Walt Mossberg: Fusion Edges out Parallels

Walt Mossberg, at All Things Digital, has been working with VMwareis Fusion virtualization system for the Mac for two weeks and has found some features that edge out Parallels Desktop.

Mr. Mossberg started by explaining the history of Boot Camp and how it differs from the virtualization software and went on to comment abut the first such virtualization program for Macs, Parallels Desktop.

Both US$80 programs have similar features and both have an integrated mode in which the Windows desktop can be suppressed and both Mac and Windows apps can run on the Mac OS X desktop. Both have full screen mode.

However, Mr. Mossberg found that the new Fusion 2.0 has some features that Parallels lacks.

• Fusion can take snapshots of the guest OS at timed intervals.
• It can completely customize keyboard commands.
• It can exploit multiple monitors.
• It uses the more modern and capable DirectX Windows graphics. That allowed Mr. Mossberg to access Microsoftis Worldwide telescope which cannot be accessed under Parallels.
• It seems to place less stress on the host Mac OS X.

"However, Fusion has its limits. Like Parallels, it cannot run the 3-D visual effects in Windows Vista. And, in my tests, it wouldnit allow Windows running on one of my Macs to use the printer that was configured on the Mac, although that feature did work on my other test Mac. In my view, Fusion is now the better choice for running Windows on a Mac virtually," Mr. Mossberg concluded.