Crossover - another Windows solution

Parallels and Fusion are great applications for running Windows programs on your Mac, but how about this:

There's also a way to run Windows programs on your Mac...without Windows!

It's called Crossover, and it's based on WINE technology. WINE is not the same thing as virtualization; it stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator." I guess it doesn't matter to you or me what the technical distinctions are, really.

Anyways, Crossover is really handy for some of the same reasons Parallels or Fusion are handy - but in one regard, it's more handy. You don't have to boot an entire virtual operating system (XP or Vista, etc). You can launch just the Windows program. I use Crossover most for Internet Explorer - I can test web pages with it, and I find that certain Web sites (like our company's Outlook Web Access) work better in IE than anything on the Mac. For some reason, GoToMyPC works better using Internet Explorer, too - so much better, that this alone makes it worthwhile to me.

Below is a capture of my desktop, where I'm running Internet Explorer and Microsoft Publisher 2007 using Crossover. No Windows XP operating system is loaded, just the programs - which actually saves a good amount of RAM. I'm only using the RAM these programs would normally use, with no overhead for the OS.



Again, I could do the same thing using Parallels, and sometimes I do if I've already got Parallels loaded, but if I want to quickly just check my company's web mail system, IE is just a few seconds away.

Or maybe I couldn't do the same thing with Parallels. What if I no longer had a PC and no longer had a Windows XP installation CD, but I still had my Office 2003 discs and serials? I could still make use of them with CrossOver.

Now, Crossover is a little more "wild west" than Parallels or Fusion. It only supports certain Windows programs. You can try programs not on the official Crossover list, but you're on your own at that point and the good people at Crossover make no guarantees about their stability.

Some things are really, really hard to get working right in Crossover. It's hard to explain. If a program depends on certain Windows components aren't really there, then it could get hinky. I've had trouble getting network printers to work right with certain Windows programs running in Crossover. Another example would be updates, like Microsoft Office updates. Because the Microsoft updating system is so dependent on the operating system - which isn't there - you have to wait for the Crossover people to release their own versions of the updaters. I know, it can make your head spin.

But for quick and dirty Windows program work, this could be a nice thing to have in your bag of tricks. CrossOver's standard version costs $40.00.

Parallels 4.0 - Good Stuff

If you're a Parallels user at version 3, I think you'll find the Version 4 upgrade well-worth the price. (Note that if you bought Parallels after September 1st, 2008, you get the upgrade for free.)

If you're not familiar with Parallels, it's a program for the Mac (intel-based Macs only; it doesn't run on G5s or G4s) that lets you run Windows on the Mac. And it works very, very well. For most people, it'll be just as good as running a real Windows computer. You still need a Windows XP or Vista installation disk and serial number, of course.

But if you need to run specific PC programs - Office 2007, Quickbooks for Windows, Access, etc - it's a great solution. I use it a lot to get screen shots of PC programs when I'm creating tutorials for Windows applications at work, and of course to work in and troubleshoot the programs I support on the PC-side. It's literally like having an entire second PC computer, but with no need for another box, keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc. You can easily transfer files back and forth between the real operating system (Mac OSX) and the virtual operating system.

Below is a screen shot of a Windows XP virtual machine running on my Mac:



Keep in mind - when you're running Windows on your Mac, you're running Windows - which means, you'll also want to install the approrpriate security software such as antivirus and antispyware.

The list of new features and existing capabilities is extensive, so check out the site for yourself.

I use both Parallels and Fusion. Fusion is VMWare's similar offering, which competes directly with Parallels. For a lot of subtle reasons, I prefer Parallels. It just seems faster and more mac-like to me. But you can read the reviews yourself and download trials for each, to see which you prefer.