Options for running Windows on your Mac

We're in no doubt that Mac OS X is by far the best operating system out there and we love it tremendously; however, we admit that it is fun to at least mess with other OS platforms, if for nothing more than geeky interest. For decades people have loved to install multiple operating systems on their computers, on external hard drives, thumbdrives, and whatever else may please the curious geek mind, such as putting Linux on iPods. This has been true with Macintoshes as well, with PowerPC Linux distributions being made available for Apple hardware, the "BeOS" was able to run on some models, and a small company called "Connectix" made the Virtual PC package that was one of the first ways to run Windows on the Mac through emulation (SoftWindows was another option, though less versatile).

Besides being fun, running PC software or other operating systems may be required for some daily computing tasks, which is why these multi-OS options have remained popular over the years. With the switch to the Intel x86 architecture, Mac users have had the luxury of being able to run most available operating systems on their machines without the agonizingly slow performance of emulators. Here are some options that you may or may not be aware of:

1. Boot Camp
For the best performance, there's no point in running two operating systems side-by-side, and Apple has kindly allowed every Mac user to install and run Windows on their machines if they so choose. Running the Boot Camp Assistant will let you install supported versions of Windows XP, Vista, and the upcoming Windows 7, which will all run at native speeds on your computer's hardware. In addition, you can install Linux and Unix distributions on a Boot Camp partition (though OS X should support the majority of people's Unix needs).

2. Virtualization solutions
For people not demanding much in terms of graphics performance from other operating systems, there are various virtualization programs that will get you up and running. Virtualization is a method of making the system hardware available to a program without doing much (if any) translation of code. As such, unlike emulators, an OS running in a virtualization environment can be nearly as fast as one running natively in Boot Camp. Here are some virtualization options for you to try:

• Parallels Desktop
  This was one of the first VM solutions for Mac OS X, and provides a variety of ways to run both Windows and Windows programs to make working with these programs in OS X as seamless as possible. Its direct competition is the "Fusion" package from virtualization giant "VMware".
  
  
• VMware Fusion
  An alternative to Parallels Desktop, Fusion runs quite well and is constantly updated to compete with Parallels Desktop.
  
  
• Virtual Box
  This option is the little sibling of the Parallels an VMware options. Developed by Sun, Virtual Box is a free virtualization package that offers many of the features in Parallels and VMware.

The drawbacks of virtualization come from limited system resources since Mac OS X runs in parallel with the virtualized OS, and also that the virtualization environments are not able to fully use some system components such as video acceleration. This is primarily because these virtualization environments use a "Type 2 hypervisor" to run the virtualized operating system--a setup that requires a parent or "host" operating system (OS X) to be running in the background, which takes up system resources. One way around this has been developed by "Citrix" with their XenClient software.

3. Citrix XenClient
Unlike other virtualization solutions, the Citrix XenClient is a "Type 1" (bare-metal) hypervisor that runs directly on the computer hardware, bypassing the need for a host OS, and thereby greatly improving system resource availability and overall speed of the virtualized environment. The hosted operating systems run in parallel with each other, and therefore no one operating system is given hardware priority over the other. In a sense it's similar to Boot Camp, but with the exception that you are able to easily switch between operating environments. According to this MacRumors article, currently the XenClient for Mac is in development, but should be available soon. However, the video provided shows the amazing potential for this new software.

Recently, Citrix has updated their "ICA Client" for Mac OS X that let Mac users to tap into Citrix WinFrame or MetaFrame servers and run PC software remotely.

4. Crossover
An alternative approach to running PC software is to forego the need to run Windows behind it at all, and instead just set up the bare minimum environment required for the desired program to run. This has been available in Unix and Linux for years with the open source "wine" (from the recursive acronym Wine Is Not an Emulator) software package that installs the proper file paths, fonts, DLL, and other support files to satisfy all the dependencies for the program you're running, without actually having Windows installed.

A popular OS X version of wine is the "Crossover" package available from the CodeWeavers team, who are constantly updating the software to work with popular windows programs. Using this software, you can have Office 2007 (for instance) running right in the dock along side your native OS X applications, and being able to directly access and edit files on the OS X drive. This is a convenient alternative if you don't wish to have windows installed on your system, or don't have access to a Windows installation disk. This provides a faster solution than virtualization; however, in cases where the program is not 100 percent compatible with the wine environment, you may run into glitches and odd behavior. Luckily, CodeWeavers website lists of all supported programs, with both user and developer ratings on how well they run in the Crossover environment.

Crossover comes in both a standard version, and one optimized for gaming called "Crossover Games".

5. Remote Desktop Connection
A final approach to running windows and PC software is to use Microsoft's remote desktop connection. In our updated article on screen sharing for the Mac, we included information on how to use the Microsoft remote desktop connection client to view the screen of Windows machines. For people who have access to a Windows PC and don't mind the slight lag of a network, this option may be a good one since you will not be running any PC software directly on your machine. The PC handles it all, and you use Remote Desktop to just view the PC's screen.

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