Review: Running Windows XP/2000 on my Mac with Parallels

It’s time to buy a Mac. There are no more excuses. This year, two great solutions emerged to run Windows on Mac hardware for those who hesitate to switch to a Mac.

Bootcamp vs. Parallels

Apple’s Bootcamp and Nova Development’s Parallels Desktop for Mac are specifically for Intel-based Macs. During 2006, Apple switched its entire line of desktop and notebook computers to the Intel chips. You cannot use Bootcamp or Parallels on an Apple PowerPC iBook, iMac or Mac-mini.

	Bootcamp	Parallels
OS Support?	“A bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2, Home or Professional (No multi-disc, upgrade or Media Center versions.)”	Supports Windows Vista/XP/2000/NT/95, various flavors of Linux and other operating systems
Boot:	Dual boot. You can only run Windows XP or Mac OS X at one time.	Run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously!
Create a drive partition?	Yes	No
Cost:	Free	$79

The investment is well worth it to me. To me, the benefits of running Parallels instead of Bootcamp are:

• I’m not locked into running only Windows XP SP2
• It’s easy to make a backup copy of the virtual OS file to roll back to if something becomes corrupt.
• I can switch easily between using my Windows and Mac applications.
• Data can be copied to the clip board in Windows then pasted in OS X and vice versa.

Run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously!

My Situation (work-at-home scenario):

I typically run on the Mac desktop: Photoshop, Thunderbird (personal email), iChat (Instant Messaging), iTunes (music/podcasts), Transmit (FTP) and Skype (VoIP), Toast, iMovie, iPhoto and Garage Band.

I launch Parallels and run my “business applications” in Windows XP: Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Visio and Project. I use VPN to access critical files at work.

In the Windows environment I run both Windows Media Player and Quicktime Basic so I don’t have to jump back to Mac if I encounter media files. Rather than use the default Web browsers, I exclusively use Firefox 2.0 on both Windows and Mac OS. It allows me to manage my bookmarks in a central file. A Firefox plug-in also allows for integrating del.icio.us bookmarks in the same manner.

I don’t bother installing Photoshop in the Windows environment or the Office suite in the OS X environments. They’d just be redundant and take up unnecessary file space.

Parallels isn’t perfect, but it’s extremely close and hasn’t let me down.

The most annoying things I experience using Parallels are:

• Getting used to using Shift-Ctrl to simulate a right-click functions.
• Switching out of Parallels full screen desktop to access Mac OS desktop — the Ctrl-Option shortcut sometimes doesn’t work the first time. There is also a delay before it does.
• Sometimes I can trigger an open Mac application to appear over the full screen Windows Parallels desktop. Usually by using Command-Tab.
• To copy text from Windows and paste to the Mac, must use Ctrl-x in Windows then Command-v in Mac.
• Even after near daily use for two months, my fingers haven’t instinctively gotten used to which keyboard shortcuts to use when jumping back and forth between OS. That might be a legitimate benefit of working exclusively via Bootcamp.
• For convenience, I was able to easily set up a Shared folder so all the files you touch whether from within Windows or Mac OS are saved in same Mac Documents folder.
• Using the CD player is sometimes frustrating. If I want to install software from CD to the Windows environment, I’ll usually reboot my Mac (without any CD in the drive bay), run Parallels, log into Windows and then insert the application CD.

Productivity-wise:

Waiting to reboot between OS X and Windows is time waster when using Bootcamp. When using Parallels, all apps are accessible at the same time–a huge time saver!

Toggling between the operating systems can get a bit confusing, especially when recalling keyboard shortcuts. For example, in OS X you use Command-Tab to cycle through open Mac applications, while in Parallels, you use Option-Tab to cycle through open Windows applications.

Regardless of whether you use Bootcamp or Parallels, installing any Windows OS is a huge time waster. Be ready to spend 1-2 hours of installing, rebooting, downloading security updates and patches, and rebooting over and over and over again. Then you can start installing your anti-virus (Norton or free AVG), anti-spyware (Windows Defender, SpyBot, AdAware), then finally your daily use software (Office, Firefox, etc).

By the way, Apple warns:

“Word to the Wise — Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.”

I’ve had flawless installations of Windows XP Pro, Windows 2000 Pro and Ubuntu Linux.

Ultimately, I think Parallels is the better solution over Bootcamp.

So switch to Mac and run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously!

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and NewMediaSandbox.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.