Understanding Virtual Machines | Sleeping with the Enemy(c) Running Windows(r) on a Mac(r)

Virtual machine refers to a software application that simulates a hardware device. In the context of this chapter, the device being simulated happens to be a computer capable of running Windows. What this means is that the application creates a software environment that simulates a Windows PC. After you install Windows XP in this environment, it will behave just like a PC on which Windows is installed. Outside this environment, you'll have Mac OS X. Inside the environment, you'll have Windows. You can literally run Windows inside a Finder window on the Mac desktop.

Virtual machines have been available for the Mac before, and you could even install and run Windows in those environments. However, because the Mac used a different processor than Windows was designed for, the performance was slow. I mean really slow. Even with the fastest Macs, using Windows in these environments was almost unbearable.

With the rise of the Intel Macs and newer, better virtual machines, that has all changed. Now, you can run Windows inside a virtual machine with excellent performance. For many common tasks, such as browsing the Web, using email, and running standard applications, the performance you'll experience with a virtual machine will be the same as using a Windows PC (in fact, depending on the Windows hardware you are used to, your virtual machine's performance might even be better).

To run Windows in a virtual environment, you'll need the following:

An Intel Mac running Mac OS X, version 10.4.6 or higher.
A copy of a virtualization application. In this part of the book, you'll learn about Parallels Desktop for Mac. There are other applications available, but I think you'll be very happy with Parallels Desktop for Mac. You can try this application for free.
A full copy of Windows (not an upgrade). You'll need to install Windows in the virtual environment, just as if you were installing it on a PC. You must have a full version of a Windows installer to do this.

Note

You can install just about any version of Windows on a Mac using Parallels Desktop for Mac. This part of the book focuses on Windows XP Home Edition, but you can use other versions, such as XP Professional, Windows 2000, and so on. If you use a full package of an older version of Windows and install that in a virtual environment, you can use an upgrade disc to upgrade that version to a later version of Windows.

Following are the general steps you'll follow to create a virtual version of Windows:

1.	Download and install the software that enables you to create a virtual machine. In this chapter, this is Parallels Desktop for Mac.
2.	Create a virtual machine. You'll need a virtual machine for each operating system you want to run. In fact, you can even run multiple versions of the same operating system by creating a virtual machine for each.
3.	Install the operating system you want to run in the virtual machine.

Note

A virtual machine isn't just for running Windows either. You can install almost any OS inside its own Parallels Desktop for Mac virtual machine. For example, you can run Linux on a Mac by creating a virtual environment and installing Linux in it. Using Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can run just about any OS on a Mac.

You'll work through each of these steps in detail in the remainder of this chapter.