My son is taking several college courses which require him to log into a Windows system. I’ve also found that on occasion I need to do the same. We are pretty much a Mac family.
Are the latest crop of Windows emulators any good? The leaders seem to be Parallels and Fusion. If so, which do you recommend?
Also, for testing purposes, is viewing a website on a Windows emulator as accurate as using a Windows PC?
Strictly speaking, on a modern (Intel) Mac, these are not emulators at all. They are a way to cut a window through the host operating system and run another operating system on the bare hardware at the same time – a hypervisor, to be pedantic. Long ago, when PowerPCs (and VirtualPC) roamed the land, these were actual emulators, which transcoded instructions from one hardware platform to another. This meant that they were neither fish nor fowl. The guest OS and the applications that ran on top of it were issuing their normal instructions to the hardware, but those instructions were intercepted and silently translated from Intel to Power instructions, inviting subtle mistakes along the way. But the current state of the art is precisely like booting into Windows from a compatibility and software standpoint. You ARE running Windows – on Intel – and whatever application you run on top of that doesn’t know any difference from a crappy Dell of recent vintage.
Walter
On Feb 24, 2013, at 6:24 AM, RavenManiac wrote:
My son is taking several college courses which require him to log into a Windows system. I’ve also found that on occasion I need to do the same. We are pretty much a Mac family.
Are the latest crop of Windows emulators any good? The leaders seem to be Parallels and Fusion. If so, which do you recommend?
Also, for testing purposes, is viewing a website on a Windows emulator as accurate as using a Windows PC?
I have used both, and currently use Fusion. I honestly cannot tell the difference. Parallels fumbled the upgrade process last time I was in the market, so I got Fusion for less than I would have paid to upgrade Parallels. Works fine for my very limited use.
Walter
On Feb 24, 2013, at 9:43 AM, RavenManiac wrote:
So, which of those products (Parallels or Fusion) do you prefer?
I just read this review and from the screenshot it looks like you can download Windows 8 from within the Parallels interface for free. If that’s the case I would lean heavily towards Parallels because it would preclude you from having to purchase the Windows OS.