[Macworld]

Post your comments for Eddy Winner: VMware Fusion 2 here

[Damn_Its_Hot]

Not even a mention of the VASTLY improved Parallels - you say VMWare is the best way implying it is better - in what way?
Back it up!

[Speed_Racer]

I dumped Fusion 2.0 for the latest Parallels a couple of weeks ago. It was a completely painless migration (although it took a bit of time) and I never looked back.

[Jon Seff]

I'll let someone else who has used both apps extensively weigh in on the differences, but I just wanted to point out that Parallels 4 was released on Nov 11, which makes it ineligible for consideration for this year's Eddy awards (products much ship between Nov 1 of the previous year and Nov 1 of the current year to be considered).

[griffman]

Yes, that's exactly why Parallels 4 wasn't even considered -- it was released after the deadline. With that said, even if Parallels 4 had been released prior to the deadline, my vote still would have gone to Fusion 2. We'll have reviews of both programs (along with VirtualBox) online shortly, but in the hundreds of hours I've spent with all three of the programs in the last month or so, Fusion 2 is the better of the two programs. It's got stronger DirectX support, uses less CPU resources, and works much better with multiple monitors (both inside the VM and outside the VM) than does Parallels. I also ran into a few troubling bugs in Parallels 4 (with SmartMount, Shared Profiles, migrating a VM, and Coherence mode) during my testing.

That's not to say Parallels is a bad program by any stretch -- it's quite well done, and I love its new Modality mode. But head-to-head with Fusion 2, I think it comes out in second place by a small margin.

-rob.

[mistersquid]

I was running Parallels 3 and upgraded to 4. Then a friend of mine who works at an Apple Store said, "Try VMWare Fusion."
Parallels 4 runs like a dying dog compared to Fusion.
Try, for one example, to watch Netflix Instant Plays in Parallels. Then try it in Fusion.
Fusion also has much shorter start-to-virtual machine-availability time than Parallels.
If you want speed for your VM, use Fusion.
(I tested both programs on a MacBook Air 128GB SSD.)

[BobCrane]

I've been using Parallels for about 5 months, and I have been completely underwhelmed. Here's why, in no particular order:
1. Every time I use it and try to print something, I get an alert that it has discovered a new printer--No, it's the same printer it discovered yesterday!--but there's no box that opens up asking me to add the printer to a printer list that it remembers.

2. They recently came out with an upgrade to 3.0, which I have downloaded several times, but it won't let me install the upgrade.

3. I tried to increase the amount of RAM available to Parallels from the paltry default of 512 MB to 2GB then 1 GB, but I could never get it to work! And yes, I read the instruction manual, several times in fact.
4. When I used Parallels to install Windows into Bootcamp, they forgot to mention the small detail that you need to press the "option" when you click on the box to move to the next phase of the installation. Not knowing this maddening esoteric detail caused me to uninstall then reinstall both Parallels and Windows, to no avail. I serendipitously discovered using the option key entirely by accident when I was basically seeing if there was anything simple that might help, but I can tell you, it was NOT in the instructions.
5. Oh, one other thing. I am not a gamer, but I also run Windows at home when I run Microsoft Flight Simulator. This will not run on Parallels, period. What's that you say? It runs on Parallels 4? Ha! That's what THEY say. Why would I believe them?
I use Windows XP at work, OS X at home, and use Parallels to work from home, but I have this suspicion that Parallels was designed by Microsoft or at least by people that were used to writing programs for Windows, because it sure doesn't run like an Apple product. I am not especially talented with computers, I'm not involved with computers except as a user, which is why I prefer OS X over Windows. For me, Parallels is way over rated. You can have it. I wouldn't upgrade, even if it was free.