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Windows 8.1 on Mac

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  Windows 8.1 on Mac Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> - 2015-03-23 07:40 -0600
    Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-03-23 13:59 +0000
      Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> - 2015-03-24 00:49 -0600
        Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-03-24 15:12 +0000
        Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2015-03-25 08:04 +1200
    Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac eastender <email@domain.com> - 2015-03-23 17:46 +0000
    Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2015-03-23 19:12 +0000
    Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2015-03-24 08:14 +1200
      Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-03-23 16:40 -0400
        Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> - 2015-03-23 17:01 -0400
          Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2015-03-24 11:07 +1300
          Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-03-23 18:26 -0400
        Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-03-23 21:47 +0000
    Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac claudel@sonic.net (Claude V. Lucas) - 2015-03-23 20:07 +0000
      Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2015-03-24 13:20 +1200
    Re: Windows 8.1 on Mac Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-03-23 16:37 -0400

#71927 — Windows 8.1 on Mac

I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.

This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

Andre

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#71932

On 2015-03-23, Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
>
> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

Both are great at it. They tend to leap frog each other every couple
years in terms of features; but both are roughly the same and run
Windows at almost full speed for most operations. Through the years I
have preferred VMware Fusion because on the whole they seem to have a
bit better support and a better handle on their bugs.

While there is some 3D acceleration support, it typically requires
closer access to hardware than virtualization solutions provide to
perform well, which is why you wouldn't want to use a virtual machine to
do that sort of thing. For everything else, though, it's usually
downright zippy. 

Note: You do need to have sufficient free RAM to allow for the virtual
machine and guest operating system (Windows) to run well. If you are
running the latest Mac OS X (10.10 - Yosemite), I recommend having more
than 4GB of RAM installed - 8GB or higher would be preferable - for best
results.

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#71994

In article <cnakihFhle3U9@mid.individual.net>,
 Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> wrote:

> On 2015-03-23, Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
> > whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
> > VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
> >
> > This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
> > isn't particularly concerned about gaming.
> 
> Both are great at it. They tend to leap frog each other every couple
> years in terms of features; but both are roughly the same and run
> Windows at almost full speed for most operations. Through the years I
> have preferred VMware Fusion because on the whole they seem to have a
> bit better support and a better handle on their bugs.
> 
> While there is some 3D acceleration support, it typically requires
> closer access to hardware than virtualization solutions provide to
> perform well, which is why you wouldn't want to use a virtual machine to
> do that sort of thing. For everything else, though, it's usually
> downright zippy. 
> 
> Note: You do need to have sufficient free RAM to allow for the virtual
> machine and guest operating system (Windows) to run well. If you are
> running the latest Mac OS X (10.10 - Yosemite), I recommend having more
> than 4GB of RAM installed - 8GB or higher would be preferable - for best
> results.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

RAM shouldn't be an issue (32 GB), and nothing I'll be doing requires 
much speed wise. I work with opentype fonts, and need to verify that 
they work properly under windows and major unices as well as Mac, but 
don't want to constantly reboot using Boot Camp.

What I'm taking away from this discussion is that either will likely 
meet my needs.

Andre

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#72002

On 2015-03-24, Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
> In article <cnakihFhle3U9@mid.individual.net>,
>  Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2015-03-23, Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
>> > whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
>> > VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
>> >
>> > This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
>> > isn't particularly concerned about gaming.
>> 
>> Both are great at it. They tend to leap frog each other every couple
>> years in terms of features; but both are roughly the same and run
>> Windows at almost full speed for most operations. Through the years I
>> have preferred VMware Fusion because on the whole they seem to have a
>> bit better support and a better handle on their bugs.
>> 
>> While there is some 3D acceleration support, it typically requires
>> closer access to hardware than virtualization solutions provide to
>> perform well, which is why you wouldn't want to use a virtual machine to
>> do that sort of thing. For everything else, though, it's usually
>> downright zippy. 
>> 
>> Note: You do need to have sufficient free RAM to allow for the virtual
>> machine and guest operating system (Windows) to run well. If you are
>> running the latest Mac OS X (10.10 - Yosemite), I recommend having more
>> than 4GB of RAM installed - 8GB or higher would be preferable - for best
>> results.
>
> Thanks everyone for your responses.
>
> RAM shouldn't be an issue (32 GB), and nothing I'll be doing requires 
> much speed wise. I work with opentype fonts, and need to verify that 
> they work properly under windows and major unices as well as Mac, but 
> don't want to constantly reboot using Boot Camp.
>
> What I'm taking away from this discussion is that either will likely 
> meet my needs.

It sounds that way to me. As others have mentioned, if you want to do it
cheaper, VirtualBox is a good option as well (although more complicated
to set up and use, and without some of the nicer bells and whistles of
the others).

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#72010

In article <agisaak.spamblock-60572D.00493724032015@shawnews>, Ymir
<agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks everyone for your responses.
> 
> RAM shouldn't be an issue (32 GB), and nothing I'll be doing requires 
> much speed wise. I work with opentype fonts, and need to verify that 
> they work properly under windows and major unices as well as Mac, but 
> don't want to constantly reboot using Boot Camp.
> 
> What I'm taking away from this discussion is that either will likely 
> meet my needs.

Last time I looked both VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop had trial
versions on their websites you can download to see which you prefer.

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#71944

On 2015-03-23 13:40:02 +0000, Ymir said:

> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here
> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and
> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
> 
> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and
> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

I've got both XP and 8.1 running under Parallels on a 2012 i7 quad Mac 
Mini, with 16GB ram and an SSD. It runs 8.1 very well. I did try and 
run 8.1 under Parallels on an older Mini (2009, 8GB ram, SSD) but it 
was hopeless, so you do need the horsepower.

E.

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#71964

Okay, so one time? In band camp? Ymir <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> was all, like:
> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.

They both work very well. There is no particular reason to prefer one
over the other.

> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

Virtualbox is free. It is kinda crappy, but for occasional use, it is
fine. And free.

-- 
http://2blog.kreme.com
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES BART A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES
BART A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES BART A DULL BOY Bart
chalkboard Ep. 1F07

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#71971

In article <agisaak.spamblock-618E23.07400223032015@shawnews>, Ymir
<agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
> 
> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

Realistically there's little difference between the two and it simply
comes down to being a matter of opinion. They tend to leap frog each
other with every update - one becoming marginally faster / better until
the other updates.

As well as those two, there are a couple of freeware / shareware
options, but they are less polished and more difficult to set-up for a
novice user.

Depending on what you using Windoze for, there's also Apple's Boot Camp
which comes free with the Mac, but does require a reboot to swap
between using OS X or Windoze (either at full speed), whereas
virtualisation allows you to use both at once (at a reduced speed).


Stay well away from silly WINE-based systems that claim to not require
Windoze to be installed. If you want to run Windoze software, then you
need to have real Windoze installed.

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#71975

On 2015-03-23 16:14, Your Name wrote:
> In article <agisaak.spamblock-618E23.07400223032015@shawnews>, Ymir
> <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here
>> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and
>> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
>>
>> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and
>> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.
>
> Realistically there's little difference between the two and it simply
> comes down to being a matter of opinion. They tend to leap frog each
> other with every update - one becoming marginally faster / better until
> the other updates.
>
> As well as those two, there are a couple of freeware / shareware
> options, but they are less polished and more difficult to set-up for a
> novice user.
>
> Depending on what you using Windoze for, there's also Apple's Boot Camp
> which comes free with the Mac, but does require a reboot to swap
> between using OS X or Windoze (either at full speed), whereas
> virtualisation allows you to use both at once (at a reduced speed).

The difference in speed between Windows on metal or under VM isn't worth 
mention for most tasks.  Esp. considering how easy it is to drag files 
OS to OS, copy/paste, and so on between the two.

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#71976

On 15-03-23 16:40, Alan Browne wrote:

> The difference in speed between Windows on metal or under VM isn't worth 
> mention for most tasks.  Esp. considering how easy it is to drag files 
> OS to OS, copy/paste, and so on between the two.

When Windows runs under "VM", is it essentially a single process on OS-X
which runs a Windows instance ?

How much work does that "VM" have to do ? Obviously has to trap all
attempst to access hardware to emulate that hardware. To do this, must
it process every machine instruction or can there be true traps where
code can run unfethered until it makes a specific machine instruction ?

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#71981

JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> On 15-03-23 16:40, Alan Browne wrote:
> 
> > The difference in speed between Windows on metal or under VM isn't worth
> > mention for most tasks.  Esp. considering how easy it is to drag files
> > OS to OS, copy/paste, and so on between the two.
> 
> When Windows runs under "VM", is it essentially a single process on OS-X
> which runs a Windows instance ?
> 
> How much work does that "VM" have to do ? Obviously has to trap all
> attempst to access hardware to emulate that hardware. To do this, must
> it process every machine instruction or can there be true traps where
> code can run unfethered until it makes a specific machine instruction ?

The key concept is the hypervisor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor

You might get further clues by finding other articles on Wikipedia, e.g.
this one on VMware Workstation (Fusion is similar but with fewer
features).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_Workstation

This might also help, as it describes the x86 CPU-level support for
virtualization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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#71982

On 2015-03-23 17:01, JF Mezei wrote:
> On 15-03-23 16:40, Alan Browne wrote:
>
>> The difference in speed between Windows on metal or under VM isn't worth
>> mention for most tasks.  Esp. considering how easy it is to drag files
>> OS to OS, copy/paste, and so on between the two.
>
> When Windows runs under "VM", is it essentially a single process on OS-X
> which runs a Windows instance ?
>
> How much work does that "VM" have to do ? Obviously has to trap all
> attempst to access hardware to emulate that hardware. To do this, must
> it process every machine instruction or can there be true traps where
> code can run unfethered until it makes a specific machine instruction ?


Mostly the later (unfettered) - but low level functions do need to be 
trapped and re-directed or emulated.  For example WinXP would make BIOS 
calls.  Unfortunately the unholy way that MS did BIOS was via an even 
more unholy intel thing called a software interrupt.  A software 
interrupt behaved like a hardware interrupt except it could be invoked 
by software.  Convenient, I suppose.

Where Fusion runs a VM in a container file (as I do) then the host OS 
can provide all the high and low level functionality to read/write 
within the container.  Where Fusion runs a VM in a partition then I 
suspect the details may be messier - but a little faster.

As to OS X, running a Windows app under the hypervisor is no big issue. 
  The execution is contained within the VM's memory.  The microprocessor 
will not allow any process within the VM memory map to access a location 
outside the VM memory map.  ("protected mode" in whatever incarnation it 
is in at present).  Indeed the VM can only see the memory allocated to it.

Hypervisors have been around since the late 60's, and later in wide use 
on IBM 370's.  In early systems the first "layer" was the hypervisor 
with various OS' running under it.

The difference here is that the hypervisor runs under OS X.

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#71979

On 2015-03-23, Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
> On 2015-03-23 16:14, Your Name wrote:
>> In article <agisaak.spamblock-618E23.07400223032015@shawnews>, Ymir
>> <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here
>>> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and
>>> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
>>>
>>> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and
>>> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.
>>
>> Realistically there's little difference between the two and it simply
>> comes down to being a matter of opinion. They tend to leap frog each
>> other with every update - one becoming marginally faster / better until
>> the other updates.
>>
>> As well as those two, there are a couple of freeware / shareware
>> options, but they are less polished and more difficult to set-up for a
>> novice user.
>>
>> Depending on what you using Windoze for, there's also Apple's Boot Camp
>> which comes free with the Mac, but does require a reboot to swap
>> between using OS X or Windoze (either at full speed), whereas
>> virtualisation allows you to use both at once (at a reduced speed).
>
> The difference in speed between Windows on metal or under VM isn't worth 
> mention for most tasks.  Esp. considering how easy it is to drag files 
> OS to OS, copy/paste, and so on between the two.

Yep. That's my experience as well. For anything but really demanding 3D
acceleration and related things, VM performance is not different than
running the guest OS natively. And not having to reboot is a huge
benefit.

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#71972

In article <agisaak.spamblock-618E23.07400223032015@shawnews>,
Ymir  <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
>I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
>whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
>VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
>
>This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
>isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

I run Win 8.1 under Virtual Box for my limited need to run Windows
software that I bought back in the day. It seems to work fine.

The price is right...

I can't say how it works with Linux. Never had the urge to try it.

I used to use VMFusion, but I got tired of their "two free upgrades
and then charge for the next one, repeat until customers leave"
business model.

Parallels & Boot Camp are more complex than I need...

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#71988

In article <55107288$0$36594$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, Claude V. Lucas
<claudel@sonic.net> wrote:
> In article <agisaak.spamblock-618E23.07400223032015@shawnews>,
> Ymir  <agisaak.spamblock@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here 
> >whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and 
> >VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
> >
> >This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and 
> >isn't particularly concerned about gaming.
> 
> I run Win 8.1 under Virtual Box for my limited need to run Windows
> software that I bought back in the day. It seems to work fine.
> 
> The price is right...
> 
> I can't say how it works with Linux. Never had the urge to try it.
> 
> I used to use VMFusion, but I got tired of their "two free upgrades
> and then charge for the next one, repeat until customers leave"
> business model.
> 
> Parallels & Boot Camp are more complex than I need...

Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion are basically the same thing.

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#71974

On 2015-03-23 09:40, Ymir wrote:
> I've read various online reviews, but I thought I'd also ask here
> whether anyone has opinions on the relative strengths of Parallels and
> VMFusion for Virtualizing windows (and linux) on a Mac.
>
> This is for someone who would be using windows fairly infrequently, and
> isn't particularly concerned about gaming.

I use Fusion with Windows XP, Windows 7 and several Linuxes.  No issues.

Parallels is slightly faster in most operations.  (0 .. ~10% depending 
on the task).

But on any recent (2007+) Mac the difference isn't likely to make any 
difference except for gaming or some computationally heavy task.

http://www.tekrevue.com/parallels-10-fusion-7-virtualbox-benchmark/3/
show them to be too close to worry.  At that point you take the one 
you're most comfortable with.

The complete bunch of tests start at:
http://www.tekrevue.com/parallels-10-fusion-7-virtualbox-benchmark

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