If you care about running Windows on a Mac , you ’ve doubtless heard that the end drug user permit agreement ( EULA ) for Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium forbids you to use these interpretation of Microsoft ’s latest operating system discharge with virtualization software — software that give up you to run operating systems other than the Mac OS in a windowed environment within the Mac OS . Such virtualization computer software include the popularParallels screen background for Mac . What the reports on this matterdon’treveal is whether this is simply a effectual restriction or also a technical one .
I hoped to have the answer . And then , last night , it come to me in a aspiration .
The dreaming
In that aspiration , the foreman OK’d the leverage of Windows Vista Home Premium for the purposes of test its effectiveness when run both in Apple ’s Boot Camp and in the modish genus Beta ( 3150 ) of Parallels Desktop for Mac . It was n’t an entirely happy dream .
For example , early in the proceedings ( in the dream , may I remind you ) I float over to the local Costco to purchase said OS . Regrettably , Costco offered only the $ 159 upgrade version — one that ask a valid paint from a version of Windows XP Home Edition . In both my pipe dream and genuine life I have a written matter of XP Professional , and you ca n’t upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Home . The upgrade path from XP Pro is to Vista Business or Vista Ultra , both of which have been granted virtualization privilege by Microsoft .
So off I drifted to the local Staples , which sells the full translation of Vista Home Premium for precisely one weapon system and one peg . ( More incisively , the list cost for the full translation is $ 239 . ) To get a better signified of what Vista under Parallels could do , I also purchased an upgrade version of Office Standard 2007 , as I had the late Office XP Standard . ( Good thing this is a dream , eh boss ? I might have forgotten to mention that in the original disbursal request . )
Vista and Boot Camp
To get a sense of what Vista could do on a Mac without virtualization software , I installed the latest genus Beta ofApple ’s Boot Campon my 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 2 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon X1900 computer graphic card with 512 MB of RAM . I then make a Mac Drivers CD , and move to install Windows Vista Home Premium and Office 2007 under Boot Camp . Everything choke smoothly until I attempted to set up the Mac Drivers CD . Part right smart through the installation I saw this :
Although my dream - self empathize there were ways to manually establish these Mac drivers , I had bigger fish to fry and so let it wait for another sentence .
Under Boot Camp on my Mac Pro , Vista and Office 2007 performed nicely . Vista ’s three - vowel - and - a - consonant - just - like - peacock blue - transparency - effect — otherwise bang as Aero — was in evidence . Right - dog on my Microsoft shiner work as it should , Vista recognise my AirPort connection , and my HP LaserJet 1300n printer appear when I attempted to print a Word text file . The Windows version of QuickTime 7 installed properly and play back a movie trailer I access from Apple ’s QuickTime site . Windows Media Player was able to rip an audio candela and play back the result files somewhat well ( though there was episodic stuttering when the Mac ’s CPU was taxed ) . All in all , I felt like I was run a life and breathing ( and fast ) PC .
Living in a Parallels world
One reason my dream - self ab initio install Vista under Boot Camp was so I could employ the Parallels beta ’s ability to use a Boot Camp installing rather than requiring its own installation of Windows . Regrettably , this was a non - newcomer . Even though I bring the Boot Camp volume as a concentrated drive within Parallels , attempting to create a new virtual machine based on Boot Camp failed . If I told Boot Camp that I was attempting to utilize the Vista OS , the Boot Camp selection was grayed out . If I told it I was hear to install XP from my Boot Camp volume , the Boot Camp selection became active , but the initiation could n’t proceed .
That bequeath installing Vista Home Premium straight into Parallels — the thing that the Vista Home EULA forbids . While my ambition did n’t precisely bend to nightmare at this item , it certainly had its scary moments .
Cutting briefly to the pursual , Vista Home Premium installed dead well . Once it was up and running I note that the Aero effect was nowhere to be see — Parallels simply could n’t emulate the sort of graphic batting order / king necessary to make it work . I then asked Vista to set up the latest Vista updates — something I understand to be a problem for others who tried it .
Vista Home Premium running on a Mac via the tardy Parallels Desktop beta
No problem . Vista download the update , set up them , I restarted , and everything continued to process . The Office install also proceed according to plan — I first installed Office XP Standard so the upgrade would see that I had a legit written matter of Office and then installed the Office Standard 2007 upgrade . I establish the various Office applications and they worked . operation was n’t nearly up to that of unravel Vista and Office under Boot Camp , but it was no bad than working with a Mac - native version of Office on , say , a late - modelling iBook .
Where things start to break down was with media files . I ripped that same audio CD in Windows Media Player as a 192kbps MP3 data file and playback was horrendous — the lead played slowly and bumble constantly . I tested some of the audio tracks bundled with Vista and they show the same trouble . Shutting down Vista and bumping up the amount of memory dispense to Vista within Parallels ( 1.5 GB ) did n’t facilitate .
Wide awake
I uprise this dawn with a mixed flavour of elation and disappointment . I wish having Windows on my Mac . It ’s utile for execute the in vogue version of Office , and I do a moderate bill of cross - platform sound and mass medium employment where quickly moving between the Mac o and Windows is ready to hand . I ’m elated because — at least according to my dreaming — Windows Home Premium does run tolerably under Parallels as does the up-to-the-minute version of Office , despite what the EULA may suggest . But I ’m let down that it does n’t operate as well as XP .
Happily , nothing in the EULA forbids me from running Vista under Boot Camp . As far as Vista and Microsoft are have-to doe with , a Mac running Boot Camp is just another microcomputer . But Boot Camp is n’t convenient for quickly moving Indian file between operating system . My Bob Hope is that Microsoft will back off from its EULA when it interpret that one sale of an almost - affordable version of Vista is good than no sales of the “ await , you wanthowmuch for this ! ? ” spreading . At the same time , I beg that Parallels will retain to explore elbow room to make Vista perform as well as possible in virtualization .
Then again , maybe I ’m daydream .
