If it weren't for
Parallels Desktop, the virtualization product for Intel Macs that lets you run Windows alongside Mac OS X, many working Mac professionals would be forced to carry two laptops. So it's good news that the Mac's most popular method of running Windows within OS X (the other, less effective, method is VMWare) recently sprouted a few really useful enhancements:
- Parallels' Coherence feature, which lets you use Windows application windows within OS X instead of in a Windows "box", now supports Expose, OS X's zoomed-out, view-all-windows mode.
- Macintosh folders can now be mapped to Windows/DOS drive letters to cut down on navigating (before you had to create a network place).
- Virtual Machine hard disk images can now be mounted to the Mac OS X desktop.
- Windows windows now have OS X drop shadows in Coherence mode.
- The iPhone can be synchronized with the Windows virtual machine.
Tags: mac, parallels, virtual, virtualization, windows
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Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsmarkSep 12th 2007 4:19PM
I don't know if I would call VMware the "less effective method", considering VMware already has at least two of those features in their current release. In fact, this Parallels release seems to be more of a catch-up to VMware Fusion more than anything.
murphSep 12th 2007 2:36PM
"the other, less effective, method is VMWare"
Care to elaborate? From personal experience and a few reviews I've read, VMWare Fusion runs WinXP apps faster than Parallels.
StevenSep 12th 2007 2:40PM
I came to leave a comment, but I see that other people have already said what I came to say.
PaulSep 12th 2007 3:03PM
"less effective"? Seriously? From personal experience (I run both Parallels and Fusion), the VMWare product offers much better performance when transferring files from the host to the virtual machine. This is very evident when transferring many small files.
As well, the Parallels transporter would not run on Vista, so I could not image a Vista laptop that I was replacing with a MacBook Pro. I'm not sure if this new version (or a previous release) supports it now.
But hey, Parallels has drop shadows, so you can't argue with that.
Ted WallingfordSep 12th 2007 4:17PM
I'm not the only one that prefers Parallels:
http://www.phoneboy.com/node/1640
james 42Sep 15th 2007 11:57AM
Ted, thanks for linking to a post where the author is unsure which he prefers, very compelling.