Yes, yes, I know, for a “techie” person, I’m awfully behind time moving on to Windows 7. The Windows 8 consumer preview is already out in the wild, and I’m only just getting around to putting Windows 7 on my work desktop. In my defense: I must point out that I’m primarily a Mac user, then a Unix user, and then finally an unwilling Windows user. My Windows work desktop is there because, well, occasionally, I need Internet Explorer. Or,…
For many Mac users, it is inevitable that Microsoft Windows will be needed at some point or other. There are a few solutions to running Windows on a Mac hardware. I much prefer the virtualization solution than running Bootcamp because I can still access the Mac OS X system at all times. The two main virtualization solutions are basically VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop. Then, the next inevitable question is, which is better? Which is faster? Which is more integrated?…
Virtualization is not new to me. I’m now using a variety of virtualization platforms like VMware Server, Linux KVM and Xen. VirtualBox has become the most recent platform that I’m exploring, and that started some time last year. But it’s only now that I’ve got Windows XP running beautifully in VirtualBox hosted on Mac OS X and Linux platforms that my excitement in desktop virtualization has been renewed. Having 4GB of RAM on my MacBook helps a lot too.
After procrastinating for too long, I’ve finally gotten around to installing Windows XP into my MacBook. I’m impressed, Windows XP boots up in 20 seconds. It has never been that fast on my other previous computers. It’s not even running natively on my MacBook (i.e. via Boot Camp). I never really like dual-booting to choose and switch between two operating systems. I want to have both OS environments at the same time. Virtualization is the solution to what I need.
