April 11th, 2007
Turns out the best PC I own to run Vista on is...
Turns out the best PC I own to run Vista on is… my MacBook. That's as good a definition of irony as I can come up with.
Now before anyone reading that gets too hot under the collar, let me add the following qualifications to the statement above:
- I didn't say fastest, I said best (as in most stable and most reliable).
- I can't run Aero on my MacBook (no big deal - I turn it off on all of my PCs most of the time anyway as it's an incredible resource hog relative to the value it adds).
- Running Parallels does make the MacBook heat up quite a bit. I use an Antec Cooler to keep the MacBook cool all the time at home and will be posting soon about a new desktop stand that works great with both the MacBook and the Lenovo X60t at my office.
- Parallels smacks the battery hard - I guess-timate I lose at least 45 minutes from the usual 2.5 - 2.75 hours I normally get (I carry a spare when I'm on the road or at a conference).
But the performance is rock steady and plenty fast enough for most of what I do. And it's it's just utterly freakin' cool to have Outlook 2007 running in Coherence mode on my Mac desktop as I am no big fan of Entourage 2004 (although I am keeping an open mind about Office 2008 until I get a chance to test it out).
Update: A reader points out in TalkBack that just about any virtual machine (and not just Parallels) will offer a similar layer of insulation from issues like the hibernation/sleep and video problems I described. The point is pretty well-taken - a VM does create a hardware abstraction that can provide a more stable and generic platform for Vista (or any other OS) but in my experience, the drivers for the VM can make or break the experience as well. As the development on Parallels evolved, the improvements to the drivers they install to make things work with the Mac's hardware definitely made things better in each release.
The reader was also concerned that zealots on either side of the fence might use this post to trumpet my support for their particular polar perspective. Hopefully neither extreme really cares enough about what I think to do something that silly since anyone who reads this post and the comments in TalkBack will quickly realize I don't advocate for one OS over another – ever.
Marc Orchant has been building, testing, and sometimes breaking hardware and software for 25 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
