Parallels Desktop and Visual Studio
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I bought a Macbook Pro to replace my beloved Macbook Air. I loved that Air, but it was getting a little long in the tooth. I had huge expectations that the Pro would be bigger, badder, faster, and just plain better. It's not. It's absolute crap if you want to use Bootcamp / win10. It's USB C only, meaning connecting it to an external display only works reliably if you reboot before you plug in. The trackpad constantly thinks left click is right click. The screen brightness constantly osculates as it tries to auto-adjust and I get about 3-4hrs max on battery when using Visual Studio. I use *exactly* the same setup on the Air and had insane battery life and no problems whatsoever with displays or the trackpad. So I disable auto-brightness, I bring a mouse with me if I can, plus a charger. Plus all the dongles, of course. And I shut down everything when I need to switch displays (ie each time I switch from home office to Office office). It does, however, work brilliantly when in macOS. You get the lovely double-click pressure on the trackpad, USB-C hot swaps nicely. Font sizes just work on HiDPI screens. So I decided maybe I should just stay in macOS and use Parallels. All the marketing material says Parallels works fast. It's super easy to install. You can even use VS, ISS and SQL on a low-end laptop with 2 cores and barely enough RAM to remember its own name. I dutifully downloaded Parallels. Within minutes I had my Bootcamp partition running in a window. A really, really tiny window. Making that window full screen gives you a big black window with a tiny Windows window in the middle. Must be a driver issue. Maybe that explains why I have no network, either. I install the Parallel tools and reboot. Tiny window still there. Still no network connectivity. I try every option I can find. I try every network option. Every display option. I google and bing and duckduck and disable the folder sharing and tweak this and that and basically do all the simple, obvious things that the interwebz says you must to with Parallels. Still not really functioning properly. I go into coherence mode (Parallels, not me. I was not coherent at this point) so at least I can run and view apps. My goal was to see how Visual Studio would behave. I had a stopwatch ready and had a coffee. I was assuming I'd need razor sharp reflexes to spot the change in app performance given what I'd read. I fire up Visual Studio. I load up our solution. And wait. And wait. And it loads. I open some files...slowly. And ... try ... a
I used a 2011 MacBook Pro with BootCamp and didn't really have any issues. I then upgraded to a 2013 MacBook Pro and used VMware Fusion to run Windows 7 and Visual Studio (then Windows 10 and VS). I will say that the move to HiDPI/Retina caused some issues, but I was able to get them resolved through different settings adjustments. However, over the course of several macOS releases, things change and it became too much of a hassle to keep things working well. I recently switched to the new Microsoft Surface Book 2 (used Surface Pro 3/4 some too) and have to say that it is hands-down the best laptop I have ever used. If you primarily develop software using Visual Studio, I'd recommend getting the Surface Book 2 (or even an upper-end Surface Laptop or Surface Pro). Keep the MacBook Air in order to compile Xamarin Forms apps for Mac or iOS. Return the MacBook Pro if you can. Not worth the hassle when such good hardware is available. Hope that helps... Kelly.
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Um, not to state the obvious, but what the heck. If you're doing Visual Studio development, why didn't you buy a nice Windows laptop?
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Find me a laptop as nice as the Macbooks. (and I'm actually serious here) I've looked at the Dell XPS - the webcam placement is just dumb and it feels plastic-y. The Zenbook is a contender but battery life is pretty awful and the dark blue with gold trim? I just can't do it. Surface book? Crazy expensive and that rubbish hinge makes it too thick. Surface Laptop? No USB-C which means it won't work with my LG monitor. And then there's the whole issue of chargers: I find Microsoft's odd brick-and-side-plug clumsy and heavy. Compare Microsoft[^] to Apple[^]. Seems a small thing but when travelling it makes a big difference having a compact brick with just a single thin USB-C cable that can be detached. Every week - every single week - I trawl through the latest laptops to see if there's one that will replace my current unit but still nothing. The Macbook Air was (in my opinion) the pinnacle. The battery life, the keyboard, the performance. The Macbook Pro has a nicer chassis and screen, but the keyboard is horrid and the bootcamp drivers haven't kept up with the hardware. So yeah I'm fussy, but dammit: if I'm going to spend that much then I'm going to get something I love working on.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Chris - I feel your pain. About 10 years ago, I used bootcamp to run win WinXP/MSSQL/VS and switched to Parallels and later to Fusion on a 2006 MBP. Not much in the difference. More recently, I've been using a Macbook Air and VirtualBox (Win7 Pro with VS2015 and SQL Server) wihtout any real degredation in performance. The VM is on a thunderbolt connected external HD. Are you able to install Parallels on your old MBAir and check how it works? Or try VirtualBox - it's free and you can import a VM. I was thinking about upgrading to a new MBP, but your comments are making me nervous!
Parallels on the old MB Air was pretty much the same. I was planning on trying VM Fusion today but that's been scuttled due to some server issues I need to deal with.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote:
The screen brightness constantly osculates
I hate it when my screen starts acting as a spongy vent too. :)
I have no idea how I managed to spell it that way. That's imaginative even for my creative spelling efforts.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I have been working with a Macbook Pro & Parallels desktop since 2011 (16 Mb) without to many problems with Visual Studio. Definitely not the issues you mention. I am using the same configuration on a Mac Pro now. I have had some issues with the allocation of memory but the technical support of Parallels has been helpful in solving these problems either by email or remote session. Best of luck, Aad Brugman
So there we go: it's possible! The thing that's bothering me is: what's the difference in setups between you and I? I had parallels import my Bootcamp partition. Did you start from scratch or import bootcamp? With Visual Studio are you working on big projects or small? What about services such as SQL Server or IIS?
cheers Chris Maunder
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I used a MacBook Pro about four years ago after my Windows computer died. I installed Parallels and then a Windows 7 Pro instance inside Parallels, and VS, SQL Server, misc tools inside Windows 7. No problems at all. Ran great. In fact, it was better and faster than my Windows machine (which was Alienware), which I thought was really weird since the Windows 7 via Parallels shared resources with the Mac OS. Both machines had 8GB RAM, but the Mac had a great SSD where the Windows machine had a 7200 RPM hard disk. I have not had to use Parallels recently.
Mike
The SSD is one of the reasons I originally switched to the Macbook. Performance is outstanding.
cheers Chris Maunder
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As an alternate approach, try Visual Studio for Mac which I believe was released over the summer. No need to use Parallels unless of course you are trying to use other windows related tools.
I'm using that on my other Mac but I need IIS and SQL too.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I used a 2011 MacBook Pro with BootCamp and didn't really have any issues. I then upgraded to a 2013 MacBook Pro and used VMware Fusion to run Windows 7 and Visual Studio (then Windows 10 and VS). I will say that the move to HiDPI/Retina caused some issues, but I was able to get them resolved through different settings adjustments. However, over the course of several macOS releases, things change and it became too much of a hassle to keep things working well. I recently switched to the new Microsoft Surface Book 2 (used Surface Pro 3/4 some too) and have to say that it is hands-down the best laptop I have ever used. If you primarily develop software using Visual Studio, I'd recommend getting the Surface Book 2 (or even an upper-end Surface Laptop or Surface Pro). Keep the MacBook Air in order to compile Xamarin Forms apps for Mac or iOS. Return the MacBook Pro if you can. Not worth the hassle when such good hardware is available. Hope that helps... Kelly.
In truth I'm holding out for a Surface Laptop with USB-C and 10hr battery life. However, all this talk of ARM based Windows is interesting, too...
cheers Chris Maunder
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In truth I'm holding out for a Surface Laptop with USB-C and 10hr battery life. However, all this talk of ARM based Windows is interesting, too...
cheers Chris Maunder
No doubt the Surface Laptop is a good option. I've been able to get essentially all day use from the new Surface Book 2. Not playing games or watching the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Trilogy, granted. But getting real development work done using Visual Studio along with Internet research and email. Plus this thing has to drive a 15" HiDPI display, a discrete GPU, and a quad-core i7. I'd say that is a huge accomplishment in battery tech by the Microsoft Surface team. Kelly.
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I bought a Macbook Pro to replace my beloved Macbook Air. I loved that Air, but it was getting a little long in the tooth. I had huge expectations that the Pro would be bigger, badder, faster, and just plain better. It's not. It's absolute crap if you want to use Bootcamp / win10. It's USB C only, meaning connecting it to an external display only works reliably if you reboot before you plug in. The trackpad constantly thinks left click is right click. The screen brightness constantly osculates as it tries to auto-adjust and I get about 3-4hrs max on battery when using Visual Studio. I use *exactly* the same setup on the Air and had insane battery life and no problems whatsoever with displays or the trackpad. So I disable auto-brightness, I bring a mouse with me if I can, plus a charger. Plus all the dongles, of course. And I shut down everything when I need to switch displays (ie each time I switch from home office to Office office). It does, however, work brilliantly when in macOS. You get the lovely double-click pressure on the trackpad, USB-C hot swaps nicely. Font sizes just work on HiDPI screens. So I decided maybe I should just stay in macOS and use Parallels. All the marketing material says Parallels works fast. It's super easy to install. You can even use VS, ISS and SQL on a low-end laptop with 2 cores and barely enough RAM to remember its own name. I dutifully downloaded Parallels. Within minutes I had my Bootcamp partition running in a window. A really, really tiny window. Making that window full screen gives you a big black window with a tiny Windows window in the middle. Must be a driver issue. Maybe that explains why I have no network, either. I install the Parallel tools and reboot. Tiny window still there. Still no network connectivity. I try every option I can find. I try every network option. Every display option. I google and bing and duckduck and disable the folder sharing and tweak this and that and basically do all the simple, obvious things that the interwebz says you must to with Parallels. Still not really functioning properly. I go into coherence mode (Parallels, not me. I was not coherent at this point) so at least I can run and view apps. My goal was to see how Visual Studio would behave. I had a stopwatch ready and had a coffee. I was assuming I'd need razor sharp reflexes to spot the change in app performance given what I'd read. I fire up Visual Studio. I load up our solution. And wait. And wait. And it loads. I open some files...slowly. And ... try ... a
Most likely is still a drivers issue, also i recommend you to verify how many cores your virtual machine has, given that, since Windows Vista, Windows is not happy with anything less than 2 cores. To be honest, i would try doing a clean install from within Parallels in a Virtual Hard Drive.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Most likely is still a drivers issue, also i recommend you to verify how many cores your virtual machine has, given that, since Windows Vista, Windows is not happy with anything less than 2 cores. To be honest, i would try doing a clean install from within Parallels in a Virtual Hard Drive.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
RafagaX wrote:
To be honest, i would try doing a clean install from within Parallels in a Virtual Hard Drive
I will give that a try.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I have to second/third this. I have a co-worker who is retired and likes putzing with technology. So, he recently went full Mac because his wife loves her Mac, and they are traveling a lot, and he did not want to bring 2 computers... He is NOT doing development. But we require windows to use our software, which he is testing, etc. I dare say NOTHING works easily for this chap. GoToMeeting acts up, loses his mic. Bootcamp (I guess) crashed, he had to rebuild something. He ends up joining meetings directly from his phone because of issues. I guess the ONE good thing: His wife was happy she could check her WEB MAIL, via the Mac. LMAO. I don't have time for these issues. It is not that hard to give my wife one laptop, and me keep mine. Done. Oh, that's what I did. Never looked back. == Someone mentioned Apple slowing down iPhones... Well MSFT windows 7 update a WHILE back (18 months), started Parking my Laptops CPUs. My wonderful Dual Processor, Quad Cores, with 32GB of memory was running like crap. I was ready to upgrade. I am talking 5-10x slow down. Found a CpuCoreParking tool that let me unpark the cores... (And see the parked cores). This was NOT an accident, and reeks of the same thing Apple got caught doing! =
Kirk 10389821 wrote:
Well MSFT windows 7 update a WHILE back (18 months), started Parking my Laptops CPUs. My wonderful Dual Processor, Quad Cores, with 32GB of memory was running like crap. I was ready to upgrade. I am talking 5-10x slow down.
Hmmm, that sounds a familiar refrain. My Win 7 machine has also begun to run like treacle in the last 12-18 months.
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Kirk 10389821 wrote:
Well MSFT windows 7 update a WHILE back (18 months), started Parking my Laptops CPUs. My wonderful Dual Processor, Quad Cores, with 32GB of memory was running like crap. I was ready to upgrade. I am talking 5-10x slow down.
Hmmm, that sounds a familiar refrain. My Win 7 machine has also begun to run like treacle in the last 12-18 months.
The software is here: [Coder Bag: CPU core parking manager v3](http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/CPU-core-parking-manager-v3) One note: if you are accidentally there because you said "ultra-quiet", you will notice the fans being much loader. (As if I care, because the other option was throwing the machine into the wall)
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So there we go: it's possible! The thing that's bothering me is: what's the difference in setups between you and I? I had parallels import my Bootcamp partition. Did you start from scratch or import bootcamp? With Visual Studio are you working on big projects or small? What about services such as SQL Server or IIS?
cheers Chris Maunder
In 2011 I changed from Windows PC to Mac and bought and installed Parallels desktop on my Macbook Pro. I made an image of my Windows PC with Parallels Transporter Agent. The image also included the Visual Studio version (2010). Transferred image to Mac, opened it in Parallels and started using it. So I did not use any Bootcamp partition. And I realize (now) that your situation/set up is different because you are not migrating from Windows. The VS projects I have worked on are not huge but also not small and I also use SQL server. Over the years I have evolved to Parallels 12, VS 2017, SQL server 2016. With Parallels 12 I had a problem and had to reach out to Parallels technical support. I had already migrated to Mac Pro with 32 Mb and assigned 20 Mb to my Parallels VM. In the online session the helpdesk also looked at my settings and told me to assign only 4 Mb to the VM. So far everything is working fast enough for me. So I still think that creating a support ticket could help you. Happy new year. Aad Brugman
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I bought a Macbook Pro to replace my beloved Macbook Air. I loved that Air, but it was getting a little long in the tooth. I had huge expectations that the Pro would be bigger, badder, faster, and just plain better. It's not. It's absolute crap if you want to use Bootcamp / win10. It's USB C only, meaning connecting it to an external display only works reliably if you reboot before you plug in. The trackpad constantly thinks left click is right click. The screen brightness constantly osculates as it tries to auto-adjust and I get about 3-4hrs max on battery when using Visual Studio. I use *exactly* the same setup on the Air and had insane battery life and no problems whatsoever with displays or the trackpad. So I disable auto-brightness, I bring a mouse with me if I can, plus a charger. Plus all the dongles, of course. And I shut down everything when I need to switch displays (ie each time I switch from home office to Office office). It does, however, work brilliantly when in macOS. You get the lovely double-click pressure on the trackpad, USB-C hot swaps nicely. Font sizes just work on HiDPI screens. So I decided maybe I should just stay in macOS and use Parallels. All the marketing material says Parallels works fast. It's super easy to install. You can even use VS, ISS and SQL on a low-end laptop with 2 cores and barely enough RAM to remember its own name. I dutifully downloaded Parallels. Within minutes I had my Bootcamp partition running in a window. A really, really tiny window. Making that window full screen gives you a big black window with a tiny Windows window in the middle. Must be a driver issue. Maybe that explains why I have no network, either. I install the Parallel tools and reboot. Tiny window still there. Still no network connectivity. I try every option I can find. I try every network option. Every display option. I google and bing and duckduck and disable the folder sharing and tweak this and that and basically do all the simple, obvious things that the interwebz says you must to with Parallels. Still not really functioning properly. I go into coherence mode (Parallels, not me. I was not coherent at this point) so at least I can run and view apps. My goal was to see how Visual Studio would behave. I had a stopwatch ready and had a coffee. I was assuming I'd need razor sharp reflexes to spot the change in app performance given what I'd read. I fire up Visual Studio. I load up our solution. And wait. And wait. And it loads. I open some files...slowly. And ... try ... a
This may be a dumb comment since I haven’t read the whole thread but why aren’t you using vmware fusion to run windows. It has a few quirks, but nothing like what you describe and its speed is quite good. On my 2-monitor macpro, windows nicely fills one and I can still do mac stuff on the other. There are usb-c adapters that would let you connect your ext monitor and still be able to use the macbook screen.
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This may be a dumb comment since I haven’t read the whole thread but why aren’t you using vmware fusion to run windows. It has a few quirks, but nothing like what you describe and its speed is quite good. On my 2-monitor macpro, windows nicely fills one and I can still do mac stuff on the other. There are usb-c adapters that would let you connect your ext monitor and still be able to use the macbook screen.
Fusion has definitely been mentioned and I was actually planning on giving it a try today (though at this point I won't get to it till the weekend). I appreciate the suggestion.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I bought a Macbook Pro to replace my beloved Macbook Air. I loved that Air, but it was getting a little long in the tooth. I had huge expectations that the Pro would be bigger, badder, faster, and just plain better. It's not. It's absolute crap if you want to use Bootcamp / win10. It's USB C only, meaning connecting it to an external display only works reliably if you reboot before you plug in. The trackpad constantly thinks left click is right click. The screen brightness constantly osculates as it tries to auto-adjust and I get about 3-4hrs max on battery when using Visual Studio. I use *exactly* the same setup on the Air and had insane battery life and no problems whatsoever with displays or the trackpad. So I disable auto-brightness, I bring a mouse with me if I can, plus a charger. Plus all the dongles, of course. And I shut down everything when I need to switch displays (ie each time I switch from home office to Office office). It does, however, work brilliantly when in macOS. You get the lovely double-click pressure on the trackpad, USB-C hot swaps nicely. Font sizes just work on HiDPI screens. So I decided maybe I should just stay in macOS and use Parallels. All the marketing material says Parallels works fast. It's super easy to install. You can even use VS, ISS and SQL on a low-end laptop with 2 cores and barely enough RAM to remember its own name. I dutifully downloaded Parallels. Within minutes I had my Bootcamp partition running in a window. A really, really tiny window. Making that window full screen gives you a big black window with a tiny Windows window in the middle. Must be a driver issue. Maybe that explains why I have no network, either. I install the Parallel tools and reboot. Tiny window still there. Still no network connectivity. I try every option I can find. I try every network option. Every display option. I google and bing and duckduck and disable the folder sharing and tweak this and that and basically do all the simple, obvious things that the interwebz says you must to with Parallels. Still not really functioning properly. I go into coherence mode (Parallels, not me. I was not coherent at this point) so at least I can run and view apps. My goal was to see how Visual Studio would behave. I had a stopwatch ready and had a coffee. I was assuming I'd need razor sharp reflexes to spot the change in app performance given what I'd read. I fire up Visual Studio. I load up our solution. And wait. And wait. And it loads. I open some files...slowly. And ... try ... a
No sympathy. As a "working pro", I have a dedicated "work station" with all the whistles; and that ties me into the rest of the world and the entire MS stack. You complain because your "Benz" parts won't work with your "Ford"... Get a Dodge (Demon). ;P (I think the "gaming rigs" provide some of the best value ... and device options).
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
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No sympathy. As a "working pro", I have a dedicated "work station" with all the whistles; and that ties me into the rest of the world and the entire MS stack. You complain because your "Benz" parts won't work with your "Ford"... Get a Dodge (Demon). ;P (I think the "gaming rigs" provide some of the best value ... and device options).
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
I'd rather catch a bus than drive a dodge ;) But seriously: I travel. I used to have a workstation but it's simply impractical.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I'd rather catch a bus than drive a dodge ;) But seriously: I travel. I used to have a workstation but it's simply impractical.
cheers Chris Maunder
TeamViewer. Even "remote desktop" is a lot more useable than it used to be. I "remote" from my LR into my developer machine when I'm being "social" (LOL). Only thing I miss in this case is multiple monitors; though I haven't tried.
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
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TeamViewer. Even "remote desktop" is a lot more useable than it used to be. I "remote" from my LR into my developer machine when I'm being "social" (LOL). Only thing I miss in this case is multiple monitors; though I haven't tried.
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
I spent about 10 years doing remote desktop to a main desktop and finally simply couldn't take it anymore. It's OK when you have a good connection (and mutli-monitor works fine with Remote Desktop) but no good when on a plane, or at a cafe with limited connection, or overseas, or in a place with poor and/or expensive internet.
cheers Chris Maunder
