The IT Nerd

Frequent readers of this blog will know that I depend on Parallels Desktop to run Windows and LINUX virtual machines on my MacBook Pro. Thus upgrading to Parallels Desktop 10 was guaranteed. The install was painless. Thus I’m able to move along to the new features in this release:

• You can place Windows apps on the Mac Launchpad or Dock
• You can use new features in Mac OS X Yosemite straight out of a Windows environment. For example, you can answer your iPhone in your Windows virtual machine. You can also use Handoff to and from your iOS devices, or use AirDrop. Notification center is also implemented as well.

I tested all of these in my Windows 7 and Windows 8 virtual machines and they all worked perfectly. I also didn’t notice any hit to performance at all. That’s very good.

Speaking of performance, the company claims that battery life is 30 percent better on portable Macs. I could not quantify if it was 30%, but my battery life was longer while running Windows 7 than it typically is. It also promises faster overall performance and I can confirm that is the case. My virtual machines were faster when I started apps and used them. But strangely, that is not borne out in using the Windows Experience Index. Starting with Windows Vista:

• Parallels Desktop 9: 5.0
• Parallels Desktop 10: 5.0

This is what I got with Windows 7:

• Parallels Desktop 9: 5.1
• Parallels Desktop 10: 5.3

Not earth shattering by any means.

Now when I dug into this, I discovered that Parallels Desktop 10 has a wizard that helps you to optimize your virtual machines to get the best performance out of them regardless of what you do. Simply choose whether you’re using them for games, general office apps, design, or software development, and the app does the rest. Though, I found that I did have to tweak the memory settings to increase the amount of memory that each virtual machine had access to. For example, the Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines were set to 1GB or RAM. I changed that to 4GB as I have 16GB of RAM in my MacBook Pro to play with. I then re-ran the Windows Experience tests and got these results:

• Windows Vista: 5.7
• Windows 7: 6.0

The take home message is that you’ll get a bit of a speed boost simply by installing Parallels Desktop 10. However, to get the most out of it, you should let it tweak your settings and you’ll get much more of a speed boost. But make sure to check its handiwork.

Parallels Desktop is $80 or $50 a upgrade if you are a previous user. If you need to run Windows apps on your Mac, it’s the only game in town as far as I am concerned.

This entry was posted on November 29, 2014 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Products with tags Parallels Desktop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.