Windows on Mac Q&A - Updated March 22, 2010
If you have a recent Mac, Parallels Desktop 13 brings enhanced Retina Display support for Windows applications running in scaled mode. For those of you who bought the latest MacBook Pros with. Alternatives to Parallels Desktop for Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD, Web and more. Filter by license to discover only free or Open Source alternatives. This list contains a.
Applications Similar To Parallels For Mac Os X
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Mac Parallels 12
Is there a free alternative to Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMWare Fusion?
Both Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMWare Fusion are available for download with a free trial and are reasonably priced. However, Innotek released a free open source 'virtualization' program called VirtualBox that makes it possible to run Windows and other operating systems 'inside' or 'alongside' MacOS X in much the same way as Desktop for Mac and Fusion.
On February 12, 2008, Sun Microsystems purchased Innotek to 'strengthen Sun's leadership in the virtualization market' and this acquistion has greatly increased awareness of VirtualBox.
Sun describes the program as 'the world's most popular open source virtualization platform because of its fast performance, ease of use, rich functionality, and modular design.' No doubt the fact that it's free has something to do with it as well. Please note that although VirtualBox is free, the license needed to run a version of Windows is not.
Photo Credit: Sun Microsystems
In general, VirtualBox is not quite as full featured as the commercial alternatives, but it still has numerous features including 'seamless windows', shared folders, a shared clipboard, and more. It may meet your needs quite well.
Parallels For Mac Support
Download VirtualBox for yourself and see. MakeUseOf.com has provided a great walk-through covering installation and configuration of the program that you may find to be useful and ArsTechnica offers an in-depth 'quick look' as well.
If VirtualBox does not meet your needs, site sponsor Other World Computing sells the latest versions of Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMWare Fusion.
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Symptoms
I would like to choose a specific application to be migrated from my PC to Mac instead of all Windows partition. Is it possible?
I would like to transfer applications from one Virtual Machine to other.
Information
When migrating your Windows PC over to your Mac using Parallels Desktop the Parallels Transporter Agent creates a full copy of your Windows PC disk. After such copy is created it is then transferred to your Mac and used as a Virtual Hard disk for the Virtual Machine that will be created as result of migration.
Note: Windows installation and all your data on the source computer (your PC you want to transfer to your Mac) remains intact all the time during the migration process and after the transfer is complete.
For more information please refer to Parallels Desktop User's Guide and KB 115007
If your Windows PC has several disks or partitions you can choose which of them to transfer to your Mac.
Click Customize and select which Windows volumes to migrate.
If you already copied your data from your PC user folder (like Documents, Music, Video, Pictures, Downloads) over to your Mac using OS X Migration Assistant or any other method, you can exclude them from migration as well. You just need to check the 'I have already moved...' checkbox as on the screenshot below.
However, due to limitations of Windows operating system it is not possible to exclude applications installed on your PC from migration or to migrate Windows applications from one Virtual Machine to another.
If you need to migrate Windows applications from one Virtual Machine to another Virtual Machine you will have to install them on your other Virtual Machine using the installation packages for those applications. After you install your Windows application on another Virtual Machine you may want to copy the data files related to that application (like databases, settings, bookmarks etc.) from the original Virtual Machine. Alternatively you can use Windows Easy Transfer utility from Microsoft to transfer your Windows installation from one Virtual machine to another.
It is also not possible to migrate Windows applications from your PC to your Mac without migrating the whole Windows operating system. This is because Windows applications are designed to run on Windows only and OS X installed on your Mac cannot run them.