Product Reviews

Apple's Boot Camp allows Macs with Intel processors to run Windows operating systems. However, you have to reboot your Mac to switch between Mac OS and Windows. Virtualisation software allows you to run Windows, or other operating systems such as Linux, alongside your Mac applications without rebooting. Parallels Desktop was one of the first virtualisation applications for the Mac, and Fusion is the first Mac-compatible program from virtualisation specialists VMWare.

We tested both programs on a Core 2 Duo T7700 iMac with Windows XP and Vista and allocated each operating system 1GB of RAM. You'll have to provide your own copies of Windows, and you'll need lots of hard disk space and memory to accommodate another operating system and programs. Parallels and Fusion can use an existing Boot Camp Windows partition, and both have configuration wizards that can install a fresh copy of Windows unattended. Both programs are similar, but there are some important differences.

One of Parallels' most eye-catching features is Coherence. This feature hides the Windows desktop and taskbar, so your Windows programs appear to be running side by side with your Mac applications instead of within a single window on your Mac desktop. Screen redraw can be choppy when moving windows, though.

The integration between the Mac OS and Windows under Parallels is impressive. Windows applications can be opened using the Mac OS Spotlight search tool or from the Windows Start menu, which is accessible from the Mac OS Dock. Text, but not images, can be copied and pasted using standard Mac keyboard short cuts. Files can be transferred by dragging and dropping. The contents of your

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Mac's Home, Documents, Movies, Music and Photos folders can be accessed seamlessly from their Windows counterparts. Parallels can also be configured so that when you double-click a document in Mac OS it opens in a Windows application.

We had no trouble connecting to a wireless network to access the internet and print to a network laser printer. Parallels is best suited for playing older 3D games, since it currently supports only DirectX 8.1. It managed to run our Prey benchmark at 11fps with reduced detail settings. The lack of DirectX 9 support means that Vista runs without its Aero 3D interface. More importantly, Parallels can't use both cores in a dual-core processor, so programs run more slowly; in our performance benchmarks, Parallels managed an overall score of just 129.

Fusion's Unity mode is almost identical to Parallels' Coherence, but Windows applications are launched using a Vista-style search window. Screen redraw is smoother, though, when moving windows. Both Fusion and Parallels exhibited some graphical glitches when switching between windows using the Mac OS Expose window switcher, though.

Fusion isn't as polished as Parallels in tying Windows and Mac OS together. Drag and drop as well as copying and pasting using Mac keyboard short cuts is present, but there's no seamless folder sharing as in Parallels. Mac Home folders are seen by Windows as network shares. We had no trouble connecting to a wireless network to surf the internet, but we had to adjust Windows' network settings manually to access a network laser printer using instructions from VMWare's website.

Fusion's advantage is performance. Although it is no better at playing modern games, it was faster than Parallels at copying data to and from a USB hard disk. Fusion took advantage of both cores in the iMac's processor and managed an overall score of 176, which is close to that of a similarly configured PC.

If you need to run Windows programs on your Mac only occasionally, Parallels has better integration between the Mac OS and Windows. If you regularly use demanding applications, Fusion's dual-core support gives it the edge. But if you want to play the latest Windows-only games, Apple Boot Camp's better DirectX support makes it the best choice.