5354

Provides: The ability to run a separate OS (Windows, Linux, etc.) alongside Mac OS X

Format: CD or download

Developer: Parallels

Minimum Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4.11, 512MB RAM, about 15GB hard drive space per virtual machine

Processor Compatibility: Intel only

Retail Price: $79 new, $49 upgrade

Availability: Out now

Version Reviewed: 3.0

Parallels lets you run a PC on your Mac. It's that simple, and it's that straightforward. However, as opposed to the free program that Apple provides with each new Mac (Boot Camp), Parallels does not require you to re-boot your computer each time you want to switch back and forth between the Mac and the PC Operating System. While it is a tad slower than running a PC on Boot Camp, you do maintain efficiency by not having to restart between systems any time you want to switch the OS. As a benefit to many PC users, Parallels will support PC OSs from Windows 3.1 to Vista and many shades of Linux. You do need to purchase your own copy of whatever OS you use and all software you want to use as a separate purchase.

[Note: although Parallels can run a wide variety of OSs, I will be focusing on Windows XP, as that is the OS I tested for this review.]

[Note 2: We expect to have a review of the newest version of Parallels, version 4, in the very near future. This article gets you caught up with version 3.]

Not every Mac user needs a PC, but many do. I use a PC to look at web sites I've made to see how they look and work on a PC, and to create runtime databases in FileMaker. In addition, I use Adobe FrameMaker, an application that is no longer made for the Mac. Some people are required to use work related PC-software at home. The reasons are many, and the need is there. Before Apple went to the Intel processor, Mac users had two chooses: either we purchased a PC, or we used some virtual software such as Virtual PC and ran Windows on our Mac. The problem with the former was that the PC stood there most of the time (except when needed) occupying desktop real estate, while the latter was SLOW. A virtual environment means that every action and process had to be re-interpreted back and forth through a processor not designed to work with the alternate language. While working in applications was a challenge, games were out of the question. Now that Apple uses Intel processors, the interpretation from PowerPC code to Intel code is no longer necessary and speed is not really an issue.

However, whether you use Boot Camp or Parallels, it boils down to efficiency versus that "tad bit faster" you can get from Boot Camp. The problem with Boot Camp is that every time you need to access the "other" operating system, you have to reboot. With Parallels, all you need to do is to click into Windows or click back to your Mac OS. If you have a file(s) that you want to process in one or the other's OS, you can (old way #1 (a new way is shown below)) simply drag the file(s) to the other OS, as shown below.

In addition, you can create drop folders that are common for both Windows and the Mac and any item placed therein is simply "seen" by both systems. This is "old way" #2.

The new way, in Parallels 3 is to use "SmartSelect." SmartSelect opens the door between the two OSs so that, as you can see below, from a music file in Windows, I'm setting this file to open in iTunes on my Mac. I can also chose to open any music file in iTunes on my Mac.

Conversely, as I stated earlier, I use FrameMaker, which is now only available for Windows. Because of this, I set Parallels up so that when I double-click on a FrameMaker file on my Mac, the document opens in FrameMaker, in the Windows platform. If Parallels isn't running, it will start, Windows opens, and FrameMaker opens. This takes less than a minute.

As stated, you can create "shared folders" that are common for both Windows and the Mac, and any files placed therein are simply "seen" by both systems. Applications vary as to how they work with these files. Both FileMaker, FrameMaker, and Photoshop CS4 (beta) had no problems opening and working with files contained in the Shared Folders. Bridge-CS4 (beta) however, froze when I tried to access images in the Shared Folders. If you look at the next image, you'll see that under the red Adobe Reader icon is an icon labeled "Parallels Shared Folders," and contained within that are the two folders I've set to be shared between the two OSs (not shown). Either by working in Explorer or using the Open command in applications, it was very easy to access these files. On the Mac, these two folders are located wherever they were. In other words, on the PC, any shared folders obtain a special shortcut (as seen in Explorer, below), but the Mac is left as always.

The reason why this is handy is...let's say you are working on a book and doing the illustrations in Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which you are doing on the Mac. But if you, like me, are using FrameMaker, then you can open those files in Window,s but still access the Photoshop and Illustrator files from the same folders you were working with on the Mac. This is efficient.

Instillation of Parallels is fairly simple. If you already have either a virtual or physical PC, the files and data probably can be imported into the Parallels environment with the supplied application, Parallels Explorer. If you are using Boot Camp, you can import Windows from there as well. Remember that Parallels only lets you run a PC on your Mac. If you don't already own a copy of Windows (or Linux), you still have to purchase your own copy. [Note: some software packages provide both Mac and PC versions that run with the same serial number. Look for this in the software you already have before purchasing a new, separate package.]

Once you have Windows installed and you've started up Parallels, the Parallels/Windows view looks as follows below. Of note are the strip of icons on the far left and the bottom right.

From the top left, the green arrow, pause and stop button act upon the virtual environment. If you have Parallels started but Windows isn't running, you can start (boot) windows, pause (which is different from putting the virtual machine in a suspended mode, as this releases any RAM that Parallels was using and significantly cuts down on the CPU use), or suspend your virtual machine from running (which requires re-opening your virtual machine). Below the Green arrow, is the "full screen" view. The amount of "full screen," depends on what resolution you've set for your virtual machine. The default resolution is the standard computer display, not the wide screen view of the Mac monitors. Thus, when you go to full screen, there are black panels on both the left and right side. If you set the virtual machine to have the same resolution as your monitor, when you go to full screen, your virtual machine will fill it just as your Mac OS does. When you go into full screen, you lose all of your Mac controls, Dock, menus, etc. To get out of full screen view, press the Option-Return keys. Besides the full screen mode, when you grab the lower right-hand corner of the Parallels window, any shape or size you resize the window to will have that resolution.

The four-square grid icon is one of the most-strange (and kinda nifty) dynamic of Parallels, and that's the "Coherence" mode. When this is clicked, Windows Explorer disappears and each application of Windows appears as an application on the Mac. If you are concerned about how to access a PC applications from the Mac, one of the options you have is to let any open PC applications show up in the Dock, as shown below (this does not require the Coherence mode). Here you see the icon for Parallels, iTunes, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Photoshop (PC), and Bridge (PC). If you want, you can keep these icons in the Dock so that you can start the desired application by simply clicking on the icon in the Dock which will start Parallels, then Windows, then the application. This does not take much time, and if Windows is already running, then it takes even less time. Keep in mind that any Explorer windows you have open in Windows will also generate their own Dock icons. Earlier, I was mentioning Smart Select. Because of Windows icons showing up in the Dock and because of Smart Select, I can drag a file that I've set to open in Windows from my Finder to a Windows icon in the Dock, and that document will open in Windows.

The next three icons are part of what makes Parallels worth the use: the Red button can take a "snapshot" of your system. What does this mean? Let's say you've just installed all your desired software, and you've got your "Windows" system just the way you want it. Now, take a snapshot of your system. Let's say that later, because you are used to working on a Mac and you've forgotten to be wary of computer viruses, you go to a website and click on a link that has just placed a virus, spyware, or whatever on your system. Besides using the antivirus software you should have on your Windows machine, you can also revert back to a previous version of your system before you were infected with the virus by simply clicking on the left facing double green arrows and revert to a previously "saved" version of your Windows instillation. This is no different than selecting the "Revert" command available in many programs to go back to a previous version of a document. In this case, the "document" is that configuration of the Windows operating system and the installed applications.

The last icon lets you manage any Snapshots you've created and select which Snapshot you wish to revert to. Below, you see two Snapshots between the checker flag (that's where you started) and the red flag (that's where you are now). You can revert back to any of the saved Snapshots you've created and/or delete them as you go. Thus, it would be a good time to create a new Snapshot each time you install a new application. In addition, if you are beta testing software, you could install each new build, and if there is a problem with the system after installing the new build, or before installing the next build, simply backup to the build prior to installing the old build.

Because viruses are such a threat to PCs, Parallels has provided a mechanism for the user to install the Kaspersky Internet Security System as a menu option from the Actions menu. While the manual does mention that the user can and should install this, what isn't stated anywhere is that there is an annual $79.95 charge for the software to be activated. While I do not expect anyone to give away software, I was both surprised and disappointed to see a software package built into Parallels. In addition, the manual makes no reference to this requirement. When you are using Windows, there is no doubt that virus software is, in effect, mandatory. However, I find it displeasing to have a specific product shoved at me. There are many many choices for anti-virus software and I no not like having that choice made for me. If there is a specific reason why Kaspersky should be used as opposed to any other product, I'd like to know why. Otherwise, I'd prefer the link that installed this instead bring the user to a Parallels website that showed all of the potential anti-virus software packages available.

To finish the interface dynamics, there are the small icons on the lower right, detailed below. For the most part, this is how you can verify what you have plugged into your Mac is being recognized and functional with Parallels.

The icon on the left shows that a keyboard is connected. Rather, this is showing that your keyboard is recognized by the OS running in Parallels. Next is the indicator for floppy disk. Don't laugh, remember that you can run Windows 3.1 on Parallels—how else will you be able to load the program? There are, after all, USB floppy drives. The next shows that a hard drive is connected. The circle/doughnut thing shows that Parallels recognizes an optical drive. If you have more than one, you can select a specific one from a dropdown menu. Next is sound, both in and out. The second to last is the USB link. Any USB or USB Port will be listed. Thus, if you have USB items plugged into your monitor or keyboard, that makes your monitor or keyboard a port and they will be listed along with any USB items. I will get back to dealing with USB devices in a moment because they have a very unique dynamic between the Mac and virtual machine interface. Lastly are the shared folders. They are listed when you mouse-down on the folder icon and can be turned on or off as needed.

As just stated, working with USB devices is a bit special. The good news is that assuming you've set your Configuration Editor to accept USB devices, you are almost good to go. The problem is that any USB device can be connected to either the Mac or the virtual machine, not both at the same time. You can set the Configuration Editor (described in this review a bit further down) to always let any attached devices connect to the virtual machine, or the Mac, or ask. Alternatively, you can also turn these things on or off from the USB Controller, located along the bottom right window for Parallels. If you turn it on for the PC, it's off for the Mac and if you turn it off for the PC it will be on for the Mac. There is no way to control/access this from the Mac side of things.

Below, you see what my computer shows when I click on the USB Controller. This shows I've manually selected (clicked) on my HP Laserjet and the Flash Disk. As these are checked, they are available for Windows and are not available for my Mac. That is, I can print from Windows at this moment, but not from my Mac. To print from my Mac, all I need to do is to re-select (to uncheck) the printer and then I'm good to go to print from my Mac. I tried using my Keystone USB remote control (for controlling PowerPoint or Keynote presentations), and once I selected the device from the USB controller, I could use it on the PC. Once I deselected it from the USB controller, I could use it on my Mac. Lastly, the same goes for any flash drives: if I want to access a flash drive from Windows, I simply select (or check) the Flash Disk listing in the USB controller. If I want my Mac to access the flash drive, I un-check the Flash Disk, remove the flash drive from the USB connection and re-insert the flash drive back into the USB connection (pull out and push back in). If you want to have Windows re-access the drive, simply reselect the Flash Disk option from the USB Controller. [Note: Windows can only "see" flash drives that are formatted for Windows and cannot access Mac formatted drives. Fortunately, if you need to move data back and forth from PCs to Macs, the Mac can access PC formatted drives (with the only negative being that transfer rates will suffer a bit).]

I am willing to accept the minor inconvenience that using the USB Controller requires. However, I found both the Manual and the Quick Start Manual abominable on this issue. In the Quick Start Manual, not one word is mentioned on the use of the USB Controller (what did I spend on it, 2 paragraphs? The QS Manual is 34 pages with a lot of white space). While the full Manual does mention that flash drives cannot be accessed by both systems at the same time, at no point did they mention that you need to select any USB printer from the USB Controller before you can print. Considering that this is Parallels version 3, I wonder why this information gap is still there.

Configuring Parallels is a bit tricky because there are two places to take care of things: there is the (standard) Preferences where you can set how Parallels works and interacts with your Mac system. Secondly there is Configuration Editor (shown below) which deals with how whatever operating system you are using interacts with your Mac system. This is found as the sole item in the Edit menu as "Virtual Machine…" and will show up as a window as Configuration Editor.

It is in the Configuration Editor that you establish Shared Folders and Shared Applications as well as set the applications in Windows to show up as open applications on the Mac Dock. In addition, if you want Windows to open to the resolution of your monitor, again, here's where it's done.

Regardless of all of the operation specifics and mechanics of interacting with a separate OS running on your Mac, what obviously is important is speed: how fast can programs within Parallels function as compared to their counterpoints on the Mac. Below is a table that compares a series of tests. I had to be careful here because some computer operations are more dependent upon the hard drive (such as data base lookups), while others are mostly processor dependant. I wanted to evaluate operations that were testing the later because that's what's important here. I must point out that this data came from me and the stopwatch on my watch—in other words, not scientific. Your results will vary from mine for all obvious reasons. However, they are reasonably consistent on my computer. For testing, I was using my MacPro (2 x 3GHz, dual-core Intel Zeon), Mac OS X v10.5.5, with 8GB RAM).

I do not use many Windows programs, and those that I do run, I do not run complex operations that require a lot of processing time. Fortunately I do have a copy of Photoshop CS4 (a beta copy) which allowed me to run processing dependent operations.

Because re-opening applications typically takes less time than opening the applications the first time, I did a "repeat opening" test on re-starting Photoshop. In those cases, I show both the initial operation and the repeat. What is seen here is that while considerably faster than the old application, Virtual PC, the speeds were not overall equal to the Mac speeds. [Note: I once timed how long it took to create a Photomerge from 4 images on my G5 using Virtual PC and PS CS3 and it took over a half an hour.]

Process	Mac	Windows XP
Unzipping 1.31 GB file	6' 43"	6' 32"
Start Photoshop CS4	12.5"	20.2"
Restart Photoshop CS4	3"	5.2"
Four image photomerged initiated from Bridge	1' 17"	2' 25"
Load four images into Stack	3.7"	4.6"
Auto-Align four images	14.5"	31"
Auto-Blend four images	19.7"	24.7"
Go from Bas Relief Filter to Chrome Filter	19"	25.2"

[Note, the images in the above table were 8 bit RGB 2336 x 3504 pixels except the last image, which was the results of the photomerge and was 6648 x 3160 pixels. Because OpenGL cannot be used within Parallels, the OpenGL feature within the Mac Photoshop was turned off. However, this did not make a difference on the speed tests.]

As just mentioned, the one disappointing limitation of Parallels is that the GPU feature of OpenGL, an industry standard for high performance graphics, may be available on your Mac, and (if so) will be available if you run Windows in Boot Camp, but will not be available in Parallels. This is apparently a limitation with virtual machines, but I've been told by those at Parallels that this is something they hope to overcome in a future version. While that's speculative, the current situation is that OpenGL is not supported in Parallels 3. So, if you want to use the Power of OpenGL in Photoshop CS4 or any game that depends on OpenGL, plan on using Boot Camp.

If I have any complaint with Parallels, it is with the manual. At 292 pages (PDF), one would think that it should cover most issues. As discussed in regards to printing through a USB device, it doesn't. Too often it explains things in language that's too technical and/or refers the user to access various windows and/or selections but doesn't tell you where or how to find or access that window or selection. It was almost as if they updated parts of the manual, but didn't update all of it. Considering that people are likely to only access the manual when they are having problems, any time a window or selection is mentioned, how to access that window or selection should be identified. Admittedly, this is not a problem exclusive with this manual and is a problem with too many manuals. However, just because other companies create bad manuals, that does not forgive Parallels from this gap.

Another curious issue is that you can only access the PDF manual from the folder containing Parallels, and not from the Help menu. Alternatively, there is additional html based help support that can be accessed from the Help menu. [The html menu is located within the Parallels application and does not require web access.] In my opinion, there is no reason for this redundancy, and the PDF should be the choice selection. As limited as the PDF was, I found its information better than the html support.

In short, if you need to use a PC, Linux, OS2, or one of the other many OSs that can be accessed via the virtual world of Parallels, you will be satisfied with Parallels. There are some usage quirks and secret handshakes (such as how to interact with USB devices via both the virtual world and the Mac), but despite the quirks, it can be done and it's not hard. As opposed to the old days of Virtual PC, speed is not an issue. Yes, it's slower than a Mac (mostly) and running Windows under Boot Camp, but just a tad. Since I am not a gamer, I can't address the significance of any speed differences for games running on Parallels. Nonetheless, I was disappointed to find the lack of OpenGL when using Photoshop, but this might simply be a limitation of any virtual machine. However, these are not likely to be deal-breakers for most users.

For running PC applications on an Intel Mac, Parallels is a worthy choice over purchasing a PC. While Boot Camp is free, most Mac users I know do not want to leave their Mac environment. They mostly want to drift into the PC world as needed and the drift out back to their Mac. You can run essentially all programs within Parallels (except those that depend upon OpenGL for operation such as some games). [Note: Photoshop CS4 doesn't depend upon OpenGL, although some operations use OpenGL.] You can interact with USB devices, and the biggest pleasure with version 3 is SmartSelect that you can have Windows and the Mac interacting with each other. This breakdown of the walls between the two OSs has made running a virtual machine on a Mac a real pleasure. You will find a few quirks with this interaction, but, for the most part, the interface is seamless. Parallels lives up to its name.

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Buy Parallels

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.

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