VMWare Unity vs Parallels Coherence

[RichieZ]

So I don't need to do any heavy lifting in windows, but do need to run windows in a virutal machine.

I am very used to using parallels and coherence and so far I find unity to be not as good as coherence.

Wanted to get feedback from AT on which one is better. Seems like vmware isn't quite as smooth and has weird little pauses.

Which is strange b/c my work laptop where vmware is installed is much more robust:
2.4 C2D
4GB

and my mackbook where parallels is installed:
2.0 C2D
2GB

 

[Kadarin]

I use XP in Parallels on occasion, and haven't tried VMWare's product yet. My general preference is to not bother with coherence, but instead to either just fullscreen XP, or run the app within the XP window.

 

[RichieZ]

i like to use coherence b/c I pretty much only have windows installed to use the one or two programs that don't have a good OSX equivalent. I like how it almost feels as if the app is part of OSX

Seems like the start bar is harder to hide in unity, and vmware has little hickups where the system pauses.

 

[AnthroAndStargate]

Originally posted by: RichieZ
i like to use coherence b/c I pretty much only have windows installed to use the one or two programs that don't have a good OSX equivalent. I like how it almost feels as if the app is part of OSX

Seems like the start bar is harder to hide in unity, and vmware has little hickups where the system pauses.

What programs are those?

 

[Kmax82]

Hmm.. I bought the Parallels bundle from MUPromo.com, and when that is unlocked, I will give Parallels another shot. Last time I tried this program, it just wasn't as responsive as VMWare Fusion was. I did like the fact that you could do dual screens with Parallels, though, so that was nice. Hopefully that feature will be added to VMWare in the future.

The two programs that I use in Windows and I haven't found an equivalent for OS X is SQL Management Studio 2005, and Internet Explorer. Of course these are both MS products, but this is what we are using for our website database, so I have to use it.

 

[randomlinh]

I can't stand using coherence/unity... it always seems confused on where I am. That and I take too far a hit on performance for my liking. So I just run windows in a 1024 window of some sort, and full screen the app. There are only two things I need.. IE and an app for my film scanner. Ideally IE6 and IE7, but I'm too lazy, and don't want to waste the space. Really just need a freakin mac pro, but it's not worth it.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: randomlinh
I can't stand using coherence/unity... it always seems confused on where I am. That and I take too far a hit on performance for my liking. So I just run windows in a 1024 window of some sort, and full screen the app. There are only two things I need.. IE and an app for my film scanner. Ideally IE6 and IE7, but I'm too lazy, and don't want to waste the space. Really just need a freakin mac pro, but it's not worth it.

If you get the new IE8 Beta, it has emulation for IE6, 7, and then it's native standards based mode 8. Saves on having to have multiple installs. Seems fairly consistent with the 6 and 7 code, however 8 breaks a lot of stuff.

 

[RichieZ]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Hmm.. I bought the Parallels bundle from MUPromo.com, and when that is unlocked, I will give Parallels another shot. Last time I tried this program, it just wasn't as responsive as VMWare Fusion was. I did like the fact that you could do dual screens with Parallels, though, so that was nice. Hopefully that feature will be added to VMWare in the future.

The two programs that I use in Windows and I haven't found an equivalent for OS X is SQL Management Studio 2005, and Internet Explorer. Of course these are both MS products, but this is what we are using for our website database, so I have to use it.

yea i just realized that vmware fusion doesn't seem to like my dual screen setup very much

-can't move windows over to the second screen.
-is messing with the graphics in OSX, there are strange black outlines around different objects. Dunno if its impacting the way things are rendered.

 

[RichieZ]

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate

Originally posted by: RichieZ
i like to use coherence b/c I pretty much only have windows installed to use the one or two programs that don't have a good OSX equivalent. I like how it almost feels as if the app is part of OSX

Seems like the start bar is harder to hide in unity, and vmware has little hickups where the system pauses.

What programs are those?

TOAD and VISIO off the top of my head. Yes I know there are some visio equivalents but its not 100% compatible.

 

[Ichigo]

Use Spaces, dedicate one for Windows.

 

[Injury]

I bought Parallels when I bought my MBP and it was a mistake. I used it for a whole month before just using bootcamp straight up. I mean, I know it's not the same as a VM to use bootcamp, but it just seemed like Parallels was REALLLY slow and I was always getting random errors from programs. I don't know how it will work for what you need, but I just know that I didn't like using it at all.

 

[ItsPat]

I started off with Parallels on my Mac Pro but ended up getting VMWare instead. For the month I used parallels I had tons of errors and other issues...VMWare hasn't given me one problem so far.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Injury
I bought Parallels when I bought my MBP and it was a mistake. I used it for a whole month before just using bootcamp straight up. I mean, I know it's not the same as a VM to use bootcamp, but it just seemed like Parallels was REALLLY slow and I was always getting random errors from programs. I don't know how it will work for what you need, but I just know that I didn't like using it at all.

what programs were you running that was getting errors?

 

[Kmax82]

I have both parallels and vmware and vmware is, hands down, better than parallels. Vmware is more responsive, intuitive and seems to integrate a lot better than parallels. I'm keeping them both on my system just to see how they progress, however.