Can A MacBook/MacBook Air Run Parallels?

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by jyl

I use Macs at home and have Excel/Mac. I use PCs at work and pretty much live in Excel/Windows. Excel/Mac is a POS if you are a power user of Excel/Windows because the keystroke shortcuts are different, the menus are different, not all the functIons are available, it won't run many macros, there is no Visual Basic, and add-ins for specialist financial applications don't work for Excel/Mac. Basically Excel/Mac has always been a rather crippled version of Excel, and I suspect Microsoft did that deliberately, for obvious reasons.

From the initial reviews I've read, Excel/Mac 2016 addresses the keystroke shortcut problem but nothing else.

I can't use something almost the same as Excel/Windows, it has to be exactly the same. If the third party add-ins don't support Excel/Mac, for example, that's game over.

The other option is using Excel/Windows via Remote Desktop/Citrix, but the latency makes that a pain the in rear, and the Citrix Mac client doesn't support the same keystroke combos. And of course you need a good internet connection, so no working on planes etc.

Thus I have to find some way to run Excel/Windows locally.

Your citrix admins can setup Flexcast so you can use your apps even while disconnected.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Have you given Numbers and Pages a go? They're actually quite good and I think better than Excel and Word in many ways. I use them almost exclusively now. Yes, the export to MS Office works well too.

Might be worth a try - not to be a fanboy or anything, but they run great on the Mac (and iPad) and the seamless cloud-based updating is a great feature for people that are constantly getting their days chopped up into small pieces rather than having a lot of time to work a task through to completion all the time.

[jyl]

I have played with Numbers and Pages a bit, but not seriously. Of the alternatives to MS Office, I've probably used Google Docs and Open Office most.

[rusnak]

I think you need to look at a Dell laptop. To be honest with yourself, ask if a Mac really is designed for you.

[jyl]

Ugh, no more Dells for me. I've had Dell, HP, Toshiba, Compaq and the only PC laptop I ever liked was the IBM Thinkpads - and I liked those a lot. But I banished PCs from my house many years ago, we have a Mac only environment at home. Since this will do double duty for personal and work, I'd like to keep things all-Mac.

I like Macs because they are very well built, smartly designed, last a long time, have a great OS, don't come loaded with poorly designed OEM bloatware. Bought the kids MacBook Airs (2014), which have been great; the wife's MacBook Pro (2011) is going strong (and I have a 16 GB RAM + SSD upgrade ready to go in).

[rusnak]

I just think a Dell or other high end PC laptop with a clean Win 7 install is the way to go.

[campbellcj]

I occasionally run VMware (Fusion) on my 2012 i7 Air with Win2008R2 Server and SQL Server for work, when I need a self-contained server to run our software on the road. It works fine but responsiveness lags sometime - to me it's miraculous that this is possible at all. No experience with Parallels.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

Ugh, no more Dells for me. I've had Dell, HP, Toshiba, Compaq and the only PC laptop I ever liked was the IBM Thinkpads - and I liked those a lot. But I banished PCs from my house many years ago, we have a Mac only environment at home. Since this will do double duty for personal and work, I'd like to keep things all-Mac.

I like Macs because they are very well built, smartly designed, last a long time, have a great OS, don't come loaded with poorly designed OEM bloatware. Bought the kids MacBook Airs (2014), which have been great; the wife's MacBook Pro (2011) is going strong (and I have a 16 GB RAM + SSD upgrade ready to go in).

Well then the VM sounds like the way to go.

If you have a current work issued PC laptop you can clone that to a VM and it will bring along all the work related security and any unique requirements that might be needed for accessing VPN and company hosted backend.

I did exactly that when I worked for CA.

They issued me a Dell that I only used for email / calendars and certain corporate functions. 90% of my day was spent using my Mac.

I hated having to carry both so I cloned the Dell to a VM and ran that for 2 years while the Dell sat in a drawer in my office collecting dust.

When I left I dumped the VM image back to the Dell and IT was none the wiser.

[Paul_Heery]

I came across this comparison of Parallels, Fusion & VirtualBox. This may prove helpful when evaluating the direction that you want to go.

VM Benchmarks - Parallels 10 vs. Fusion 7 vs. VirtualBox

[jyl]

Okay, I've decided what I'm buying. MacBook Pro Retina 13" 16GB DRAM.

I know you were all waiting in suspense!

[Scott R]

Can you swing the 15"? It's worth it.

[jyl]

I can afford it, but the extra size and weight might not be a good trade-off. I described my usage, above. Do you think quad-core and discrete graphics will make much difference to me?. I have always considered myself a pretty lightweight user.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

The benefit of using Boot Camp for the virtual hard disk is you have the option to reboot native if you need to.

As good as Fusion and Parallels are there are still occasions, mostly hardware related, that running native is the only option.

Certainly more of an issue on desktops than laptops.

My Infinity PCI cards will run in my MacPros when booted to Windows under boot camp but not under a VM.

There is one caveat to running the boot camp partition as your VM's disc, you can't suspend it, a total OS shut down inside the VM is required.

I find it a minor issue since booting the OS does not take much more time resuming from suspend. Although admittedly the suspend allows you to leave all apps and work open.

Which way to go really depends on what you are using Windows for and how often.

How is rebooting (even "native") a benefit? I don't see it as a benefit at all. One thing I utterly hate about windows machines is the fact that in most cases (even now) after installing any new driver, making any change to the registry settings or adding / removing any sort of hardware you have to waste five minutes of your life waiting for a reboot. Reboots are complete wastes of time IMHO - anything that can be done to avoid them is a benefit. This is one HUGE advantage to Linux / Apple devices. Far fewer reboots in general. I once had my Linux server up for over two years continuously without a reboot. Let's see Windows anything do that.

[stealthn]

Yes, I run parallels on my old Air as well as office. I really like Parallels but you do need SSD and as much RAM as possible to get the most out of it. With the newer Air's it shouldn't be a problem, same for Powerbook

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

How is rebooting (even "native") a benefit? I don't see it as a benefit at all. One thing I utterly hate about windows machines is the fact that in most cases (even now) after installing any new driver, making any change to the registry settings or adding / removing any sort of hardware you have to waste five minutes of your life waiting for a reboot. Reboots are complete wastes of time IMHO - anything that can be done to avoid them is a benefit. This is one HUGE advantage to Linux / Apple devices. Far fewer reboots in general. I once had my Linux server up for over two years continuously without a reboot. Let's see Windows anything do that.

I don't disagree. I hate rebooting and my .nix boxes never get shut down either.

My desktops are all dual boot since I have a need to run some very specific pieces of hardware that can not be addressed from a VM.

My laptops only run VM's and are not set up to dual boot.

[D911SC]

It may have been a configuration issue but we had varying experiences running spreadsheets on Excel within Parallels. We had about 95% compatibility. That mysterious 5% was a real PIA.

Before you make the purchase it might be worth testing the spreadsheets first.

[jyl]

Updating.

I bought a MacBook Pro 13" Retina.

During setup, I accepted the default FileVault hard drive encryption option. I now wonder if that was a good idea. Any views on the pros and cons?

[jyl]

Hey guys, what the best place and way to buy Windows 7, to install on my Mac via Parallels? I see prices from $55 to $140, am not sure which are for real, whether I should get Home or Professional, and whether there is a good reason to buy it on disc or via download? Any advice? Thanks.

[Vipergrün]

Disclaimer: I did not read the whole thread.

But...

I have been there with parallels. I would recommend installing vmware fusion, installing a Windows 7 VM, and use both at the same time. Running Windows 7 on my MB pro under fusion was almost faster than on native hardware.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

Hey guys, what the best place and way to buy Windows 7, to install on my Mac via Parallels? I see prices from $55 to $140, am not sure which are for real, whether I should get Home or Professional, and whether there is a good reason to buy it on disc or via download? Any advice? Thanks.

Pro, get a disc.

A lot of the stuff you see for sale is nothing more than the key taken from a recycled PC.

That's how I get the bulk of my Win licenses, buy someones POS broken PC for $25 to snag the key sticker. I've been known to pull over on trash day if there is a PC sitting out and grab the key sticker.

Completely legit.