Running Windows on a Mac: Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop & VMware Fusion

a vm is fine for work such as yours. anything related to game development and video editing and the vm will not cut the cloth. if you have money to splash, then flashing your 8gb of ram will make you happy and proud!!!! w7 is absolutely worth it.

 

hey guys, what are the settings you use for your vm's? i'm currently using parallels 5 and i have allocated 2cpu's and 2gb of ram to it. even then i notice it is quite sluggish when scrolling down webpages and why does the cpu temp go up? mine rockets up to 70's while i'm watching a normal movie(not hd). Is there a way to optimise the performance of the vm?

 

In my VMware fusion settings I've set the number of virtual processors to 1 even though I have a Core 2 Duo.

Here is what the VMware help file says regarding the allocation of CPUs to the VM...

 

also, I currently have 4 gig of my 8 gig allocated to my XP VM. In full screen mode it is almost indistinguishable from running XP in Bootcamp.

I'll try changing the ram in the vm to 2gb and allocate 2 CPUs to see how that goes... I'll post up again later with those results.


*edit:

What does your memory and CPU usage look like in Activity Monitor and the Windows Task manager while the VM is up and running?

I tried it with 2GB RAM and 2 CPUs allocated. I didn't run any benchmarks but the short time I was in there and pulled up windows media player, windows explorer, ie browser, going through the START menus, etc... performance was noticeably slower than my usual 4GB and 1CPU setup. Lots of hour glass and the flashlight when performing file searches, etc. I didn't really notice much different in IE or in responsiveness when scrolling. But in launching of applications in general it was a drag/slow.

Then I changed the settings to 2GB and 1CPU. "Seemed" to do better... there was less hour glass and flashlight when launching apps and searching for files using the single CPU.

also remember that we have slightly different systems and different VM software, not to mention probably different windows versions running inside the VM. Anyways, try it with a single CPU allocated to the VM and see how that works. Hopefully someone with Parallels and a similar configuration to yours can post up their settings.

 

I've found a dual core runs better if you only use 1 in the VM. I'd only do 2 or 3 with a quad core.

 

yeah i'll revert it to one cpu. thanks. w7 was lagging loads when playing music on media player.

 

I've been playing around with Fusion 3.0.1 for most of the weekend (except when watching the playoff games )...

It has been very fun and a good learning experience for me. Here's what I've been doing if anyone cares, lol.

I've had XP Pro in Bootcamp that I'd use strictly for business pretty much since I've had my MBP. Mainly Oracle Apps development that, in short, required using XP because of Oracles Jinitiator product that a few of my clients still insist on using. And Jinitiator refuses to run under Vista or Win7.

So, today I played around with virtual machines to test out some "hacks" to see if I could get the stuff that normally only works under XP to work under Vista 64. I began by using Fusion to install a copy of Vista Ultimate 64 (which I've had an unused copy of sitting on the shelves since before Win7 was released). Installation went great. I allocate 5GB RAM to it and the OS runs smooth as butter.

Soooo, I experimented with my JVM hacks in Vista. Sadly, those hacks failed because Jinitiator uses 32 bit JVM 1.3 and I was using JDK 1.6 thru 1.6u10 since Vista doesn't support 1.3. (tried both 32 and 64 bit versions of the 1.6 jvm.dll). Point is, I couldn't get that to work without it acting strange and buggy. But having virtual machines made it very easy for me to do this experiment. It would've totally sucked to have wiped out my working bootcamp partition of XP Pro and replace it with Vista, only to find out too late that my "hacks" with Oracle and the JVM wouldn't work with Vista 64 and somehow I would have to restore my old XP Pro environment back into Bootcamp.

I'm really loving this VM stuff. So what I did next was to move my XP bootcamp partition into a virtual machine so that I could drop bootcamp and have the OS X reclaim that disk space again. I began first by making lots of backups of my XP environment. I took an image of my XP Pro partition and I also took backups of my Documents folder and saved those to disk and an external HDD. Then I imported Bootcamp into a virtual machine. And then I took a Snapshot of the new VM, just incase. Then I got rid of Bootcamp and gave that disk space back to the OS X partition. That gave me back about another 70GB disk space that I can use for OS X or to use if I needed to later expand my virtual HDD for the XP vm.

Now my next move is to purchase a 500GB HDD, move my optical drive to an external housing, and install the 500GB as a 2nd HDD where the opti-drive was. I haven't done that yet but I want to. Then I may try using Bootcamp again to install Windows 7 64 or Ubuntu just for grins. Regardless, I think I want to get more diskspace. Too bad I can not get more than 8GB RAM. LOL Using these VMs I've already seen where I've been with only 120mb ram remaining at some times

Anways, I'm still at the moment stuck with using XP Pro for my Oracle Applications development. But now I'm doing my XP stuff in a VM and I've freed up a bunch of disk space since Bootcamp is no longer employed. And this VM stuff has been really cool and fun to use and has helped alot with my software / OS compatibility testing.


* all of this boils down to one question that I have remaining. What backup methods work well for virtual machines? VMware says not to try using TimeMachine to backup a virtual machine. And VMware also says that their own machine state "snapshots" aren't really the same as a backup. So, how do I backup a virtual machine? Do I backup using regular windows software like Acronis within the virtual machine and save the backups to my external HDD? I will experiment with that next week and post up my results. But if anyone else already has a good process/means of backing of VMs, please share.

Thanks,

Ben

 

what is your cpu temp when you're running fusion? Did you try parallels 5? i want to see how it stacks when compared to fusion.

 

with the work I do there isn't a whole lot of processor intensive stuff going on.
I often can't even hear if the fans are running

here are some snapshots of my OSX Activity Monitor and the Windows Task Manager (virtual)...

 

I've tried both. Parallels Desktop 5 for me seems like a much better integration compared to VMWare Fusion 3.01. I get better speeds overall and the CPU and memory usage is a lot less. Prior to getting 8GB , with 4GB ram, I don't run into much memory problems and I can run intensive programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, as well as on Windows; Visual Studio 2008 all at the same time.

As well, Crystal and Coherence seems to work a lot smoother compared to VMWare Fusion(with Unity). The other thing that I like is the icons in Crystal/Coherence mode is the icons, they are higher resolution compared to the VMWare's pixelated icons on the dock. There's a bunch of nice touches that Parallels manages to do with their software ie; Start button with the Parallels icon, MacLook theme, VM Mounting (it mounts the drive on the finder Devices Panel). And reliability has been surprisingly good with no issues or problems, whereas I had issues with VMware getting the network to work under NAT or bridge.

 

i have also found parallels 5 to be better. there's even a folder which is copied on the dock, where we can load our windows softwares. what are your cpu temps from istat? mine is in the 60's and climbs to 70's when listening to music, internet browsing (flash) and watching movies on media player.

 

I've not tried Parallels. I might give it a shot as it sounds pretty good. I'm very pleased with VMware however and I have no complaints with the stuff I'm using it for. I can use NAT or Bridged in Fusion without a problem.

Here is a screen capture in OS X with Fusion running in "Unity" (similar to Parallel's Coherence mode?) for those who have not seen it.



I like that I have the windows taskbar at the bottom for launching windows apps and also being able to see the system tray.

There is also a double arrow icon in the upper OS X toolbar that lets you change VM settings, launch another vm, switch between VMs or launch other window apps within the current VM, etc. I'm sure Parallels has all the same equivalent features. But if parallels does perform faster than I may try out their free trial version.


*edit: also, I assume Parallel's has some sort of import feature so I could easily convert my existing VMware Fusion VM to a Parallel VM?

Thanks


*edit#2: also discovered that my backups from my VM XP environment work just the same as when it was in Bootcamp... wasn't sure at first if that would be an issue so I'm happy it works the same as before. I just plug in my external USB HDD and run my backup. No difference that I can see from doing the backup in bootcamp. And yes, I tested a restore too

 

Sounds pretty interesting but you do bump into limits using a laptop. A friend of mine uses a Mac Pro as a VM server to get around limitations on his smaller systems to connect to work.

 

Here's my desktop using Parallels Desktop 5.9220. Virtually the same as yours except for the location of the Startmenu right from the Parallels dock Icon. Task Menu items are the same as VMWare located right on the top OSX Menu.

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7669/parallels.jpg

Yes, Parallels has a VMWare Migration tool(whatever it's called officially) it basically takes the VMWare file and converts and makes a copy of it for Parallels use.

Give it a try, I've tried both and Parallels has been the winner so far amongst the 2 (although very close battle). The speed alone is worth the migration.

 

i gotta take a test run of parallels 5 and see how it is.

I went to VMware just after Parallels 4 came out because 3 gave me problems and 4 was a pile of trash I don't know how anyone could of used it.

 

I was quite skeptical with 5 as well as I couldn't get 4 working prior. So Iwent with VMWare Fusion 2 for the most part until 3 came out and it was a dissappointment as the performance wasn't much better. Parallels is surprisingly stable and reliable, I haven't had Windows or OS X crash or do funny things (other than some minor focus issues), however with VMWare Fusion 3 I was having more problems trying to get certain things to work right.

 

D3X, might wanna blur out some of those filenames in those screenshots ;p

 

hey guys, are you enabling aero?

 

No, I disable it or use MacLook (in Parallels). I find it that the transparency effects are all messed up due to the different background on the virtual machine. In Coherence or Unity modes they just look a little odd.

 

LOL oh well, I'm not too concerned, I haven't used any of those softwares nor do I distribute them. Downloaded them from a source but never thought they were useful, that reminds me, I should get rid of them and save some hard disk space.

 

i've also seen that aero eats up resources a lot.

 

For VMWare, it consumes a lot more resources compared to Parallels. If you like using Aero, try Parallels and compare it with VMWare.

 

regarding Fusion... is it possible to Un-shrink a VM after it has been shrunk/compressed using the "shrink" feature. I did a "shrink" on my XP OS thinking that it would allow me to resize my vm hdd. But then I realized it was really compressing the VM. Having the extra disk space is nice... but at the cost of performance.

that all may be moot anyways since I'm now downloading Parallels 5 But still would like to now if possible to un-shrink a fusion VM.

Thanks,

Ben

*edit: I think I may have an answer to my question about shrinkage... I unchecked the "Split into 2GB files" option under HardDisk settings. This took the virtual machine files (in the hundreds in my case) and concatenated them into a single large file. Then it automatically "expands" the virtual disk file which I think is what I was wanting to do when I was asking about "unshrinking" a shrunk VM. Regardless, I think that to be able to import this Fusion VM into Parallels, the VM would've had to been in a single file anyway.

I'm going to test it now that the process has just completed. I expect performance may be a tad better than when it was broken into 2gb files and compressed.

*edit #2: okay, it may just be my wishful thinking, but the Fusion vm that I changed from many hundreds of files into a single vm file... it sure seems faster and more responsive.

Next I'm going to try importing this Fusion VM into Parellels 5.

 

yeah, parallels 5 handles aero better than fusion, but have being a vm, they both seem slower with aero enabled. have you noticed this?

 

okay, I'm using parallels for the first time now. I've imported the fusion XP vm into parallels. It is faster. For example, I don't see the flicker that I did when scrolling fast in a large text file in Fusion.

I'm not 100% sure that I'll commit to it though. I tried to pull up a "recent" file in one of my applications toolbar file menu and it couldn't find it. THen I went looking for the file with windows explorer, found it and loaded it into the application I was using. strange, but it may be that I'm just still getting used to the new interface. I'm not sure yet how parallels maps out my files directories and I'm wondering if something had changed.

I'll report back in a few days after I've used it some more. It is very nice though and I've got alot more available ram even though I've allocated the same amount in parallels as I did with Fusion, so thats cool. I think I just need to get used to the interface some more and build some confidence that my imported fusion vm wasn't corrupted in the conversion.

 

I also recommend parallels 5. it is faster and more stable and easier to use.

hey guys, any of you using xp on bootcamp? Is there any difference in temperatures with nvidia powermizer on?

 

Yes, I've noticed this. Aero does slow down Parallels as well, but it's more usable than VMWare. I found VMWare sluggish and slow to refresh with Aero on, and even when it was turned off, it wasn't much different in performance compared to Fusion 2.

 

okay, it is official. I've converted to parallels 5.



it is sooo much smoother and much quicker screen drawing in parallels 5 than in fusion 3.

And my resources aren't being eaten up like they were before. awesome. Once I got the preferences set the way I like them it is very nice.

Thanks,

Ben

 

Awesome. Yeah I knew you would benefit from the swtich judging by MBP system specs, which are very similar to mine (although slightly faster processor speed).

 

@ d3x, Have you tried using xp on bootcamp and enabling nvidia powermizer to save energy? What was it like? What were your gpu temps and your battery life?

 

I have tried. Powermizer doesn't seem to do anything, even at the most aggressive settings. I'm really not sure why that is and but I'm guessing that there is an underlying problem with the drivers or an EFI/ACPI that fails to work using third party drivers or the Mac Boot Camp drivers. I have since moved to Windows 7 Ultimate, and it's essentially the same. The only thing that actually seems to work is the GPU underclocking to about 150Mhz instead of 475mhz via Nvidia's driver and that lowers temperatures, but not necessarily any battery life.

GPU temps are high, it's running the 9600GT and even with OCZ Extreme thermal paste, it's still running over 60-62C on idle, underclocked it does a little better at around 58-59C. As for battery, my battery has been degraded to about 90% of full capacity, so I'm getting about 1:45 hour a little over 2hrs at the most aggressive battery saving; LED Backlight at the lowest, Bluetooth off, simple web surfing etc. I need to recalibrate the battery and see how it does, but I don't have much hopes of it doing much better(or worse).

Oh, and the other thing, I have 2 storage drives in my MBP so my battery draw is also greater than yours (since the optical drive usually shuts off if not in use). SSDs still draw about .7v - 2.3v range, and my hitachi 500 GB does about 1.7v - 2.3v (according to reviews etc), so that's some extra juice that's being used that could affect my numbers.

 

Did you try gpu undervolting? I did try it but nibitor woudn't read my clocks. Guess that the 9600m gt in the macbook pro is a bit different. I also tried gpu underclocking but when i set it to the lowest possible clocks, i saw weird lines when scrolling on acrobat reader. I preferred setting it back to normal.

 

Hmmm that's strange. I just tested VMware and Parallels individually (w/ 1 Core & 1GB of Memory) and I found that VMware usually took around .5% CPU utilization and Parallels took 1.5-2% CPU utilization when idling. Both used a bit more than 1GB of memory when initialized.

This was with a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate.

I'm going to try installing Office (which is all I need vmware for) and then test the CPU utilization then as well.

I want the VM to utilize the CPU as little as possible to increase battery life. I use the Macbook for class notes and I can't stand using Office 2008 or iWork. Office 2007 is soooo much better.

What numbers have you guys been seeing?

 

Right, but that 1% won't affect your OS X performance. However Parallels is faster than VMware Fusion 3. Try running a few programs and test it out.

 

yes i can confirm this. btw, i have noticed that a vm uses more cpu. my cpu temps rocket up when i use parallels.

 

thats why I stick to Wine 95% of the time... no overhead of a virtual machine.

 

yes, wine stays cooler than virtual machines but it cannot run visual studio which is what i need in windows.

 

If it is of any interest, the battery life has improved with Boot Camp 3.1 and Windows XP. Have not tested using Windows 7. The actual power consumption is down to around 11 Watts now for my MacBook (using Wifi, disabled iSight, disabled Bluetooth), which gives respectable battery life. Still not close to the power consumption of 7-8 Watts in OS X, though.

Before Boot Camp 3.0/3.1, the power consumption was around 14-15 Watts using Windows XP. And since Windows 7 is supposed to be more efficient that Windows XP, the battery life should improve slightly more I guess. I've also seen reports of around 9.5 Watts when using optimized Linux.

 

Sounds great although I hardly use Windows on my MBP anymore except for programs that only run on Windows (like my tax software).

What's the installation procedure for updating BC?

 

You run the Apple Update software program in Windows, it will check if there are any updates. Boot Camp 3.1 should show up there. Once downloaded, it will update Boot Camp automatically.

 

could you give us some numbers? What's your battery life like? It's still hot i believe.

 

I have the first generation unibody MacBook. It uses the 9400M, and I don't feel the notebook is particularly hot anymore. The battery is starting to age a bit now though, but for some concrete numbers;

Windows XP:

3h 15min doing normal web surfing (disabled isight, bluetooth, screen at lowest brightness) I verified this, the battery actually lasts 3 hours.

Snow Leopard:

4h 30min doing normal web surfing (screen at lowest brightness)

I also played a high definition 720p h264 video as well, and the battery in Windows XP was holding up well. I saw around 2 hours remaining. Overall, I would say that the battery life has reached an acceptable level compared to OS X, and it is not so annoyingly short anymore.

 

I apparently don't have 3.0 installed as 3.1 requests 3.0. I couldn't find 3.0 at Apple's site - there are the 2.2 and 3.1 updates. Is 3.0 on the SL disk?

 

yes, the setup requires you purchase snow leopard and install it.

@mackan. Thanks.. my battery life is also way better in os x. But that's to be expected.

 

How's that working for you? I'm assuming you're doing some web based dev, so running Cassini (or a full on IIS)?

I've been thinking about a MBP:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5925505#post5925505

...but need 100% in a VM solution, and rebooting into Windows (via Bootcamp) kind of defeats the purpose.

I'd love to hear your $0.02, especially if you're running stuff in the native/Unity mode(s), MS SQL, other dev tools, etc.

Thanks!

 

Hi, for web development, i'm currently using dreamweaver cs4 for mac and it runs fine. I was using its bootcamp counterpart till last week. Now i'm fully developing on the mac platform. Im using mamp as the webserver. It also has a phpmyadmin where i can create and manage my database. I will be trying postgre sql in a few days. Nowadays, im only using windows for my visual studio usage, and that too on winXp through parallels 5. It's way better than vmware fusion.

 

Thanks for the info. VS is a must for me (there's not a good substitute). Also having EMS/Oracle, SMS/SQL (and the servers themselves, XE or SQLE). I'm doing pretty robust enterprise level development for the Feds and also in the clinical analytics space.

I also have some specific client front end for secure access - I'm assuming those run pretty seamless on a Windows VM (Cisco VPN client for example).

I'll keep lurking around and reading

 

i havent tried oracle on a vm. One thing you must keep in mind is that if your software requires lots of cpu or gpu power, it will tend to lag on your virtual machines as these cannot compete with native windows boots.

 

how does setting up diskspace for the virtual machine work in parallels?
does it create a partition for it or an image file or something like that?

 

no, it takes your hard drive(os x partition) as the default partition and will grow as you add files/softwares to your vm.