starry hope productions

The past few days have been full of announcements in the area of running Windows applications on your Intel Mac. First, Parallels released a new beta version of their virtual machine, then VMware released a public beta of their virtual machine. Today, CodeWeavers made release candidate 1 of CrossOver Mac, their Windows compatibility product, available.

I decided to put Parallels and CrossOver Mac to a simple test and see which one works better for me. There are many technical (and even philosophical) questions surrounding this topic which I won’t cover here.

The task: Edit a photo from iPhoto with the Windows version of Photoshop 7.

First Up: Parallels

Also available in Quicktime [small] [large]

Pros
• The new Coherence features of Parallels make integration with your Mac OS workflow much simpler.
• Because you’re running a full version of Windows, you get the familiar Windows graphical environment for all your windows and dialogs.
• Can run any version of Photoshop that Windows can run.

Cons
• Parallels can be somewhat resource intensive.
• This latest beta has been fairly unstable and has crashed several times.
• While Coherence is a great feature, the tight integration of Windows into OS X can make a person feel dirty.

The Challenger: CrossOver Mac

Also available in Quicktime [small] [large]

Pros
• No need for a Windows license!
• Runs Photoshop 7 at a good speed with no crashing.
• Great installation wizards.

Cons
• Poor integration with OS X.
• Widgets and dialog boxes are ugly and confusing.
• No Dock or Command+Tab integration for individual applications.
• I found myself clicking multiple times to get some buttons to work.

The Winner (at least for now): Parallels!