What I like about Parallels 9 is that it also shows the running Windows 8.1 software in the Dock, alongside the virtual machine icon. From there, users can exit full-screen mode, tweak the virtual machine configuration, turn it off and so on. The Windows 8.1 virtual machine can show up in the OS X Dock. There is visually nothing that would indicate otherwise, aside from the OS X Dock. For someone who first enters the room it would appear that I have two devices, one running Windows 8.1 and the MacBook Air running OS X. In my case, I can have Windows 8.1 running in full-screen mode on my external 23-inch display and OS X running, normally, on the smaller screen from the MacBook Air. It is a welcome change from the previous behavior, which can still be enabled, from OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
I can run two full-screen apps at the same time, separately on two displays, or a full-screen app on one and windowed apps on the other.
My MacBook Air is now running OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which makes it possible to efficiently use multi-monitor setups. The Like a Mac option does have its advantages for those who want to quickly run Windows apps without as little disruption in the workflow as possible. The latter allows for more separation between the virtual and the natively-running operating system, and is the method I chose for as little complication as possible. The former option provides tigher integration options, allowing Windows software to show up like OS X applications.
Parallels 9 allows users to install Windows 8.1, and older versions of the OS, and set it to behave either like a Mac or like a PC. Nested virtual machines (virtual machine inside virtual machine) can be enabled during the setup, as well as other advanced options. A basic and an advanced setup are available, the latter of which includes in-depth configuration options for the virtual machine. The process is intuitive, as it explains the available options well, but also caters to power users. Installing Windows 8.1 in Parallels 9 is akin to the method offered by VMware Player. It is by no means a machine suitable for virtualization, but it can get the job done when I really need Windows 8.1 software. The upside is that you would be getting real value for the money, as the software is thoughtfully designed to integrate well with OS X and not work just as a virtualization application.Īt this point I should point out that my MacBook Air is the 13-inch model, with the base processor (1.3 GHz Intel Core i5, Haswell generation) and 4 GB of RAM. That is for a single license, but you can probably find it for less in places other than the official store. Parallels, which has reached version 9, costs €/$ 79.99 (depending on where you live). As some may know, Mac software is not cheap so this decision is apparently a no-brainer.
Being free makes it the de-facto choice for those who want to run Windows on Macs, but without shelling out for additional software. Unlike Boot Camp, Parallels Is Not Cheap (Free)īoot Camp is offered by Apple as a built-in OS X feature, which means that it comes at the attractive price of zero. After my Boot Camp experiment, I decided to try Parallels, one of the best known virtualization software for Macs, to test how well Windows 8.1 can run next to OS X, in a virtual machine. No matter what is to blame, users wanting to run Windows 8.1 will find a way to do it, despite the shortcomings.
This is to be expected because Microsoft did not design its new operating system to run on Macs, but rather PCs, and the drivers provided by Apple are, also, far from perfect. My experience with Boot Camp has been far from ideal, as some features that I have grown to love in OS X, like the touchpad and the efficient power management, do not work as well under Windows 8.1. My first thought was to use Boot Camp, which allows to run Windows 8.1 natively on the MacBook Air, and other Macs. While my needs for using Windows software have decreased dramatically, I do still need a couple of applications every now and then, that either are not available for OS X or do not work as well as I would like them to on Apple's operating system. After getting the new 2013 Apple MacBook Air I looked into how I could get it to run Windows 8.1 seamlessly, as my aging HP laptop does.