Parallels provides XP-on-Mac in virtual machine

While it probably won't get nearly as much hype as Apple's Boot Camp, the new beta of Parallels Workstation could actually prove to be more useful for Mac owners than the Apple boot manager. Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta for Mac OS X creates a virtual machine on an Intel-based Mac, allowing the owner to install any guest OS compiled for X86, including Windows XP, Linux or MS-DOS (hey, why not?). This could allow Mac users who need to run an occasional Windows app to do so without having to reboot first -- though they'll need enough RAM and processing power to run both OS X and the virtual machine simultaneously. While other apps, including Microsoft's Virtual PC, have offered similar functionality for Power PC Macs, they required processor emulation, seriously undermining performance. By contrast, Parallels Workstation (available as a free beta) is said to provide "near native" performance, which might be enough for users who need to run Visio, Project,  or one of the many other Windows-only productivity apps -- though gamers will probably still want to use Boot Camp and keep just one OS running at a time.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Gordy @ Apr 6th 2006 11:38AM]

People keep forgetting Microsoft Access from the list of Windows apps with no Mac counterpart.

I can finally do work at home. This is great!

[andy @ Apr 6th 2006 11:39AM]

best of both world, and no risk of virus

[skid @ Apr 6th 2006 11:47AM]

"though gamers will probably still want to use Boot Camp and keep just one OS running at a time"
I'm afraid not. Gamers will still use pc for the better hardware available for a lower price.
Nothing against apple macs, but they just arent gaming machines, and fanboys should stop pretending they are. An x1600 is NOT a card for 'serious' gaming.

[Bullock @ Apr 6th 2006 11:53AM]

I am not sure if I get the hype on this. Microsoft has provided a virtualization client for Macs for a while now.

[sexi pictures @ Apr 6th 2006 11:54AM]

The Boot Camp software requires Mac OS X 10.4.6, released yesterday and which has already been hailed by supporters of Windows-on-Mac initiatives as an update that improves the ability to dual-boot their systems.
more is here: http://windows.czweb.org/840_Windows_XP_on_a_MAC?

[ChuChu @ Apr 6th 2006 11:54AM]

"Nothing against apple macs, but they just arent gaming machines, and fanboys should stop pretending they are. An x1600 is NOT a card for 'serious' gaming."

Correction: Apple *iMacs* are not gaming machines. They are not serious anything machines. The imac has always been intended for general purpose computing. For more horsepower, the Powermac was always the way to go. Apple has not released the intel based version of the powermac but you can be sure it's on the way.

It won't be cheap though.

[drengy @ Apr 6th 2006 11:56AM]

"Nothing against apple macs, but they just arent gaming machines, and fanboys should stop pretending they are. An x1600 is NOT a card for 'serious' gaming"

I'm not sure anyone is saying this. Any "serious" Mac-using gamer already has a second PC just for gaming. The dual-booting will work we'll for the casual gamer who wants to play one or two PC titles that haven't been ported to the Mac yet. If you're not competing seriously online, the x1600 will work just fine for the majority of games out now.

[joel @ Apr 6th 2006 11:57AM]

To #2, virtual machines are not immune to viruses. Part of full emulation is also being vulnerable to them.

[Matthew @ Apr 6th 2006 12:07PM]

"said to provide "near native" performance,"

*cough*bullshit*cough*

[Gordon @ Apr 6th 2006 12:08PM]

Bah. Depends on the game. I just tried City of Heroes on my dual booted MacBook and at the standard rez the performance is excellent. I'll probably try HL2 this evening. All in all a 1600 is decent for casual gaming.

And as an above poster said...The PowerMac intel would be the way to go for a solid gaming desktop. I imagine it'll run just as well as my XPS 600.

[Jarod @ Apr 6th 2006 12:12PM]

As of today, there is no valid reason for not buying a Mac. Unless of course, one falls into the unfortunate category of the s-t-u-p-i-d. ;-)

[Skid @ Apr 6th 2006 12:20PM]

Yes, ok, I agree that the card I was referring to is the card for the imac.
But what I hate is when fanboys start saying that macs are better for gaming, when they just have no idea what they are talking about
e.g. a mac fanboy that I know came up to saying he had tried the dual-boot (a mac fanboy with a windows xp disc?... anyway) and that his macbook was now running WOW ( a game that is getting pretty old technologicaly) better than any pc could..
I agree that a powermac would have quite the punch but is more expensive than an equivalent pc (albeit with a better OS and nice design)

ah well, if only I had the cash for a top of the line powermac....

[Kard @ Apr 6th 2006 12:24PM]

Hopefully we can access the Windows partition from both
Parallels virtual machine and Boot Camp. No reason to reboot into Windows (etc) unless you really need to.

When is the virtual machine coming out for Windows that lets you run your OSX partition in it? :^)

[TheVexedSoul @ Apr 6th 2006 12:31PM]

10, why the hell would a Mac user install Windows to run WOW? You know, since it's available natively for Intel Macs running OS X...

[sidetracked @ Apr 6th 2006 12:32PM]

"I'm afraid not. Gamers will still use pc for the better hardware available for a lower price.
Nothing against apple macs, but they just arent gaming machines, and fanboys should stop pretending they are. An x1600 is NOT a card for 'serious' gaming."

Lower price? Dual SLI Graphics card and 64 bit Dual CPU are not exactly cheap. If you dont play those kind of games x1600 is probably enough.

[Aaron @ Apr 6th 2006 12:32PM]

I want to shoot whoever coined the term "fanboy". Does anyone else out there loathe this stupid word too? Any comments I see with it instantly lose all credibility in my eyes.

[rj @ Apr 6th 2006 12:40PM]

i agree that fanboy is probably the worst term ever as well.. but also i'm still never buying a mac. i've had enough problems with the damn ipods not working with disc mode.

[reckless @ Apr 6th 2006 12:51PM]

has anyone actually read the docs? there's some interesting stuff in there:
Parallels Workstation virtualizes a full set of the standard PC hardware including:
CPU Intel Pentium II;
Generic motherboard compatible with Intel i815 chipset;
RAM up to 1500 MB;
VGA and SVGA with VESA 3.0 support;
1.44 MB floppy drive (mapped to a physical drive or to an image file);
Up to four IDE devices, that may be either virtual hard drives (from 20 MB up to 128 GB
each, mapped to image file), or CD/DVD-ROM drives (mapped to physical drive or to
image file), or both hard drives and CD/DVD-ROM drives;
Ethernet virtual network card compatible with RTL8029. Parallels Workstation for
Windows and for Mac supports bridging to wireless network adapters;
Up to four serial (COM) ports (mapped to real port, to pipe or to output file);
Up to three bi-directional parallel (LPT) ports (mapped to real port, to printer or to output
file);
Standard PC keyboard;
PS/2 wheel mouse.


a PII, huh? that's some near-native performance, right there.

[zander106 @ Apr 6th 2006 12:52PM]

Responding to Matthew (#7):
--
said to provide "near native" performance,"

*cough*bullshit*cough*
--

Well, actually, no. Like Marc said, this is not like Virtual PC. Parallels's software allows you to run an alternative OS using the virtualization features of the Intel processor. No emulation here.

The early reports are that it runs fast. Video here:
http://www.prodedgy.com/article/51

[chris Schachter @ Apr 6th 2006 12:59PM]

as i slog it out on my 5th iBook logic board, i was hoping one of you smart guys can tell me why it's prohibitive to load OSX on a PC, i can't invest time and $$$ in any more crappy Apple hardware...thanks.

[Jeff @ Apr 6th 2006 1:02PM]

""said to provide "near native" performance,"

*cough*bullshit*cough*"

I knew someone would make a comment like this...

It's not bullshit. It *is* running natively. It's *not* emulation, like VirtualPC or other similar apps. It is running Windows directly on Windows-compliant hardware.

WINE for Linux/Unix works the same way (although it doesn't run the actual OS) - the apps are running on their native hardware, and all that really needs translating is some of the graphics API's so that it can actually draw on the screen in the OS you're actually running.

So yes, this does mean gaming is pretty much out. Everything else is fair game. And if you're doing something like encoding video that's strictly reliant on the processor and bus bandwidth, it's not going to make any difference whatsoever if you do it in a windowed version of XP running on the Mac OS vs. a regular Windows boot.

[(another) Jon @ Apr 6th 2006 1:03PM]

Gordy, nobody forgets that there's not Access counterpart for Mac, just nobody else is still stuck in the dark ages of that crappy app so it's a moot point.

[Boone @ Apr 6th 2006 1:10PM]

Aaron, you're not alone on the 'fanboy' thing. Not only do I think the word fails to have any interesting meaning (since it just seems to mean 'a person who prefers one brand to another', and nearly everyone does that), but it seems to me that the people who are most likely to use the word as an epithet are usually guilty of the most egregious form of hypocrisy. I guess you could say that I'm a Non-Hypocrisy Fanboy.

[Scoopster @ Apr 6th 2006 1:10PM]

I think it would be very nice to use for doing a Skype VideoCall.....since the Skype client for Mac doesn't support it, but Windows does.

Anyone try this see if XP can use the built-in iSight camera?

[BlueLaser @ Apr 6th 2006 1:17PM]

Hate to break it to you (another) Jon, but many companies and individuals still use Access for simple (and sometimes complex) database applications. And I'm not sure what you meant by "dark ages" of the app. I don't think FileMaker is much better...

Back on subject: When are there going to be a proliferation of hacks to allow us to run OS X on a "normal" Windows PC? That's the hack that I could -afford- to try!

[Charles Orlando @ Apr 6th 2006 1:28PM]

Please forgive this basic question, but I think most posters on here will know more than me: What about networking and/or VPN? If I ran Parallel's version, would it run at a speed comparable to a "real" PC?

[Carlos Pero @ Apr 6th 2006 2:34PM]

Check out my video link...I illustrate the performance of Web browsers at least.

Personally, I've used VPN in emulation before, I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work within Parallels. It's a full-blown Windows XP environment.

[Silver @ Apr 6th 2006 2:39PM]

"Nothing against apple macs, but they just arent gaming machines, and fanboys should stop pretending they are."

Yeah, Macs are also missing the neon lights and dragon-shaped fan grilles. :P

"i'm still never buying a mac. i've had enough problems with the damn ipods not working with disc mode."

Hmm, could it be a WINDOWS PC problem?

[Carlos Pero @ Apr 6th 2006 2:43PM]

Check out my video link...I illustrate the performance of Web browsers at least.

http://www.prodedgy.com/article/51

Personally, I've used VPN in emulation before, I have no reason to believe it wouldn't work within Parallels. It's a full-blown Windows XP environment.

[Whiplash @ Apr 6th 2006 3:02PM]

This rocks. I was hoping VMWare would do it first though. I use thier Windows product extensively and it kicks butt. It's a hair slower than running native, certainly too slow for games, but just fine for everything else. I see a Mac in my future...

[daschupa @ Apr 6th 2006 3:09PM]

Macs arent gaming machines, I mean you cant play the 3 or 4 good PC games that come out each year, most of which are copies of each other and are mainly limited to fps, mmorpg and strategy. Seriously, gaming is not everything, go buy a frickin console.

Anyhoo, back to the subject, this is exciting, seems like everything is bursting with xp on x news. As long as the price is about 50 bucks I will buy this quickly. The only thing missing is a WINE-like skin, that would be perfect.

[play games @ Apr 6th 2006 3:18PM]

As a Mac user, this is more of what I was looking for for using Windows. I have a pc tower that I use remote desktop with, and works very well, but I would rather keep things tidy and run XP natively inside OS X, not take turns dual booting. Anyone given this a shot yet? Don't have an Intel Mac (yet).

[joel @ Apr 6th 2006 3:30PM]

More than one I saw a question on when a product will be available for windows xp to run Mac OS X. While technically there exists programs with which some one could do this I don't think a complete packaged solution will ever be released [commercially]. Apple would surely bring down their hammer of justice on any entity trying to produce such a thing. If you want an example do a google search on Maxxuss and how apple reacted to his postings of how to run OSX natively on a PC. Apple sent out nice little legal letters that resulted in several sites being offline for a few days while all links to such information were removed...

[joel @ Apr 6th 2006 3:31PM]

More than one I saw a question on when a product will be available for windows xp to run Mac OS X. While technically there exists programs with which some one could do this I don't think a complete packaged solution will ever be released [commercially]. Apple would surely bring down their hammer of justice on any entity trying to produce such a thing. If you want an example do a google search on Maxxuss and how apple reacted to his postings of how to run OSX natively on a PC. Apple sent out nice little legal letters that resulted in several sites being offline for a few days while all links to such information were removed...

[Alex @ Apr 6th 2006 3:58PM]

Can you have multiple OSes, say... XP and Linux simultaneously? If yes, given you have sufficient amount of RAM, would that allow near-native performance on all OSes running?

[No motor, no fan....boy @ Apr 6th 2006 5:45PM]

I just want my Mac owning friends to be able to play City of Heroes with me for the first time. If thats possible, than all this hub-bub about running XP on a Mac is worth it.

[ZildjianKX @ Apr 6th 2006 7:49PM]

If they would only have hardware 3-D acceleration support... I guess you still have to dual boot for that.

[Dennis @ Apr 6th 2006 8:39PM]

A lot of necessary Windows apps are boring office and network applications. Do you really need core duo speeds for anything except gaming and hard core processing? As mentioned, this could free up a lot of people to get a Mac, and much more conveniently than a dual boot if the performance is adequate.

Someone may as well make a dual CPU motherboard to run Windows and OSX simultaneously.

[Spiro M Telegadis @ Apr 6th 2006 9:56PM]

How is this any different from the Q project?

http://kberg.ch/q/index.php?sid=314618&p=0

Except for the fact that this has a license cost associated.

Has anyone tested the beta version and compared it to this?

[Phil @ Apr 6th 2006 10:54PM]

9. "said to provide "near native" performance,"

*cough*bullshit*cough*
// -- i installed.. runs faster than native windows! Boots XP Pro in 30 seconds flat!

[Carlos @ Apr 7th 2006 11:07AM]

LOL Phil, not near native...faster than native!

If anyone's still reading this thread, I made another video showing a clock so you can see it's not accelerated.

http://www.prodedgy.com/article/52

[jason @ Apr 7th 2006 12:24PM]

#42
"How is this any different from the Q project?"

This works on the MacTel platform Q does not, just like Virtual PC does not.

[Ed @ Apr 7th 2006 12:45PM]

I was playing with the Windows version of Parallels, and it seems awfully close to VMWare... is VMWare open source, or did they copy a little too closely to the look/feel of VMWare? Even the uninstallation process reeks of VMWare...

[Tanner @ Apr 12th 2006 12:21PM]

Will CITY OF HEROES work on a mac with this mod? Also, does this mod work on a non-intel mac mini? If you know of any mods that will get CITY OF HEROES be availible to play on a non-intel mac-mini, plz post them here.