Written by Darryn Lowe | 10 December 2006
Posted in Utilities

Darryn Lowe provides NZMac.com users with a follow up to his superb review on the various options available for running Windows in on a Mac with an Intel chip

Recently the team at Parallels released an update to Parallels Desktop that has added some amazing new features. These features I feel require noting as they swing my previous article more in favour of Parallels in terms of cool factor. Technically this update isn't available yet but I have a copy and I've played with it and I'm more than impressed.

Review
Installation & Documentation
Ease of use
Value for money
Price approx.	$79.99 USD Needs Windows license
Software/Hardware Requirements	Intel Mac 512Mb RAM (1Gb recommended) 30Mb HDD 15Gb HDD recommended for Virtual Machines Mac OS X 10.4.6+
Available from	Version is technically not available but can be downloaded from the Parallels forum Parallel Tools for Boot Camp (Beta)

Left Left Left Right Left:
One of the things that makes any virtual machine run slow is due to the fact that they use compressed images. Imagine a virtual machine that could use an image on a physical hard drive. Uncompressed, and an actual Windows install.

What if Parallels could use your Boot Camp build as a virtual machine?

"What if?" indeed....and clearly the folks at Parallels wondered the same thing because that is what they have done. By using the Boot Camp build you are running Windows directly from your hardware. This means faster loading, faster access to software....and....well this currently means a nightmare of an install.

Firstly you will need to convert your Boot Camp build from FAT32 (if this is the file system you are using) to NTFS. This needs  to be done in Windows using a command line command called Convert like so:

convert c: /fs:ntfs

C: refers to the drive letter

/FS:NTFS refers to the file system

Because you are using C: drive to run Windows you will be asked if you want to convert on reboot. Choose yes and the next time you boot into Windows it will convert your drive from FAT to NTFS.

There is one caveat though. Mac OS X cannot write to an NTFS partition. It can read from one though. NTFS support on Linux systems is somewhat nonexistent in terms of writing but it can be done with some open source tools.

Once you have converted the system you will need to boot into Windows to run a tool that allows you to use Boot Camp partitions in Parallels. This is NOT included in the Parallels DMG file and is instead only available from the Parallels site but it is not available from the downloads section of the site as it has not officially been released yet. I'm picking once properly released it will be available in the DMG, surely on the CD.

Once installed you can reboot into Mac OS X and run Parallels. You will have a couple of options for your VM.

Under "Hard Disk 1" you will see an option labeled "Use Boot Camp". Simply select this option and you can run Windows using Boot Camp without having to boot into Boot Camp.

It alters the boot loader though so you will see a couple of new entries on bootup:

 

Choose "Parallels configuration" and press enter.

 

Choose "Parallels configuration" and press enter.

You will need to do this each time you run Windows otherwise your install will not run properly.

And that's that.

Incoherent
Perhaps the coolest feature of the new Parallels beta is Coherence. In my original write-up I had a screenshot of Parallels running the ubiquitous FreeCell:

 

Now look at FreeCell running in Coherence mode:

See anything cool here? :-)

FreeCell....and any Windows application, can run as though it was running on the Mac OS X desktop. The Start bar is visible which is a shame and I hope that when they finally release this to the public that this would be in the Dock like Virtual PC 7 used to do. Nevertheless it all means that you don't need some ugly Windows desktop showing while you're running Windows apps.

This feature can be set to be run automatically on startup from the " Options" settings and ticking "Switch to Coherence automatically"

 

All in all this new version of Parallels means that it is the product of choice for everyone wanting to run Windows apps on their Mac. Yes it is the most expensive option. Yes you still will need to boot into Boot Camp to run games (although they are very near to getting full hardware support using the Boot Camp feature) but it all means that you don't need to lose the feel of Mac OS X just when you're running Windows apps. You now now also drag and drop files between OS's like you used to be able to do in Virtual PC.

Parallels has come a long way in such a short time and there are already rumours of Apple buying out Parallels. This is no doubt conjecture but Apple has always supported Parallels. This version has concreted my desire to buy Parallels. The previous version didn't offer me much incentive due to being a little buggy, slow, and you couldn't drag and drop files between OS's This has all changed and it is now worth the money.

 

 

Please note, Parallels comment...
"Please remember that this is beta software, and like any other beta software you should treat it very carefully. Do not install this Beta into the production environment yet. Do backup your virtual machines before starting them."