I have a MacBook Air and would like to install Windows Vista in a virtual machine, so I can use both Mac OS X and Windows at the same time.
I have tried with VirtualBox, but it performed very bad and Mac OS X crashed sometimes.
It seems that Parallels Desktop 6 and VMware Fusion 3 does the job better. I will mostly do .NET development using WPF and some other software development.
As of 2011 what virtualization software, Parallels Desktop 6 or VMware Fusion 3 gives me the best Windows Vista user experience?
Best Answer
The best advice. Trail both and then decide. I was a long time fan of VMWare, however recently moved to Parallels. Side by side, Parallels gave me a 5.1 experience index for Windows 7, and VMWare Fusion gave me a 4.9. Performance wise both are solid on my hardware, however I prefer the interface and coherence features of Parallels over Unity. This is however a personal preference. Full disclosure: I run a MacBook Pro i7, 8GB's of RAM and a 500GB 7200RPM HDD.
Both product does the job, and both work well. They are also in the same price bracket. You also can't compare features since both have the same functionality, just the method of implementation differs. The choice between the two is really up to you and how you use Windows virtualised. I game in Windows, and Parallels provided me a better experience. I also had issues running Expression Web, Silverlight and WPF in VMWare due to the graphics card, but this has apparently been resolved in the latest update.
My wife however prefers VMWare and finds it easier to use then Parallels. Moving machines between the two are fairly easy. Use one for the full trail, and then transfer your machine to the other and trial it. Do a comparison on which one works for you.