I’ve just finished installing Parallels and subsequently Windows XP Pro SP2 on my laptop. In total, it took about 35 minutes. Yep, that quick – excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor too…
So far, it has run like a dream. Stable, fast, responsive – everything I’ve always wanted in a Windows machine but never had before. Any misgivings about prior experiences with Virtual PC are now very much forgotten, but more on this later.
First off, I had to make the decision to go with either Bootcamp or Parallels. I gave this quite a lot of consideration to be honest, and probably more than I should have seeing how they’re both still in beta right now. The decision came down to how I currently use Windows, and how I have needed to use it but been unable to in recent times. I don’t have a Windows machine, at all. I’ve been using Virtual PC for years and I don’t know whether or not this in itself has determined how I use Windows but I find that I use it just for site testing and various small apps that don’t have a Mac version. For this level of use, Virtual PC might be slow but it’s workable. Recently, I’ve faced some frustration with trying to use my Windows Mobile 5 PDA though – frustration i that it won’t connect via VPC at all. I even borrowed my sister in-law’s Window’s laptop to try and make the connection but that didn’t work either. All I needed to do was install some PocketPC apps on the device and in the end had to resort to visiting a friend who had a more up to date laptop and blasting everything onto it. So, my use and intended use come down to using Internet Explorer occasionally, wanting to run ActiveSync and some other (aviation) related software.
I like the idea that Bootcamp is an Apple product but it’s early days for it at the moment and the biggest negative thing I’ve read about it is that it tends to BSOD when you connect various USB devices. This potentially removes one of my main requirements for it obviously. Whenever I spoke to anyone about Bootcamp (anyone being fellow Mac users) the first thing they said was ‘but you have to reboot’. It’s true that this is quite an issue and one that PC owners might not understand considering the need to restart Windows machines quite a lot as opposed to restarting Mac’s very rarely. But in the end, the main reason for my choice was being able to adjust the Windows installation after the event. You can’t do this with Bootcamp – once you’ve created your partition that’s it, you’re stuck with it. With Parallels you can, Virtual PC style, adjust all sorts of VM attributes after you’ve installed so if you temporarily need a bigger HD for your Windows installation then you can sort that out (and shrink it back again after you’re done). A very nice side effect of choosing the Parallels route is being able to create other VM’s too, with Linux or other Window’s versions as the OS.
My biggest fear with Parallels was the potential for it to run like VPC. There have also been some issues with USB connectivity too but in the end, so far, neither of these has become a real concern. My PocketPC connected first time and Windows really does run like a native OS. There’s no lag or hesitancy at all. Running it at the same resolution as my desktop in full screen mode really does emulate working on a PC in almost every respect.
So, so far, it’s all peachy and nice. The setup I chose is proving to be better than I had anticipated and I haven’t come across any problems or issues yet, let alone anything that is critical to performance. But, I shall continue to test, and update the betas as they’re released and keep notes here.
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