I’ve set up my iMac to triple boot Windows with Boot Camp, Leopard, and Tiger. It’s not too difficult. You need to back up all data on your machine first.

1. Format the drive as a single partition and install Leopard
2. Install Windows with Boot Camp
3. Open disk utility, shrink the Leopard partition, and create a new partition.
4. Install Tiger in the partition you just created

I’ve been using the new version of Parallels for about a week because Windows feels more responsive under Parallels and I really like the features. However, I find that it slows down my entire system very badly and uses a lot of CPU time even when Windows is idle. I finally decided to go back to VMware. I find that my system is a lot more responsive. However, window redrawing is ugly with Unity and switching between windows is a bit slower.

Competition is definitely a good thing for Mac virtualization software. I had switched to VMware because I found it to be faster than Parallels (at least on my old MacBook Pro). When Parallels released their new beta yesterday I decided to give it another chance and I was pleasantly surprised.

It now feels faster than VMware and the improved Coherence looks great. Unlike VMware, it boots directly into Coherence; with VMware I have to switch manually into Unity after it finishes starting up. It also doesn’t seem to slow down other applications as much as it did on my old MacBook Pro. It does seem to run down the battery faster than VMware if I use it unplugged, though.

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This benchmark comparison from CNet Labs confirms my own subjective non-scientific observation: VMware is a lot faster than Parallels. I found that Parallels would sometimes make my old MacBook Pro freeze for as long as several minutes while starting up Windows, which didn’t happen with VMware Fusion. I haven’t installed Parallels on my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, so I don’t know if the performance would be any better.

I was puzzled by why Parallels 3.0‘s Windows sharing feature didn’t work on my MacBook Pro, although it did work when I tried Parallels under Leopard. This item at TUAW explained it.

I had installed MacFUSE 0.4 so I could experiment with procfs, which makes a lot of hardware and software information available as a file system. However, Parallels includes MacFUSE 0.3 with NTFS-3g, which it uses for read/write access to the Windows virtual drive. If a different version of MacFUSE is installed, that feature won’t work. After removing MacFUSE 0.4, I was able to see my Windows virtual drive in the Finder.

One limitation of Parallels Desktop 3.0 is that you can no longer resize a disk image (although Parallels says that will be fixed in an update to be released soon). If you need to resize a hard drive now, I found a good work-around for Windows XP: Acronis True Image Home.

The free trial copy will work nicely. First thing you have to do is add a new hard drive to your virtual machine of the desired size. After you install True Image go to Manage Hard Drives and Clone your existing hard drive to the new one. You can simply use the automatic operation. It will then ask you to reboot and it will boot right into their cloning utility, which took about 5 minutes to clone a 7GB hard drive with about 4GB of data on my MacBook Pro. After it finishes, it will shut down the machine. At this point, go to the VM configuration, remove your old hard drive, and change the connection for the new drive to IDE 0:0. When you start up, the Acronis tool will run once again to finish setting up the new drive and will finally reboot into Windows. You can then remove True Image.

On the flight to San Francisco, I was sitting next to someone who worked for a software company that specializes in virtualization (not Parallels or VMware). He told me that Apple hired several people to work on virtualization. I suspect Boot Camp in Leopard will involve virtualization.

Right now I’m at YVR waiting to board my flight in a few minutes. While I was waiting I installed VMware Fusion beta 4. I had previously installed Parallels 3.0 so I got a chance to compare the latest versions of both applications. So far Unity looks very cool – unlike Coherence, Windows applications aren’t all in the same layer. If you click a Windows application window, only that window will be brought forward, not the entire Windows layer. I’ll try to write a more detailed comparison later.

Parallels released Desktop 3.0 today, which I pre-ordered as soon as it was announced. Coherence got even better – you can now open Mac applications from Windows or tell Windows to open web pages in the Mac browser. It also seems to use less CPU and doesn’t slow my machine down as much as the older version did. Running Linux in Parallels no longer sucks, since they now have Linux tools that provide mouse synchronization. Now there isn’t much reason to switch to Vmware.

For the last few days I’ve been fighting with Microsoft VSTS to get my source code checked in. Whenever I try to get latest changes to my VMware shared folder, it always fails with error 1359. Just for fun, I tried using the virtual C drive instead of my Mac OS X home directory and it had no problem, so I figured it had a problem with VMware’s shared folders.

At that point I decided to try a Windows VM in Parallels instead of VMware, mapping my home directory as a shared folder. The result was only slightly different: I got error 50 instead of 1359. It looks like VSTS has a problem with any virtual shared folders. However, Parallels caused lots of problems for me. It locked up my machine completely after about 10 minutes forcing me to reboot. It also kills QuickSilver’s hot key. I ended up going back to VMware which doesn’t slow my machine down and doesn’t affect anything else. I’m still frustrated with VSTS and still unable to check in my code.

I need to run several Windows applications for work (Outlook, Visual Studio Team Server, and a custom database application), so I’ve been using Parallels Desktop since the first beta. Their Windows support is excellent and the new Coherence feature makes the experience of running Windows on a Mac almost seamless. However, I also need to run Linux for a few projects and Parallels isn’t nearly as good for running Linux.

My big annoyance with Parallels is their lack of Linux tools, which means it captures the mouse in the VM window until you release it, and the clock doesn’t remain properly synchronized. It’s only been getting worse and the latest Ubuntu beta won’t even boot in Parallels.

I’ve tried all 3 VMware Fusion betas and I’m starting to like it more than Parallels. Their Linux support is excellent – I now have Ubuntu 7.04 running beautifully in VMware. I haven’t been able to successfully convert my Windows VM to VMware or I would switch completely. It’s too much of a pain to install a fresh Windows XP system and set it up with all of the software & remote network settings. I also miss Parallel’s Coherence feature. On the other hand VMware seems to use less resources so it has less of an impact on other applications.

Several other blogs also prefer VMware. I’ll most likely switch when the final version is released.

The new beta of Parallels Desktop is awesome! I just realized that I can double-click a Windows application icon in the finder and have it launch parallels and open that application. Parallels is turning into a real killer app and makes running Windows on a Mac a truly seamless experience.

I noticed a nice new feature in the Parallels Desktop update. It now shows the OS type as a badge in the dock icon.

Windows Vista

Originally uploaded by mike3k.

I downloaded the preview version of Windows Vista and I’ve been trying it out on my MacBook Pro using Parallels Desktop. It’s very pretty, but it feels annoyingly “dumbed down”.

I tried the CrossOver Mac beta and I found it to be pretty bad. It really isn’t much better than the original WINE beta I tried a few months ago. I gave up and deleted it after installing & trying IE6.

CrossOver has a built-in installer for supported Windows applications, including Internet Explorer 6 SP1. I was able to install IE successfully with the installer, but running it was another matter. IE didn’t appear in the Program menu, couldn’t be launched from the program list, and wasn’t in the ~/CrossOver applications folder. I finally found it in ~/Library/Application Support/CrossOver and was able to launch it from the Finder.

When I finally ran IE, it wouldn’t even fully load the default MSN home page and it ran a lot slower than it does under Parallels. Note that CrossOver is still beta, so it’s possible that these problems can be fixed in the release version. I’m still sticking with Parallels, though.

I finally returned my Developer Transition Kit, which should have been returned to Apple a few months ago. Due to several mixups (Apple originally shipped it to the office and they shipped it to me) and probably a few people dropping the ball, it was sitting here since I got the iMac in January. All it took was one email to Apple DTS & they gave me the information I needed to ship it back.

Via Slashdot: Paul Thurrott answers the question that some IT folks are asking: ‘Is Windows Vista Ready?’ His answer is not only no, but ‘No. God, no. Today’s Windows Vista builds are a study in frustration, and trust me, I use the darn thing day in and day out, and I’ve seen what happens when you subject yourself to it wholeheartedly. I think I’ve mentioned the phrase ‘I could hear the screams’ on the SuperSite before.’ He also addresses the more important question, ‘When Will Microsoft figure out what’s important?’ and to Paul, like most IT pros, its not about when the next OS will be released, it is about having the OS work.