Moving at the Speed of Creativity - Native WinXP Emulation

Native WinXP Emulation

Published by Wesley Fryer in apple on April 7th, 2006

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Parallels is selling a $50 software product that permits near native-speed emulation of the WindowsXP environment (you still need your own WinXP license and installer CD) on an intel-chip based Macintosh. Unlike Virtual PC, “Parallels Workstation” makes direct calls to the processor (that don’t go through the MacOS and therefore slow down) so performance is reportedly quite impressive. According to the website:

Parallels Workstation is the most powerful, easiest-to-use, cost-effective desktop virtual PC solution available today. It empowers any user, from experienced professional developers to sales executives to casual home users, with the ability to create completely networked, totally secure independent, maximally stable virtual machines on a single physical machine…Parallels Workstation is a hardware emulation virtualization solution. This stable, trusted technology maps the host computer’s hardware resources directly to each virtual PC’s resources, allowing each virtual machine to operate identically to a stand-alone computer. Parallels Workstation’s sophisticated virtual machine engine enables each virtual machine to work with its own processor, RAM, floppy and CD drives, I/O devices, and hard disk – everything a physical computer contains.

Microsoft is apparently still contemplating its official response to Apple Boot Camp, announced Wednesday. My oh my how quickly things are changing in our 21st century networked economy.

The advantage of using a virtual emulator instead of actually booting into the WinXP environment (as you can now do with Apple Boot Camp) is that you don’t have to leave the MacOS environment. I have not tried this, but it sounds like Virtual PC on steroids.