[Tyrone Marshall]

I am on the verge of ordering a MAC PRO and I have a question.

I would like to use VM Fusion and of course boot camp in the process.

My interest for VM fusion is that there is a VM Converter program that allows you to virtualize your PC machine to a single file and then use this on the MAC as a virtual machine using VM fusion.

Has anyone done this? Is this worse or better than just going through with the boot camp install and a fresh windows os install?

The key to virtualizing your current windows machine is that you can basically move all your installations and settings over to the Mac more easily or exactly but without the time of having to reinstall and input licenses for all your software and then to re-optimize windows xp for example.

In my case, I have the home edition, I never thought about one day going more than single core. But that day is coming. And so I may just be better served by purchasing windows xp pro and then reinstalling everything and re-optimize the darn thing so it runs just as wonderfully as it does on my AMD machine.

The other question is then does this VM machine work with bootcamp? Is a virtual machine created by the VM convertor treated as an actual install into the boot camp partition or will I now have in reality to still install a windows installation for boot camp to boot into native windows xp?

It begins to become very complex and the VM site does not clarify this. But parallels has a program that will move your PC windows right into bootcamp for its use.

I just think VMfusion has much more features and it allows you to use both cores and all ram during its unity mode of windows and mac simultaneous operation.

If parallels allowed the use of more than one core and full ram available in its coherence mode on the windows side then that would be just DANDY..

[Boris Ulzibat]

I haven't tried to virtualize a real computer.
I know that VM can use a real BootCamp partition but i think it cannot make an old machine to work as a bootcamp partition.

[def4d]

http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2 ... onMac.html

Just a page i found yesterday, might help?

[cali3d]

PErsonally I run Parallels desktop, using my bootcamp partion as VM.. works fine.

[Tyrone Marshall]

http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2 ... onMac.html

Just a page i found yesterday, might help?

Thanks Def4D, I read the article. The thing that bugs me about Parallels is that I do not want the windows toolbar and startbutton showing up alongside the MacOSX dock on the same screen. It just looks ridiculous. VMFusion allows you to put windows programs and files right on the MacOSX dock.

That is integration that still maintains the purity of the MACOSX screen.

[jc4d]

AFAIK Fusion and Parallels only use one core so you have 7 cores (if is the octomac) getting dust while you are working in parallels or fusion. I run Boot camp in another HD and it runs perfect, the only thing that a had to do is downgrade the Nvidia video card driver downloading it in Nvida web page.

Cheers
JC

[Boris Ulzibat]

Fusion can use 2 cores. Parallels - only 1.

[Tyrone Marshall]

Fusion can use 2 cores. Parallels - only 1.

This is correct. At the moment, Fusion offers the use of all your cores and processors and ram (up to 16GB) over to the windows side. Parallels does not and it will only give up 2 gigs of ram.

And I believe the bug in Fusion that use up a lot of resources unity mode has been fixed so it uses no more than Parallels does.

This is great if I want to maintain windows versions of some software like Cinema 4D without switching my license over to Mac. I have not decided yet which apps I want to move. I know I cannot move my PSCS2 as it does not utilize the intel mac correctly.

But Indesign 3 might be a choice, Vue Xstream is another but EON usually release the MAC version much much later than the Windows version.

On Cinema 4D, I would loose a lot my plugins as a good many do not work on version 10 of the Mac version.

And of course, I like Sony Vegas so I want to keep that as well. The upgrade to version 8 is like 149 USD.