Comments on: Parallels vs VMWare vs Bootcamp vs Codeweavers Crossover Office revisited

By: Grey Satterfield

Grey Satterfield — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:12:01 +0000

After considering Sam’s useful recommendations, last March I got VMware Fusion for my then new MacBook Pro and it has been terrific. As is the case with any software, I have had to work through the occasional glitch but for the most part I have been able to use my Windows apps just about as easily as I use OS X apps. Better yet, Fusion works seamlessly with my network printer and a FireWire drive that is attached to another computer on my network, which I use to store Backups from Quicken for Windows.

By: sam

sam — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:10:54 +0000

It sounds to me like you need a pretty extensive solution for all the integration between the various Windows programs that you are using. For something like this where it isn’t just a single program in isolation I would recommend VMWare/Parallels over Crossover. With any of these solutions it is possible to directly share files between the two systems.

By: Eric Becker

Eric Becker — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:23:17 +0000

Looking to run Act 2000, Excel and Word 2002 integrating ACT and word, I have lists and contact data on ACT that I would like to keep and it is hard to find contact programs for MAC. Considering crossover but not exactly sure how their pricing works also considering VM fusion. Have an older Microsoft Digital Software Photo program that is not listed at Crossover so not sure if I start with Crossover I think it is $39 for standard and they come out with code for the microsoft program do I need to repurchase crossover which will put me at around $80 or do I go with trying to find new XP OS for VM fusion and then have a long term solution. Not sure what I can pick up a new XP OS but trying to weigh my options. Can you tell me which one works better? also the netflix movie streaming you mentioned will not work on VM fusion is that correct? Do you know if I buy crossover will ACT 2000 and Word 2002 work and integrate to be able to write letters and will I need to pay anything else to Crossover? Also can I pull files from the my MAC folders or would I need to keep the files seperate? Please give me your recommendation….

Thanks,

Eric

By: sam

sam — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:48:35 +0000

Your best bet would be one of the real windows environments. Presuming you don’t want to reboot to do it that leaves you with Parallels or VMWare. For this application either would work great though Parallels has somewhat better desktop integration so would likely work best. You would still need a Windows install.

By: JD

JD — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:01:52 +0000

There hasn’t been a question in a while, so I hope you’re still available. I am a brand new MacBook owner. One of the reasons I purchased it was to be able to connect to my work computer remotely. When I go to the log in site, I get the message that the application needs ActiveX controls to run. This is probably the only time that I will REALLY need to use one of the programs that you reviewed above. I would appreciate your recommendation on which is the best product for my purposes.

Thank you

By: Grey Satterfield

Grey Satterfield — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:01:19 +0000

I don’t have any experience with the trial version and Bootcamp. My guess is that it is supposed to work though. In the past, I have gotten great help from the VMWare forums for their other products so I suggest that you post your question there.

Sam – My problem turned out to be VMware’s requirement that even unregistered versions of Fusion require the entry of an authorization number before they will run. Once I figured that out, registered as the user of a free trial version of Fusion, and entered the number they gave me, Fusion started to work.

Fusion brought up XP in the Boot Camp partition but XP immediately froze. When I rebooted in Boot Camp my disk was corrupted and Windows had to repair it. This happened twice. I guess that’s because I had partitioned my Boot Camp partition in Fat32. Clearly, then, I can’t use Fusion with the Boot Camp partition.

The Boot Camp partition and Windows are great. They are stable and XP is and a lot faster in Boot Camp than it is on my old desktop PC. The down side is that it takes a couple of minutes to shift between OS X and Windows.

Later, I created a VMware virtual disk and reinstalled XP. Fusion works just fine, although I have had some problems with XP that have nothing to do with the fact that it is running under emulation.

Anyway, you have been a lot of help to me in this exercise and I can’t thank you enough.

By: sam

sam — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:05:14 +0000

I don’t have any experience with the trial version and Bootcamp. My guess is that it is supposed to work though. In the past, I have gotten great help from the VMWare forums for their other products so I suggest that you post your question there.

By: Grey Satterfield

Grey Satterfield — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:00:22 +0000

If that is what you are using Quicken for I would sign up for Wesabe or Mint which both do a fantastic job of tracking credit and bank accounts without a lot of fuss.

Sam – I have been a slave to Quicken for nearly 10 years and the idea of changing to something new at this late date makes my blood run cold.

I have a VMware Fusion question that I hope you can help with. I tried to use my Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine with VMware but got the following message:

“Your virtual machine cannot be powered on. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly.

“Please enter a valid serial number by choosing VMware Fusion > Licensing. . . or click on the Get Serial Number button below.”

Below that, two radio buttons are displayed, “Cancel” and “Get Serial Number.”

The time on both my OS X and Windows clocks has been squirrely immediately after a reboot but I have recently reset both.

Does the error message I got mean that I can’t setup a virtual machine with the trial version of VMware Fusion, or could something else be going wrong?

By: sam

sam — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:14:14 +0000

If that is what you are using Quicken for I would sign up for Wesabe or Mint which both do a fantastic job of tracking credit and bank accounts without a lot of fuss.

By: Grey Satterfield

Grey Satterfield — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:30:12 +0000

Your USB thumb drive will work with all of them. With VMWare and Parallels you can either share the mounted thumb drive from the Mac side to the Windows side or you can give control of the device completely over to Windows. Crossover Office uses the same devices as the Mac has available.

Thanks, that’s encouraging. Being able to run the Windows version of Quicken 2007 conveniently is very important to me because the OS X version is but a pale imitation of the real thing. Shame on Quicken, but there it is. I run as many expenses as I can through my credit card account because it allows me to keep better records of my expenses than was possible when I paid cash for many purchases. Thus, I use Quicken for Windows on a daily basis, often several times a day.