This message is to all who wish to use their Mac's for Windows, Linux, Ubuntu and etc. applications.
My wife, knew that I wanted to have a MAC for years but never would turn loose of the money to buy one. Guess what? No, I did not turn loose of the money, she did... When I was forced to retired in 2010, as a retirement present and mainly I think to boost me up a little she bought me the iMAC. I love the large screen it has. So I went about finding a windows virtual machine program to let me have my Windows OS and programs running on my iMac as well. This would be know as Virtualization, a process of concurrently running another (fully functional) operating system over the main OS X installation.
We, humans, have only one brain, just like us the computer needs an operating system, (OS), as well. However, computers can have more than one brain or OS, thereby running multiple OS's at the same time. For instance as I type this reply back in the forum, I am on my iMAC, running Windows XP under a program named VM Fusion. Why am I running XP, because I love it. Now on my other two PC's, I run Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Here is a list of several common scenarios requiring the use of a virtual OS:
Running Windows-only applications on your Mac (like Power Director, CAD, Photoshop, Microsoft Office's 20xx, scientific, or business software)
Running the latest PC games on your Mac
Testing a website in Internet Explorer
Testing and tweaking different UNIX-based and Windows-based systems
Tinkering with the latest beta of an OS or even Power Director
Example: Suppose you have a MacBook that runs OS 10.5 (Leopard). Now you want to run the PeachTree accounting package to catch up with what your accountant is doing. All you need is to install a Windows virtual machine – you don’t need to have a secondary system for this purpose , excited, I was?
Just the other day I was on my PC-Windows 7, started having big time issues with PD10, spent over a week with support and Mr. Tony helping out. I re-formatted my hard drive three times. Made a mistake the first time by not selecting 'quick format'. Won't do that again on a Tera byte hard drive, took over 4 hours to format. I came over to my iMac was able to finish the project in PD10, thereby stopped loosing hair on head... Was I a happy camper, Yeeesss, getter done!! That is Texas talk for Yes.
YES, ONE CAN RUN WINDOWS BASED PROGRAM SUCH AS POWER DIRECTOR OR ANY OTHER PROGRAMS WITHIN THE MAC, AS LONG AS THEY HAVE A VIRTUAL MACHINE PROGRAM RUNNING.
Here is a list of some virtual machine programs,showing their approximate cost and brief description of each, but do you research based on what you are wanting to with the virtual machine program:
VirtualBox.
a combination of a free-as-in-beer price tag, cross-platform support, and a huge number of features that make running and maintaining virtual machines a breeze. Virtual machine descriptions and parameters are stored entirely in plain-text XML files for easy portability and easy folder sharing. Its "Guest Additions" feature, available for Windows, Linux, and Solaris virtual machines, makes VirtualBox user friendly, allowing you to install software on the virtual machine that grants extra privileges to the host machine for tasks like sharing files, sharing drives and peripherals, and more.
This is open source software and it IS good. But when it comes down to it, it cannot even come close to VMWare's offerings when put into enterprise applications.
VirtualBox (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)
Virtual Box has cross-platform support, and a huge number of features that make running and maintaining virtual machines a breeze. Virtual machine descriptions and parameters are stored entirely in plain-text XML files for easy portability and easy folder sharing. Its "Guest Additions" feature, available for Windows, Linux, and Solaris virtual machines, makes VirtualBox user friendly, allowing you to install software on the virtual machine that grants extra privileges to the host machine for tasks like sharing files, sharing drives and peripherals, and more.
This is open source software and it IS good. But when it comes down to it, it cannot even come close to VMWare's offerings when put into enterprise applications. A lot of computer users are using this program. It's limited, true, but for people working in a strictly Windows environment—and most of the world still is—it gets the job done.
Parallels (Windows/Mac/Linux, $79.99)
Although best known for the Mac version of their virtual machine software, Parallels also runs virtualization on Windows and Linux. Parallels also offers clipboard sharing and synchronization, shared folders, and transparent printer and peripheral support.
VMware (Windows/Linux, Basic: Free, Premium: $189)
VMware for desktop users comes in two primary flavors: VMware Player and VMware Workstation. VMware Player is a free solution aimed at casual users who need to create and run virtual machines but don't need advanced enterprise-level solutions. VMware Workstation includes all the features of VMWare Player—easy virtual machine creation, hardware optimization, driver-less guest OS printing—and adds in the ability to clone machines, take multiple snapshots of the guest OS, and a replay changes made to the guest OS for testing software and recording the results within the virtual machine
QEMU (Linux, Free) not for other OS.
QEMU is a powerful virtualization tool for Linux machines built upon the back of the KVM system (Kernel-based Virtual Machine. Personally, I have never played around with a Linux OS.
Windows Virtual PC (Windows ONLY, Free)
Windows Virtual PC exists solely to emulate other—usually earlier—versions of Windows. If you need to run an applications that only works under Windows XP or test software for backwards compatibility with Vista, Windows Virtual Machine has you covered. It's limited, true, but for people working in a strictly Windows environment—and most of the world still is—it gets the job done.
So if you have a Mac and want to run Window based program here is what is needed to get started:
1. Mac
2. Virtual machine program
3. Windows OS of your choice
4. Follow instructions on installing steps 2 and 3
4. Install window applications within the Windows OS just like you would normally do an install.
Then have fun at just computer rather than three like me.
I am not the support technician on installing any of the above mentioned programs or apps. So please call your program's support staff. I only find issues within programs by mistake, then wonder 'How did that crash happen?'
For those who still don't believe Windows in a Mac or etc, I have attached a screen of my iMac while typing this article. Just locate the mouse pointer and see program it is pointing to and show PD10 in operation.
Hope this doesn't make the water even muddier.
Bill n Texas where it is
HOOOOOTTTTTT..
|
Filename |
Screen shot 2013-07-10 at 11.06.20 AM.png |
|
Description |
Running PD-10 in Windows on a Mac |
Filesize |
895 Kbytes
|
Downloaded: |
78 time(s) |
|
Filename |
Screen shot 2013-07-10 at 11.05.33 AM.png |
|
Description |
Starting up PD-10 |
Filesize |
1305 Kbytes
|
Downloaded: |
87 time(s) |
Thanks,
Bill in Texas
PD-12, PD-14 and PD15 is installed on this iMAC computer under BootCamp, and PD's are running great:
DxDiag Info:
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
System Model: iMac11,2
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 550 @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4022MB RAM
Page File: 2031MB used, 6010MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 144 DPI (150 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode
PD-12 PowerDirector Ultra: 12.0.3403.0
PD-14 PowerDirector Ultra: 14.0.1728.0
SR numbers: VDE14
PD-15 Power Director Ultra
15.0.1725.0