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Virtual machines for CRIMPers
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Posted by Hugh
Feb 7, 2016 at 05:54 PM
Thanks for the tip about Veertu - I hadn’t heard about it, and it sounds as if it’s worth exploring.
I realise quite a few people probably want go from Windows to Mac, but for those who wish to go the other way there’s also Crossover on the Codeweavers site; I’ve tried it, but some time ago now and so briefly that I wouldn’t want to give a view of it. And, as mentioned above, there’s Parallels. As a long-term experiment I did use Parallels for a couple of years to run Dragon Naturally Speaking together with MS Word, various other Windows applications and the inevitable Windows anti-virus software (more to protect others than me) on my Mac. I think the word “cumbersome” was used earlier in this thread; I’d describe my experience as “very cumbersome”. The combination of Parallels plus Windows 7 plus Word plus Dragon plus AV software required installation of the (unofficial) maximum of 16Gb of RAM in my three-year-old i5 Mac Mini, and slowed it down considerably. In the end all the fuss as well as improvements in Dragon for the Mac persuaded me to give up the experiment; in retrospect, it reminded me of the painfully tedious maxing-out of much more limited resources in the early days of PCs, and it wasn’t what I wanted my computer-use to be.
I hope Veertu and the other suggestions above offer a distinctly better experience!
Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 8, 2016 at 10:42 AM
Veertu does sound fascinating - I shall certainly experiment.
Crossover I’ve got, and don’t rate very highly, to be honest. I’m sure there’s stuff it works well with, but it doesn’t work with the apps I need. VirtualBox has been invaluable, but in view of Veertu’s tiny footprint, that’s clearly worth a much closer look; even running a Windows machine with minimal RAM on a standard iMac strains the memory to the limit (Macs don’t like more than ca. 60-65% “memory pressure”, as it’s called; while they can deal with more, they tend to become choppy and unresponsive; my VirtualBox Windows VMs both drive memory utilisation up to ca. 68-70%, despite the minimalised RAM setting).
Posted by Hugh
Feb 8, 2016 at 03:33 PM
Thanks for explaining “memory pressure” and its limits, Bill - not a topic that I knew anything about. I understand now why my experience of Parallels in my longterm “experiment” was always at the margin.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 8, 2016 at 09:35 PM
Yes, indeed - Parallels is notorious for needing a lot of RAM. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s extremely good, but if you haven’t got a solid 16GB, it’s going to be… sedate, is perhaps the best word.
Posted by Simon
Feb 25, 2016 at 03:09 PM
Due to the too often version upgrade from Parallels, I’ve opted for VMware Fusion, which works very well. I only use the VM to mess about. Does anyone use VM’s for serious work? I have often been tempted by Connected Text, but wondered how cumbersome it would be to have apps in Mac and Windows and how the cross pollination would work.
Anyone seriously using Mac and Windows in a VM environment and does it work?