[Randy]

Has anybody had any experience with this software? I tried Parallels and it soon crashed. Boot Camp is a pain rebooting. Does this program work? How does it work? Any advice will be appreciated.

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/migrate.html#c169967

[Crimson]

I haven't tried VMWare's Fusion, but I've been running AutoCAD in Parallels (Coherence Mode) on three machines with no issues. I've been using it since v2.

[mathgeek97]

I've had pretty good luck with VirtualBox which is open source freeware from SunOracle.
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

[planet10]

The PC guys at the shop both like VMWare and that is what we have been selling over Paralleles. (not ethat both the PC guys have switched to MacBook Pros for laptops )

dave

[baldrick]

Something is wrong with your Parallels installation.
I have been running high horsepower applications within Parallels 5 while multitasking on the OS X side for months now without a crash.
Parallels (and VMware Fusion) both like plenty of RAM to work properly (at least 4 gigabytes)
Can you describe your particular setup (which MAC, how much RAM, which OS version, which Parallels version, which Windows version, etc)

[mshan]

I use an earlier iteration of VMWare Fusion for Mac because I was told it was more stable and used less resources than comparable Parallels program.  Parallels interface was supposed to feel more Mac-like, though.

Don't know how the current releases of both products stack up, though.

[planet10]

This might be helpful

http://www.mactech.com/articles/special/1002-VirtualizationHeadToHead/

dave

[John151]

I use VMWare to run Windows on both my PC and my MAC Mini.  No issues on either platform, however, you need serious HP and lots of RAM on the host PC to do it well.  My poor little Mac Mini gets very slow at times when Windows is running (both host and guest). 

[zacster]

The guys I work with use VMWare on their Macbook Pros, and they run full windows server installations, Oracle DB, Hyperion software, Essbase and a lot of other heavy duty apps on it and they say it never blinks. 

[Toka]

All the hardcore Apple guys I know (some even work for Apple) all swear by Fusion FWIW.

[Mike Nomad]

As occasional Tier-3 support on the Apple side at large university, Parallels does not cut it. If you aren't going to use BootCamp, make it VMWare. I've never seen BootCamp or VMWare crash.

[John151]

The guys I work with use VMWare on their Macbook Pros, and they run full windows server installations, Oracle DB, Hyperion software, Essbase and a lot of other heavy duty apps on it and they say it never blinks.

That is Lot for a laptop, even running on native windows!  Oracle & essbase are typically on large servers

[Randy]

Thanks for all the replies. While my Parallels installation crashed, as it turned out, I couldn't use it for my purpose since the Windows software I wanted it for does not support Parallels.  Wish I'd know that before I purchased and installed Parallels and the Window XP with it. I had to reinstall the Windows on Boot Camp, and the program, one for mapping, works fine via Boot Camp. Does that mean I have two Windows XP programs taking up space on my computer?

[shokunin]

I use VMware fusion every day without hiccups.  One benefit is that is you can take a windows-created VMware image copy it to the mac and boot it up in Fusion.  I use this for a lot of our work images, running Windows Server, Oracle, SAP Business Objects, Apache App Servers and to quote steve "It just works".   None of these images were built on Fusion, just VMware Workstation for the PC.  For this cross-platform compatibility is absolutely essential for me.

The only downside is that Fusions Aero and 3D implementations could be better.  However, I really don't really need Aero to be productive in the windows world.

[skunark]

I've had pretty good luck with VirtualBox which is open source freeware from SunOracle.
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Agreed, Virtual Box works really well on my mac mini.