There are a few select ways to run Windows on your Mac, one of the more popular methods being virtualization.  Today I will be looking at one of the most popular choices for virtualization on the Mac, Parallels (the alternatives being VM Ware Fusion and the free and open source Virtual Box).  Parallels has been the forerunner mainly because it was the first Mac virtualization software to hit the market.  Since its initial release (it is currently on version 3), Parallels has become more of a reliable, and powerful application. In this review I will be covering some of the more interesting features, and discussing what sort of users would want to use this product in the first place.

Installation Options

Parallels makes it very easy to install the operating system of your choice.  With Windows especially, it cuts out all the nonsense and makes the Windows installation the way it should have been from the beginning.

One of the great features of Parallels is that it works in unison with Apple’s Boot Camp. If you already have an existing Boot Camp partition, you can use Parallels to access it with out having to reboot. It is a very simple process, and the only hinderance is that you have to reactivate Windows.  This usually consist of nothing more than a ten minute phone call to Microsoft support.

There are a lot of options for Parallels users as to how much of their system’s resources that they want to give up to their virtual machine. You can decide the amount of memory you want to give the virtual machine, graphics memory, and lots of other tidbits. At this point it may be good to mention that if you want to run Parallels “well”, then you probably want your Mac to have 2GB of RAM at a minimum; however for optimum performance you will probably want 4GB.

The Experience

Running Windows in Parallels is a very good experience overall.  Programs load at a decent speed, and you can’t really feel that much of a delay. The Windows experience you receive is almost complete, apart from one problem.  It lacks good graphics performance. Sure, you can run games on it, but it is a world away from running a game on a native Windows machine or through Boot Camp.

When running everyday programs such as Office 2003 and FireFox, Parallels performs tremendously.  With one of the features of Parallels that I’ll discuss later, I’ll tell you how to make that experience a little bit better.

If you happen to be running Vista, one thing I suggest you do is immediately turn off Aero.  Even if you have a large amount of memory available to Windows. The trade up of performance is not worth it.  If you choose to run Aero, then you can not guarantee a great day-to-day computing experience. Parallels also features full integration with USB ports so that when you plug a USB device in you are able to access it. The only problem with this is the continual pop-up that appears asking if you want Windows to use it.

Parallels Tools

You can quite easily enjoy Parallels as a standard package, but to unlock some of the more interesting and helpful features you really need to install Parallels Tools (just to be clear, it is free and comes included - it just requires an installation on the Windows side). By installing Parallels Tools, you are able to access Coherence, cut and paste between operating systems, plus a couple of extra features that make working with Parallels easier.

Parallels Tools increases your productivity ten fold, though sometimes you find a couple of glitches where you can see the desktop background of Windows in coherence mode.  I have also noticed that the copy and paste between operating systems doesn’t always work as nicely as people may expect.

Coherence

There are three ways to view your virtual machine in Parallels. Window view, which lets you see the desktop within a window.  Full screen mode where the screen can become one of your Spaces, and finally my favourite: coherence mode (which requires Parallels Tools). In coherence mode you are able to run Windows applications in unison with Mac OS X. They appear as if they are simply a program in a Window running.

Coherence mode allows for a more seamless experience. Knowing that most of the time you will only require one app, not having to divert to a full Windows interface is helpful. An extra touch to this being; when you minimize a Windows program it zooms into the dock just as if it were a native app to Mac OS X.

Snapshots

Parallels has also made allowances for the fact that (in my opinion) Windows tends to fail a lot. This feature is called making a Snapshot. Basically it allows you to take a Windows install and freeze it in time; so if Windows fails on you, you can revert back to a pristine Windows install. Though I haven’t had a chance to test this out under real circumstances, I have done one revert as a test and it worked very well. You might consider making a snapshot as soon as you have everything installed so you have a fully loaded version of Windows when you need to revert.

Parallels Explorer

What if you wanted to get a file from Windows and copy it over to your Mac? Well the problem is that you have to wait for Windows to start, and then for it to load up.  Parallels solves this problem with Parallels Explorer. This app allows you to access files in Windows without having to boot into the OS. I found this very useful when looking for Word documents that I needed.  In that case there was no need to launch Windows.

Conclusions

Parallels is a very strong piece of software.  From what started as an easier way to run Windows on your Mac, it has come a long way.  For me, it’s unique features and very reasonable retail price of $80 puts Parallels above the competition.

I have only scratched the surface of Parallels.  There are loads of more unique features out there ready for you to enjoy. If you have a spare copy of Windows around I suggest you at least give the trial a go.