Install Windows 7 on a Mac

Raise your hand if you remember when a Mac was a Mac and a Windows machine was a Windows machine, and never the twain shall meet. I sure do.

Our own Christina Warren has written an exhaustive set of instructions for installing Windows 7 on a Mac over at our sister site, Download Squad. Windows 7 is in beta, so don't try and use it for any mission-critical tasks. Meant to be an incremental update to Vista (Snow Vista?), the current iteration of Windows 7 includes changes like a redesigned taskbar, enhanced touch performance and improvements when run atop multi-core processors.

While Intel Macs can run Windows 7 via Boot Camp, Christina points out that virtualization is probably the best bet for most users. She described how to set up an installation with VMWare Fusion 2.0, Parallels 4.0 and VirtualBox 2.1.2 (and the VMware team has posted a guide of their own for Win7 on Fusion).

If you're a Mac user who keeps Windows around for compatibility testing or that one proprietary Windows app you can't do without, and you're just itching to try Windows 7, this is the tutorial for you. If you're wondering what the fuss is about over on the Microsoft side, Engadget's deep dive on Windows 7 is a good place to start.

Parallels Desktop 4 updated

Popular virtualization software Parallels has been updated to build 3810. The software offers many upgrades and fixes, including Windows DirectX 9.0 with Shaders Model 2 support, as well as "experimental" support for Snow Leopard and Windows 7 beta.

The "experimental" caution, as you might surmise, means not all features will work. For example, in Snow Leopard, there is no USB support, and Parallels notes there is no shared networking support.

Parallels has been running a competitive race against VMware Fusion as each software solution tries to out-feature and outperform the other.

The Parallels update can be downloaded at this link, or you can select "check for updates" from the Parallels application help menu.

A complete list of the enhancements in this build can be found here. Some users are reporting faster performance and some improvements with use of peripherals.

Parallels Server for Mac available now

In October, when Apple introduced a change in policy allowing Leopard Server to run in a virtual environment on Apple hardware, Mac IT geeks everywhere looked forward to the day that they could run Windows Server, Linux and OS X Server all off their pretty Xserves. That day is today, because Parallels Server for Mac is now out of beta!

According to Parallels, this is the "...first server virtualization software to run on Intel-based Xserves...and to power VMs running on the Mac OS X platform." Similar the the Parallels Desktop product, Parallels Server lets you run virtual instances of different operating systems on top of OS X Leopard Server, including Leopard Server. The next beta of VMWare's Fusion, which like Parallels Desktop is a consumer product, will support Leopard virtualization as well, but Parallels Server is a little different and aimed at a different market.

The difference is that the hypervisor used in Parallels Server is hardware optimized and takes advantage of Intel's VT-x acceleration (which new XServe and Mac Pros have) to provide a more robust experience with better allocation of resources and memory. This makes the experience much more akin to running a completely separate machine, as opposed to running one OS on top of another.

Yesterday, we reported on Media Temple's new (xv) project, which is the first official service that will be run on Xserves running Parallels Server for Mac. The (xv) will be running multiple VMs of Leopard Server, but Parallels Server can also support Linux (Debian, SUSE, Red Hat and Ubuntu), Windows (Server 2008, Vista, XP and Server 2003 and Windows 2000) and FreeBSD 6 and 7 as guest OSes. So if you run your website off of CentOS (which is based off of Red Hat Enterprise) but your company network runs off of Leopard Server, you can do both off of one Xserve.

Make no mistake, this is an enterprise product, and as such, it is pricey. Parallels Server for Mac is $1248.75 for the software and one-year of support and maintenance and that's before you add in the cost of any software licenses you might need, but that's still a lot less expensive than another Xserve.

For enterprise users who are interested in virtualization, definitely check out the free trial.

VMWare Fusion 2 Beta 2 [ MacOS ]

The VMWare team has just released the second beta for VMWare Fusion 2.0, the company's popular virtualization program for the Mac.

The new beta adds a TON of new features, as the video above demonstrates. I got a chance to talk to VMWare today about the new beta and it is HOT. I'll be posting a more in-depth overview tomorrow, but until then, here are some of the highlights:

• Unity 2.0 - The newest version of Fusion is really focused on better Windows-Mac integration. You can now launch Windows programs from the dock or access Mac programs from within your virtual machine. You can also link folders like Documents, Pictures and Music on your virtual machine with those folders on your Mac.
• Multiple Snapshots VMWare has worked really hard to bring a Time Machine-like ease to backing up and protecting your virtual machine. You can now designate how often you want to take full system snapshots of your VM, whether once an hour, once a day or once a week, and how many copies you want to keep.
• Better Video and Graphics Graphics and shading support has been improved for Macs that have higher-end graphics cards, and even integrated Macs can now play 1080p HD video in virtual machines with considerably less CPU overhead.
• Support for more client OSs, including Leopard Server You can now run Leopard Server as a VM in OS X 10.4 and 10.5, even on client machines (virtualizing Mac OS X client is blocked by Apple's license terms). Support for the latest version of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) is also available right out of the box with Unity integration. Power users can now designate up to four virtual CPUs per virtual machine, which is great for anyone wanting to take an XServe or Mac Pro to the next level.

VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta 2 is available for Intel Macs running OS X 10.4 or OS X 10.5. New users can try the beta for free and the upgrade path (including future betas and the full version of Fusion 2.0) is free for all existing Fusion 1.0 customers.