Parallels 5.0 Review
Daniel Toh
Mac Users Group Singapore
http://www.macusersg.org/forums/Introduction
Allow me to clarify first - I'm not much of a Windows fan but unfortunately there are still a couple of programs, software or games which do not have a Mac cousin, which makes reverting occasionally to the Windows platform a must. For instance, I have to resort to Windows because the Chinese educational CDs I bought for my kids do not run on Macs.
While Apple?s Boot Camp (which is packaged with Snow Leopard) offers a free-of-charge means to run Windows on the Mac-Intel beauties, it requires booting into a dedicated startup partition. This, for most multi-tasking Mac users who uses Windows programs sparingly and only as a last resort, is an inconvenient and cumbersome affair.
Running a Virtual Machine (VM) on the Mac is perhaps a more attractive option. Parallels and VMware are established commercial VM applications, while WINE is an open source VM alternative (which may not enjoy the same level of applications testing as commercial ones). In essence, VMs allow the co-running of different Operating Systems (OS) on a host OS (for example, Windows XP on top of Mac OSX). They also allow resource sharing (files and peripherals) by either a 'drag and drop' or tweaking of the VM's settings.
The Parallels option
Specifications
My first generation Intel Macbook runs on a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, installed with 1 GB SDRAM and 80 GB Hard Disk. Even though it is installed with Snow Leopard (version 10.6.2), it runs on the 32-bit architecture (I discovered on a Website that SL-64 bit does not run on the first generation Intel Macs.
Installation
The installation of Parallels 5.0 and the Windows XP OS was straightforward and hassle-free. Parallels was able to detect past installed OSes residing in Boot Camp, and was able to convert it to a readable format. The resources available to Parallels can be configured: e.g. processors, RAM, virtual hard disk space (which is sizeable according to space demands by the VM instead of a user-defined hard disk space in Boot Camp), shared Input/Output devices (e.g. bluetooth, DV players/recorders), shared folders or files, etc. The user can also select the file sharing mechanism, either seamlessly with Windows (hence inheriting the desktop?s and file organisation on the Mac) or selected (requiring deliberate copy and paste of files between the Mac or VM) or isolated (i.e. no file sharing).
General Interface
The user interface is sufficiently intuitive. I skipped the tutorial, which is available online, and still was able to get the job done. In particular, I like the variety of view options which allows the user to select the level of integration between Parallels and the Mac OS. One can opt for the traditional ?Windows? view, which confines the user to run Windows applications within the familiar Windows interface, or in ?Coherent? or ?Crystal? view, where the user can run Windows applications from the dock or menu bar ? a useful way to allow the user to move or hide the application?s windows within the available real estate on the desktop. The Windows applications can also take on a MacLook interface if one wishes to disguise them to look like Mac applications.
Running of Applications
Speed is probably the best litmus test to gauge the performance of the VM. Due to the relatively stingy physical RAM installed (only 1 GB), Parallels automatically allocated 396 MB to run the VM ? rather spartan but probably optimised. I experimented by increasing it to 512 MB but switching between the Mac and Windows applications reduces to a crawl. Nevertheless, the Windows VM was able to run the Chinese Education CDs without any unbearable lags ? a good enough outcome for me.
Verdict
Parallels provided an intuitive and user-friendly interface to run Windows applications on the Mac. It was predictably slow on the host with a low RAM and high IO exchanges (verified using the Activity Monitor). There are tips to improve Parallel?s performance on the web, such as using the virtual SCSI adapter (instead of IDE) for the hard disk, and having a dedicated swap file, etc. Nevertheless it is definitely a good intermediary if one needs to resort to using Windows applications which do not a Mac-compatible counterpart while multi-tasking with Mac applications.
Parallels 5.0 purchase and technical specifications are online.
Singapore:
http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/ or
SEA.sales@parallels.comUSA:
http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/Japan:
http://www.parallels.com/jp/products/desktop/
