10.4: A speedup tip for Parallels Workstation

Apr 20, '06 05:35:00AM

Contributed by: soulbarn

Most of you have probably heard, by now, of Parallels, which creates a virtual machine that runs Windows on the Intel macs, much as Virtual PC did in the past. But this isn't Virtual PC - I've found the Parallels workstation to be exceptionally quick - if you do one simple thing:

Run Windows 2000 on it, instead of XP. I'd forgotten what a good OS 2000 was -- simple, not bloated, bombproof. Yes, it lacks the elegance and modern features of OS X, but if you just need to run basic Windows programs, you don't need (or want!) those features, since you've already got them on your native Mac OS.

With a little tweaking, you can get W2K to run Microsoft's Defender (a free anti-spyware program) and Avast (a free anti-virus program.) You need both, but you might as well not have to pay. W2K will also run .Net and IE6 -- so you pretty much have all the functions of XP. It won't run games, so if you want to do that, you'll need Boot Camp. But there's no reason not to run both, if you also need to get quickly to Windows for any reason.

By the way, here's my good reason for using Windows on my Mac: there's absolutely no good road mapping software for the Mac, nor is there much in the way of quality GPS tracking software integrated with mapping software or fitness logging software. There are also no encyclopedia suites that I know of that rival Encarta for the PC (in either category; I've tried Route 66 for Mac and Mac Brittanica. They don't hold up, in my opinion.)

Some folks might wonder why one would need this stuff on their machine, instead of accessing it online. First, none of the online mapping services are any good at multiple-point road trips. Second, when you're in the middle of nowhere, with no connectivity, having the stuff on your hard drive makes a lot of sense.

[robg adds: Parallels was last week's Pick of the Week, and I just wrote a First Look article for Macworld on the subject. Finally, here's David Pogue's take on the program. In my testing, XP's speed was more than sufficient -- it was actually quite impressive. But I also created a Win2K VM, and there's no doubt that it's quicker still.]

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