Do you know if the new Parallels has Firewire compatibility?
Chris Lentz
· 1 month ago
I can't confirm this as I do not use Firewire, but I would be very surprised if they didn't. Try the free trial, it is fully functional.
Adam
· 1 month ago
it has not ever been an option in the past, and VMWare 3 doesn't support it. I'll give it a try tonight.
Chris Lentz
· 1 month ago
Oh, that surprises me. Strange! Well it might not be supported, try it and let me know.
Ashley
· 1 month ago
Parallels 5 is not currently compatible with Firewire yet, but they are working on it.
Adam
· 1 month ago
They have been working on it for years now. Seriously, everything I have ever read about it since version 3 has said the same thing. Hopefully they figure it out soon!
gacorrea
· 1 month ago
Very useful review. My own experience with Parallels 5.0 and Fusion 3.0 completely matches yours, even though I have experienced a noticeable slowdown on the Mac side -- a development I am not thrilled about.
Chris Lentz
· 1 month ago
I found that if I lowered my RAM to 1.5GB instead of 2, I got better performance on both the Mac and Windows side. You should try that.
Ibarahim Haleem
· 1 month ago
Thanks for this great post. Since I started using my second Apple note book (the new MacBook Pro 13), I've not used either VMware or Parallels but I've tried both the VMware 2 and Parallels 4 on my earlier MacBook. When I heard about the launch of new VMware fusion and knowing it's cool new features I just couldn't wait for. The day it launched I got a free trial and installed it with high expectations. I installed both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 but I've had problems with both in terms of 3G and visual performance. So when the new parallels 5 was out i downloaded it and start using. I transferred my VMware Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 on to parallels. parallels is great with full support for 3G graphics on both Win 7 and Ubuntu. My ratings for Windows is 4.2 on parallels but was just 2 on VMware. I like the overall performance of Parallels 5 and it's much better with the Snow Leopard update 10.6.2. I've bought a full license of parallels 5 as an update to my previous license.
Chris Lentz
· 1 month ago
Thanks for sharing. I am very happy with Parallels also!
Any word on whether Parallels have fixed the sticky windows key bugs from v4? Does anyone know how many USB 1.1 devices v5 supports, v4 only allowed 2 USB 1.1 devices which is way too few for my needs. How many USB 1.1 devices does VMware Fusion 3 support?
Trevor
· 1 month ago
Thanks for the article! Did you install the x86 or x64 version of Windows 7?
Mike in Vegas
· 1 month ago
Thanks so much for the comparison! This is just what I needed!
ashleyburton
· 1 month ago
Great comparison, thanks - I'm mulling over the decision right now myself and I think you've swung me back to Parallels!
Eddie
· 4 weeks ago
I installed Parallels 5 on my MacBook Pro and now my MAC it is shutting down in 10 seconds vs. 2 seconds without Parallels 5 software. I'm using Snow Leopard OS.
Does anyone know what is causing this and how to fix it while still having Parallels 5 installed? I love my MAC shutting down in 2 seconds!!!
Chris Lentz
· 4 weeks ago
Does the delayed shut down only happen when you have Parallels running, or does it happen all the time after you installed Parallels?
Eddie
· 4 weeks ago
All the time after I installed Parallels. I did some research online - it seems to be known issue. Now sure how to fix it though.
Mark
· 3 weeks ago
When I hear VMware could create a virtual machine from a real machine using Bonjour, I was hooked. I have VMWare 2 and got a trial of 3 to give it a shot. I installed the Bonjour client on my old PC I want to get rid of and connected from my mac. That was as far as it got. It would never log in or create the machine. Ok, no problem, they have a stand alone client to create a virtual machine from a real one. I tried this. It crashed on startup. The only suggestion on the VMWare boards that helped was to use the migration client from Parallels and them import into VMWare. At that point, I thought to myself, why use a competitors better product to import into VMWare.
I went and bought a new copy of Parallels and it works fantastic.
Peter
· 2 weeks ago
For my taste this posting s a bit too lovng towards parallels. I prefer that one, too, but fusion has its benefits as well. Do you get a free copy of parallels for that review?
Chris Lentz
· 2 weeks ago
No, I did not receive a review copy from Parallels. I am a full paying customer of both companies. My review is ethical, true. I feel parallels is the better of the two products.
Leon
· 2 weeks ago
this is very useful for me, i've started using mac since this year and i'm wondering which software(pd or vm) can run windows faster.
rvassar
· 1 week ago
Did you mean 'definitely' rather than defiantly?
webPragmatist
· 1 week ago
Not sure if Parallels does this but Fusion will take your Bootcamp partition and boot into it. I still prefer parallels though so far.
Thanks for the review.
linuxfreakus
· 1 week ago
I don't know what you specifically tested for you speed comparison (aside from startup/shutdown which is faster in parallels) but suspend/resume which is probably what most people actually use, is about the same for me (and the same one is not always faster). I run databases on my VM and I consistently get I/O performance nearly the same as physical hardware in VMWare, but Parallels suffers from serious lag. I also notice while running background processes in Parallels (like downloading a big file using IE) the CPU is always around 25% but while doing the same task in VMWare it is only around 2%. I'm kinda up in the air about the whole thing but the main thing that will keep me with VMWare is that I mainly use VM for software development and I can have VMWare running my background tasks without even noticing that it is using resources when it is mostly idle, while Parallels 5 would be constantly grabbing resources for who knows what. VMware also seems more stable, my windows machines will crash sometime in Parallels, but I have never had a crash in VMWare.
duanefry
· 2 days ago
Is their any difference when running programs like Allen Bradley PLC software programs?
Chris Lentz
· 1 day ago
I do not know. I did did not test that specific software.
All Comments
Does anyone know what is causing this and how to fix it while still having Parallels 5 installed? I love my MAC shutting down in 2 seconds!!!
I went and bought a new copy of Parallels and it works fantastic.
Thanks for the review.