Windows 10: Any Mac users here running Windows VM's on Parallels -

Hi folks

I've a colleague who has a mac computer and wants to run Windows VM's on Parallels (that's a sort of well known VM software platform for using on Mac computers -- equivalent to vmware / vbox).

Any users here who have experience on this stuff -- I have zero knowledge so I can't give any opinion - good or bad.

Perhaps @pparks1 - you have some Mac kit - have you used parallels and if so was it any good for running Windows VM's.

Thanks

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

Okay Parallels or VM or Mac experts

I'm going to buy Parallels before it expires, also I've been reading a fair bit about Parallels and backing up, it looks like I'll be able to do what I want in Time Machine you just have to tell it where to look.
Bootcamp is good, but sometimes I want to do something on the Mac side and I have to reboot, also I've now got TP and Chrome on there as well. It's just good playing around with all these OS without having to reboot.
Ive still got Bootcamp and now in Parallels, you just tell Parallels where it is and it sets it all up as 8.1 in Parallels.

The next hard bit is going to be installing Dual drives in the Mac Mini so I can get SSD speed and migrating all this mess over to the SSD.

 

Okay Parallels or VM or Mac experts


Hi there

I think the problem with Parallels is that after the expiration of the trial your VM won't run whatever method you used to restore it.
I don't know about VMware on a mac but the free vmplayer works just fine - to backup the VM just simply save the vm folder using file explorer or from within the vm itself create an Image using an imaging program like macrium or acronis and save to a shared hdd that the vm has access to.

I think bootcamp runs windows just fine on a mac- not sure exactly how it works but people seem to be satisfied with that method too. This would be more like double booting though.

Cheers
jimbo

 

Okay Parallels or VM or Mac experts

I'm going to buy Parallels before it expires, also I've been reading a fair bit about Parallels and backing up, it looks like I'll be able to do what I want in Time Machine you just have to tell it where to look.
Bootcamp is good, but sometimes I want to do something on the Mac side and I have to reboot, also I've now got TP and Chrome on there as well. It's just good playing around with all these OS without having to reboot.
Ive still got Bootcamp and now in Parallels, you just tell Parallels where it is and it sets it all up as 8.1 in Parallels.

The next hard bit is going to be installing Dual drives in the Mac Mini so I can get SSD speed and migrating all this mess over to the SSD. Hi there
Some stand alone recovery programs can copy partitions / disk images irrespective of the file system. For example you could boot a Linux Live distro from a USB and simply copy your OS'es over to the SSD with the Linux DD command (use it carefully though), or a thing like clonezilla/filezilla. Acronis will also handle any type of partition / file system too --simply backup the original (source) on to a temporary storage device and then restore to your SSD (target).

Cheers
jimbo