit it.. is there a way to switch over to Fusion without having to go thru the whole re-install process again with Vista?

thanks

ibook_steve · Nov 18, 2007, 03:00 PM

I think my thread has been officially hijacked. Before I start a new one, can anybody give me any more experiences about BC use with Parallels vs. Fusion?

Steve

cgc · Nov 18, 2007, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by ibook_steve

I think my thread has been officially hijacked. Before I start a new one, can anybody give me any more experiences about BC use with Parallels vs. Fusion?

Steve

Not hijacked...there is really no difference between the two when using BC that i can tell. Try the demos...

stirrell · Nov 20, 2007, 05:33 PM

I bought Parallels when I got my MacBook Pro because, at the time, Fusion was still in beta and MacMall had a good rebate on it. It ran mostly decent in Tiger. I had a few Windows crashes and had to re-install the app once because it wouldn't load. But, overall, I thought it was decent. When I upgraded to Leopard, though, there was no joy with Parallels. It would sometimes cause my Mac to crash. There were no icons in the Dock using Coherence. Mac windows alreadys sat above my Windows apps. It was barely useable. The beta of Parallels fixed the icons in the Dock for me but the other problems persisted.

I downloaded the demo of Fusion, used the Parallels importer and it worked flawlessly. So far, so good. Unity is nice, the system hasn't crashed. I am impressed and will probably purchase it. I have only been using it for a couple days but it seems very solid. I am not using it with Boot Camp.

axwack · Nov 21, 2007, 06:00 PM

I've been using Parallels and VmWare fusion. I trolled through a lot of message boards to find out which one I needed for my new Mac. I'm a linux guy and have used Vmware on Linux and XP for ages. I tried Parallels, and although it was unique to VMWARE on Windows, it crashed like crazy and was overally not reliable. I just installed Fusion and it works great. The speed is fast the VM is stable and Unity is far better than Coherence. The windows look like native Mac windows. If you are looking for the VM on the Mac...get Fusion.

Yokohama · Nov 22, 2007, 09:39 AM

I own MS Virtual PC and wonder if I can use the Windows XP OS that is part of it with any of the options to run Windows on the Mac? I don't want to shell out twice to run Windows on rare occasions.

Guy Kuo · Nov 22, 2007, 04:27 PM

I'm planning on switching from Parallels to Fusion after several months of fairly good results under Parallels. The deciding factor that is making me make the change is Fusion's better support of USB devices. Under Parallels, external USB 2.0 drives are extremely slow and I can't even get my Logitech Webcam Pro for Notebooks (BTW a MUCH better camera than the MacBook built-in) to work. Under Fusion, I plugged in the Logitech camera and it works!

The Parallels USB 2.0 implementation is so slow that upgrading a TiVo drive using Parallels was completely impractical. What takes five minutes to do a truncated backup of a TiVo drive (under bootcamp) took 45 minutes under Parallels. It's SLOW USB 2.0 and that means problems with getting some of my Windows tasks done.

I need real USB 2.0 support in my virtual PC, but Parallels only does it part way. Fusion seems to have a much more robust USB implementation. Both run my programs, but it will be nice to actually use my peripherals without dropping into Bootcamp.

So bye bye Parallels. I paid for it, so they got their money, but it will be worth it to me to buy Fusion and get better usability.

64stang06 · Nov 22, 2007, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Yokohama

I own MS Virtual PC and wonder if I can use the Windows XP OS that is part of it with any of the options to run Windows on the Mac? I don't want to shell out twice to run Windows on rare occasions.

Parallels had an app that is installed along with Parallels that allows just this. I know VMWare has a beta app that can convert Parallels images to VMWare images, though I'm not sure if it can do VPC images.

ghporter · Nov 23, 2007, 06:06 PM

I never got the beta of VMWare to work on my MBP. That sort of turned me off to their products if you know what I mean, so I haven't even tried it on my iMac.