Can A MacBook/MacBook Air Run Parallels?

[jyl]

Oh, cool.

Well, if anyone has a legit key they want to sell, let me know. Otherwise I'll buy Win 7 Pro on a disc.

[stomachmonkey]

I seem to recall seeing something recently that MSFT will be upgrading all licenses to WIN 10 regardless if the license is legit or not so a bogus license may not matter.

[jyl]

Hmm, do we want Win 10 though?

[stomachmonkey]

Personally XP and 7 were my favorites but one is EOL and the other will be soon.

I have high hopes for 10.

MSFT seem to get it right every other time

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Finally after 30-odd years windows is where Mac OS was 30 years ago in terms of stability.

[jyl]

Update - running Parallels 10, Windows 10, with IE, Excel, Factset Workstation, Word open in the VM and Mail Safari in the Mac - everything is working fine, using about 5.6GB RAM. Thanks everyone for the advice, this MacBook Retina Pro computer was the right choice.

[rusnak]

My MBP w Retina says it has 8GB RAM. According to Apple, it is not user upgradable. I bump into RAM issues when using large design files and some PDFs. You don't run Firefox? You trust IE?

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by jyl

Update - running Parallels 10, Windows 10, with IE, Excel, Factset Workstation, Word open in the VM and Mail Safari in the Mac - everything is working fine, using about 5.6GB RAM. Thanks everyone for the advice, this MacBook Retina Pro computer was the right choice.

Are you running Memory Clean on it?

Neat little, and free, app.

[jyl]

Originally Posted by rusnak

My MBP w Retina says it has 8GB RAM. According to Apple, it is not user upgradable. I bump into RAM issues when using large design files and some PDFs. You don't run Firefox? You trust IE?

I think my usage is not as memory intensive as yours. What I'm doing now is typical for me, and looks like I still have 2-3 GB RAM headroom. And any swap file will use the SSD which is, I think, better than using HDD.

On the browser, I prefer Safari and Chrome, but will use IE. For some streaming video sites, Chrome is giving me problems because Google seems to be dropping support for Silverlight. Am interested to try Spartan.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Sweet!

[jyl]

So I'm working with the biggest Excel sheet I would normally use. Goes to row 220 and column ES, full of data and formulas and download codes. The MacBook/Parallels/Windows is doing okay. When I'm doing stuff w/ the whole sheet, like refreshing download codes for the entire entire and re-sorting, it does take awhile, seems more CPU limited than RAM limited (RAM used never goes >6 GB), but I don't really do that very often or mind the delay. If I did, I'd want the MacBook Pro 15" I suppose.

[jyl]

I want to have Mac OS available too. Basically I'm doing personal stuff on the Mac side and work stuff on the Windows side.

[jyl]

An update. I'm now running Parallels 11 (upgraded from 10), Windows 10 (free upgrade from Technical Preview), two external monitors, and the built-in display, on a base spec MacBook Pro Retina 13".

Impression: the MacBook has plenty of horsepower, both CPU and GPU. I wish I'd gotten more RAM but the base 8 GB has been getting the job done. With a SSD, having a swap file is not a big deal. I also wish I'd gotten more storage, but again the base 128 GB has been adequate, I have >30 GB free. With Coherence Mode enabled, the boundaries between Windows and Mac are pretty blurry, as every Windows app appears as a window in Mac OS, looking much like a native Mac app, and I can freely move apps among the monitors. The resolution difference between the Retina screen and the external monitors is a slight pain. Basically everything is working well.

Here is my complaint, though. It took a couple months to figure all this out and get things working. Because Parallels, like so many software companies, doesn't provide a "manual." They have a knowledgebase, a forum, email help. But no manual that you can just sit down and learn from.

Is this the way it is now?. You're supposed to learn everything by trial and error and asking for tips and stumbling across similar problems via search?

I don't like it.

(Admittedly I made it harder by initially using a Technical Preview version of Windows 10, initially using a version of Parallels that predated Windows 10, and insisting on triple monitors.)

[jyl]

And by the way, I've also found out that a base MacBook Air 2014 has enough GPU to run triple monitors. Two external, using a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and a USB to HDMI adapter, plus the built in display. That's for my daughter.

[stomachmonkey]

You can get a single adapter that will run dual displays.

[jyl]

Crap, I should have done that

Like this?. http://www.cirago.com/hdxdp2hmi.php

[stomachmonkey]

Yeah there are tons of them out there.

The Belkins are cheaper and I like their stuff.

Amazon.com: DisplayPort to Dual HDMI: Electronics

[jyl]

Thanks!

Just FYI for anyone interested, Parallels doesn't seem to combine Retina display support with coherence mode with external monitors, gracefully. It tries to apply Retina resolution to the external monitors. You can manually set 1980x1080 (for ex) on the external monitors in Mac OS, but virtual Windows seems to "forget" that setting and switch to Retina resolution for those monitors. Not all the time, and I can't figure out what triggers it, but all of a sudden the Windows apps on the external monitors will shrink down. The solution I've found is to disable Retina support in Parallels.

[craigster59]

I picked up a new MacBook Air the other day. It will be great once I transfer all my data over from my old MacBook. My external HD is Firewire 400 and new Mac is Thunderbolt. I need friggen adapters for my adapters to hook it up.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by craigster59

I picked up a new MacBook Air the other day. It will be great once I transfer all my data over from my old MacBook. My external HD is Firewire 400 and new Mac is Thunderbolt. I need friggen adapters for my adapters to hook it up.

You can use Migration Assistant over WIFI.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350