Parallels/VM Fusion and BootCamp compatibility

I have a MacBook running Tiger (10.4.10) which has been partitioned via BootCamp so that it also runs Windows XP.
I'm now considering also getting Parallels or Fusion so I can switch back & forth between the two platforms without a reboot, and understand that I will have to add another gig of memory to this laptop in order to have 2 gig available. (This is the "middle" MacBook of the three.)
My question: I just bought a new (on disc) copy of Windows XP so I could install it via BootCamp. Would I have to buy ANOTHER XP to use with Parallels/Fusion, or can they work with the one I already have on this machine? (Don't much like the idea of having to fork out twice for the same OS on the same computer.)
I will be very grateful if someone can answer this for me, so I know whether to go ahead with a virtual programme or not. Many thanks -

I have read that -
Parallels was making it possible to activate under Parallels again, but would be able to use both, if using XP but maybe not Vista which is where Microsoft supports Business or Ultimate but treats a VM as a normal license activation.
You should be okay, but check forums.parallels.com and www.vmware.com fusion forums and you could try out Fusion 1.1 beta which is what I was using.

Similar Messages

  • Parallels, Fusion AND bootcamp

    Hello there,
    I have installed both, parallels (last version) and fusion.
    Both can use boot camp, if you have already windows running.
    The problem is, when i start the virtual machine (parallels or fusion), i'm stuck on the windows xp user login because it does'n recon the mouse or keyboard.
    Does anyone knows anything about this?
    I have a mac pro.
    thanks

    Try the Parallels or VMWare forums:
    http://forums.parallels.com
    http://www.vmware.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=371

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  • Parallels vs Fusion and processor load

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    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5446
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    I'd like to run ArcGIS 9.3 in Windows XP using VMware Fusion. Can anyone comment on the virtues/drawbacks of using a bootcamp partition versus creating a VMware "Virtual Machine"?
    With bootcamp partition I can gradually increase the size of the partition as the partition becomes full using Drive Genius, correct?
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  • VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop Benchmark Comparison

    This is a quickie benchmark of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop using Super PI, PC Mark 05, and Passmark.
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    Parallels Desktop 3094 Beta 2
    Notes:
    Both virtual machines were allocated with large 10+ GB virtual disks and 640MB of RAM. The VMWare CPU was configured with two processors. The Parallels CPU was configured with 1 (two is not available). VMWare reported the CPU as 1 physical, 2 logical processors running at 2.66 GHz while Parallels reported 1 physical, 1 logical processor running at 9.6 GHz (the combined speed of all four cores on the Mac Pro). The max observed CPU utilization in activity monitor when running under VMWare was 200% and max under Parallels was 173%.
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    Both of these products are beta. VMWare is running in debug mode (can not be turned off in this beta).
    Caveat emptor on these stats. This was an unscientific exercise to satisfy my curiosity. Some of the extraordinary differences are highlighted with <--.
    Platform:
    Mac Pro 2.66 GHz, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7300GT
    Disk 1 - OS X, 73GB Raptor
    Disk 2 - dedicated disk where each virtual machine image was created separate from the OS or any OS-related virtual memory files.
    VMWare and Parallels guest OS: Windows XP Professional, SP 2
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    Super PI Parallels VMWare
    512K 8s 9s
    1M 20s 21s
    4M 1m 57s 2m 03s
    PC Mark 05 Parallels VMWare
    CPU Test Suite N/A N/A
    Memory Test Suite N/A N/A
    Graphics Test Suite N/A N/A
    HDD Test Suite N/A N/A
    HDD - XP Startup 5.0 MB/s 19.54 MB/s <--
    Physics and 3D Test failed Test failed
    Transparent Windows Test failed 69.99 Windows/s
    3D - Pixel Shader Test failed Test failed
    Web Page Rendering 3.58 Pages/s 2.34 Pages/s
    File Decrypt 71.73 MB/s 67.05 MB/s
    Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 179.92 FPS 111.73 FPS
    HDD - General Usage 4.82 MB/s 42.01 MB/s <--
    Multithread Test 1 / Audio Comp N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 1 / Video Encoding Test failed Test failed
    Multithread Test 2 / Text Edit 152.85 Pages/s 138.48 Pages/s
    Multithread Test 2 / Image DeComp 5.91 MPixels/s 35.4 MPixels/s <--
    Multithread Test 3 / File Comp 3.22 MB/s 6.03 MB/s
    Multithread Test 3 / File Encrypt 19.0 MB/s 33.26 MB/s <--
    Multithread Test 3 / HDD - Virus Scan 27.91 MB/s 25.49 MB/s
    Multithread Test 3 / Mem Lat - Rnd 16MB 5.34 MAcc/s 6.63 MAcc/s
    File Comp N/A N/A
    File DeComp N/A N/A
    File Encrypt N/A N/A
    File Decrypt N/A N/A
    Image DeComp N/A N/A
    Audio Comp N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 1 / File Comp N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 1 / File Encrypt N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 2 / File DeComp N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 2 / File Decrypt N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 2 / Audio DeComp N/A N/A
    Multithread Test 2 / Image DeComp N/A N/A
    Memory Read - 16 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Read - 8 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Read - 192 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Read - 4 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Write - 16 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Write - 8 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Write - 192 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Write - 4 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Copy - 16 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Copy - 8 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Copy - 192 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Copy - 4 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Lat - Rnd 16 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Lat - Rnd 8 MB N/A N/A
    Memory Lat - Rnd 192 kB N/A N/A
    Memory Lat - Rnd 4 kB N/A N/A
    Transparent Windows N/A N/A
    Graphics Memory - 64 Lines N/A N/A
    Graphics Memory - 128 Lines N/A N/A
    WMV Video Playback N/A N/A
    3D - Fill Rate Multi Texturing N/A N/A
    3D - Polygon Throughput Multiple Lights N/A N/A
    3D - Pixel Shader N/A N/A
    3D - Vertex Shader N/A N/A
    HDD - XP Startup N/A N/A
    HDD - Application Loading N/A N/A
    HDD - General Usage N/A N/A
    HDD - Virus Scan N/A N/A
    HDD - File Write N/A N/A
    Processor Intel Core 2 9653 MHz Processor Unknown 2661 MHz
    Physical / Logical CPUs "1 Physical, 1 Logical" "1 Physical, 2 Logical"
    MultiCore 1 Processor Core Multicore 2 Processor Cores
    HyperThreading N/A N/A
    Graphics Card Generic VGA Generic VGA
    Graphics Driver Parallels Video Driver VMWare SVGA II
    Co-operative adapters No No
    DirectX Version 9.0c 9.0c
    System Memory 640 MB 640MB
    Motherboard Manufacturer N/A Intel Corporation
    Motherboard Model N/A 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
    Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP
    Passmark Parallels VMWare
    CPU - Integer Math (MOPS) 112.35 230.31 <--
    CPU - Floating Point Math (MOPS) 280.46 588.33 <--
    CPU - Find Prime Numbers (OPS) 446.37 676.99 <--
    CPU - SSE/3DNow! (MMPS) 2118.56 4737.13 <--
    CPU - Comp (KB/s) 2994.16 5952.34 <--
    CPU - Encrypt (MB/s) 18.09 36.27 <--
    CPU - Image Rotation (IRPS) 598.21 1184.41 <--
    CPU - String Sorting (TPS) 2118.81 3672.59 <--
    Graphics 2D - Lines (TPS) 220.71 25.15 <--
    Graphics 2D - Rectangles (TPS) 189.74 61.8 <--
    Graphics 2D - Shapes (TPS) 39.54 13.71 <--
    Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text (OPS) 190.39 75.88 <--
    Graphics 2D - GUI (OPS) 439.77 63.72 <--
    Memory - Allocate Small Block (MB/s) 2533.83 2526.21
    Memory - Read Cached (MB/s) 1960.5 1906.27
    Memory - Read Uncached (MB/s) 1871.79 1826.08
    Memory - Write (MB/s) 1687.81 1545.43
    Memory - Large RAM (OPS) 60.99 46.37
    Disk - Sequential Read (MB/s) 102.11 76.45 <--
    Disk - Sequential Write (MB/s) 58.33 50.9
    Disk - Rnd Seek + RW (MB/s) 51.4 40.4
    CPU Mark 711.08 1432.72 <--
    2D Graphics Mark 743.31 176.5 <--
    Memory Mark 599.94 580.38
    Disk Mark 766.11 606.7
    PassMark Rating 557.27 637.35<br>

    Thanks for posting these numbers - it's an interesting comparison.
    I would expect the final VMWare fusion performance numbers to be quite a bit better than that of Parallels - they have almost a decade's worth of experience more than the Parallels folks in this arena, and a much larger development team to boot.
    Once VMWare Fusion is released to the public, I think that you'll see a clearer distinction between the two products. VMWare will continue to appeal to the professional customer, with a more robust feature set and corporate-friendly features (and a correspondingly higher price tag); Parallels will fall more into the consumer/VirtualPC-replacement market. It will be interesting to see how Parallels will be affected when (and if) VMWare player is ported to OS X.
    Interesting about the Parallels performance stats on a native partition - looks like almost enough reason to avoid the bootcamp partition approach altogether. Sharing a native windows installation with a VM in parallels is a pretty scary situation in any case, as the two environments have entirely different hardware configurations. Do-able, but there is some black magic involved (if you want to see an example of what I mean, try to move a windows installation from one machine to another w/different hardware sometime - it ain't pretty); I wouldn't try this in a production scheme unless I had REALLY good backups.

  • Windows 7 OEM parallels and Bootcamp, installation sequence?

    So ive got a 2013 macbook air and planning on using the OEM licence to firstly create a bootcamp partition, and the having parallels run off the bootcamp partition. Now I understand I might have to go through the whole phone activation the second time. My question is ...what sequence should I use to activate.Should I activate parallels first after the installation of parallel tools or can I just activate bootcamp first????

    Karim.Foad wrote:
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  • VM Fusion and Parallels and even a Boot Camp question

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    Sounds like you were using Fusion's Coherence mode to launch individual applications which some people prefer. But you should have first had Windows desktop.
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  • Vista on Parallels and Bootcamp

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    Jackian wrote:
    I just bought the lastest Parallels and Windows Vista Ultimate, but before I go and install I heard from my friends that there is a way to set up and partition my hard drive so I can run vista through both Parallels and Bootcamp, with them sharing the same partitioned memory is this true? If so, where can I find the instructions online? Do you get to choose how the ram are distributed when I run the system? If so, what is a good ratio?
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  • Parallels and Bootcamp Thread

    Id like to start a thread involving the 2. I am would like to get users of both to state their observations and personal opinions. Please take a few moments to add a comment.
    This is to help me and others when trying to decide which to use. I have no choice, I need XP on here, but I HATE the thought of it being inside my clean, pure Mac! lol
    Lets see if I have it correct:
    Bootcamp:
    -Software to bootup Windows. You cannot simply switch over from OS X.
    -You must partition the drive and install Windows on the partition
    -Allows you to use 100% of the Mac's resources
    -easliy "unpartition" drive if Windows is to be removed in the future
    Parallels:
    -Software allowing one to switch back and forth from OSX and Windows and also allows one to use both at the same time
    -Must still partition the drive, but can specify the amount
    -Apps. running in Windows must share resources with OSX, so this may cause Windows apps to run slower.
    -does not offer an "unpartiton" option. You must wipe the entire drive
    Have I got the basics? I will edit this if not. Thank you!

    I'll post to this because while I support the "search first" concept often the information is scattered in multiple threads interlaced with other comments and it takes a ton of time to decipher it all.
    Also in this case I believe both Parallels and Bootcamp have changed the personal computing world enough that I believe we need to examine them together in detail:
    First off: I purchased a MacBookPro and a MacMini based on Intel BECAUSE of these two technologies.
    My work requires programming in Windows XP under Delphi. Yet I prefer Unix and OS X is Unix with a killer GUI. For many years I wanted a notebook that would give me everything in one nice package. The MBP is that notebook and I can only see them getting better and better. Mine has been the best notebook I've ever owned even with the little things like warped lid etc.
    Parallels simply put is the answer to a dream for me. All I need Windows for is to run my programming environment and test. I need internet/network connectivity. In Parallels I get all that and more.
    I installed BootCamp the day the beta came available and it was great. No doubt a killer way to run Windows. But I lost OS X. IE I couldn't switch. For me this was not much better than having a Windows based laptop. I wanted both.
    I think what Parallels has accomplished is simply amazing and I participate in the Parallels forums. But I see alot of people asking for things that are very difficult. Basically they want Parallels to fully support highspeed 3D graphics and full USB 2.0. Both of these things give Windows alone a headache. To ask that it be done in a virtualization environment seems to be asking the impossible.
    Yet Parallels claims there will be answers to these questions. For now I can tell any of you that are concerned... I have not found ONE SINGLE PROGRAM that does not run in Parallels UNLESS it is doing something hardware specific.
    Add to that the speed which which it runs (almost native!) and you simply can't go wrong.
    Furthermore as people here have stated. Parallels uses a disk file to represent the hard disk. To me this is BETTER than having a partition. One simple reason... You can easily make backups of the ENTIRE hard disk. My Windows XP Parallels file is about 16gb. It takes about 5 minutes but on a regular basis and before EVERY new install of anything in Windows or OS X I copy it to my backup disk. I have about 5 archived versions of this file.
    In the event something goes bad in a Windows install... No problem. Quit the VM, copy the "good" file back in place and you've just gone back in time BETTER than any of the restore point stuff in Win XP ever could be.
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    Imagine an OS that could boast: Install ANY OS with in this OS and run it at close to native speed in a window! That is what Parallels gives OS X at the current moment. If Apple bought it, put it in Leopard or whatever and didn't kill it too bad with registrations and limitations it might place a serious crimp in M$ plans for XP in the future. They have NOTHING close to this.
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    I'm hoping someday a firmware/ROM fix comes out for the MBP that enables us to put 4gb in these little notebooks. That would rock.
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  • Using both Parallel and Bootcamp

    Hi,
    I was wondering if it's possible to have both Parallel and Bootcamp.
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    But I also want to have Parallel to switch back and forth to quickly do different tasks other than CAD.
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    If having both is possible, how do I do it and  which one do I install first, Bootcamp or Parallels?
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    1. It is possible to use both Parallels and Bootcamp.
    2. It requires reactivating the Windows side with the same product key.
    3. Install Bootcamp first, then Parallels.
    4. Please see http://kb.parallels.com/en/112941 for the necessary steps after Bootcamp is installed.

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    I've used WinXP with Fusion on a MacMini and it was fine (but faster in BootCamp). I'm currently running Vista Business on a MacBook Pro in Parallels and while it isn't slow, it certainly is slower than in BootCamp. I expect Fusion would run Vista a bit faster - Fusion does tend to be a bit faster than Parallels but Parallels seems to get along better than Fusion with one of the applications I'm using.
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    Hi
    I have a MacBook Pro:
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    Yes, I would definitely recommend setting up BootCamp for this - it's relatively painless. (It can create a new partition in the unused space on your OS X disk without erasing the disk.) The BootCamp Assistant has detailed instructions on how to go about setting up a partition and installing Windows on it, but the gist of it is that you have the BootCamp Assistant create a partition for you, then you boot from your Windows install disc and install Windows on that partition. When you've booted into Windows for the first time, pop in your OS 10.6 install disc, and it will install Apple's hardware drivers and utilities for Windows. If you got 10.6 shortly after it came out, the drivers will be version 3.0 for Windows Vista - you'll need to download version BootCamp 3.1 from the Apple support site to ensure full support for Windows 7. (If you have a newer copy of 10.6, it might have the new drivers already - I don't know, as I have an older one.)
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