Raw Block

I’ve been using Parallels for a while now to run Windows on my iMac. It’s good for day to day work type stuff. We write client/server software with a Windows client, and PL/SQL Developer is one of the best Oracle developer tools, but is Windows only. However, for more graphically intensive, interactive, networked applications its performance is a bit below par - by which I mean it doesn’t work.

Up until now I’ve had to scavenge around the office and camp some random, vacant low-spec PC when the after hours LAN sessions start. Its a little frustrating when my Mac box has enough grunt to run the games we play (mostly the ‘old but good’ titles from a few years back).

Enter Parallels RC2 (build 3150), with the nice feature of being able to run a Boot Camp Windows install in a virtual machine in OS X. After a couple of hours all the pieces are in place and living together like one big happy family - or at least one of those families with the weird distant relative with stability issues and poor hygiene that everyone awkwardly puts up with on occasions when they have to interact with them, but really can’t stand them (I’m looking at YOU Windows).

End result is that you’ve got a single Windows install, but with the option of booting it to either run natively via Boot Camp (with PC-level performance for Windows apps), or to run it as a VM via Parallels (can run alongside OS X in a window)

Install

The install was pretty straight forward. The Boot Camp docs explained the steps nicely. Once the Boot Camp install was done, its a simple matter to import it into Parallels. All up the install process only took a couple of hours - most of that was installing Windows.

The only trick is deciding whether to format the Windows partition with FAT32 (can see drive from OS X, 32GB limit), or NTFS (larger drive size, better disk usage). I ended up going with FAT32. Maybe I’ll change that latter, but it’s going to require deleting the partition with Boot Camp, recreating it, and reinstalling Windows

Weirdness

Sticking all these round pieces into square holes is handled pretty well by both Parallels and Boot Camp. They’ve both done an admirable job of making it as seamless as it is, however there are a few quirks along the way

• Windows XP Activation. I had previously been running my copy of Windows XP in a pure Parallels VM. Reinstalling in boot camp was detected as totally different hardware by Windows, which then told me my key was invalid. Likewise when the install is imported into Parallels it is also detected as yet another change. This required a separate call to Microsoft to activate each configuration and a little bit of sweet talking to convince the operator that I’m not driving MS to bankruptcy by installing one copy twice. The magic words they want to hear are "I’m reinstalling Windows XP on the same PC", which is sort of true (if not quite the technical explanation). I was wondering if the same Windows install would complain about being activated twice with two different configs, but so far it seems OK.
• Parallels doesn’t like windows formatted USB drives. Parallels was running fine for a couple of days, then when I came in the next week it refused to start windows, complaining that "More than one Windows partitions are found. This is not a standard Boot Camp configuration.". Huh? What had changed? I’d plugged in my iPod - which is Windows formatted. This confused Parallels. Unplugging the iPod and trying again worked fine. Once the Windows VM is running, it’s fine to plug the iPod back in. The same thing happened with an NTFS formatted external hard drive as well.

All up I’m pretty happy with the set up. Gave it a blast with some Quake 3 action last night and had a great time. Admittedly it’s a pretty old game, but it ran flawlessly with a great frame rate at highest detail. Now I just gotta get in some more practice to not get my butt handed to me by the guys in the office (I beat all the bots though )