Parallels 17. Disillusioned again
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
I have run it on my 2014 MBP and never noticed any fan noise or heat. I don't run it on the built in drive, too small. If I am going to do much, I use a Thunderbolt "holster" with a drive. Most of the time, I use a USB 3.0 attached SSD for the VM's. I used that setup for a presentation at a codecamp a few years ago, without incident. Maybe the fact I use an external drive for the VM's makes a difference. That said, I haven't used it much lately, since we haven't traveled. But, then again, maybe it is because I am old and slow. X| I have noticed that the current, higher density, flash media seem to get much hotter than the old stuff. Both SSD drives and thumb drives, same tech. I thought it was always below zero up there in the GWN. :)
>64 If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb
How much of that does the OS hang on to for itself? Or is Apple still hiding that figure, insisting you don't need to worry your pretty little head? I don't know anything about Parallels, but on a Windows machine running Hyper-V, 16GB is the minimum I'd consider reasonable for, say, an 8GB VM and not have the host OS start crawling.
Chris Maunder wrote:
this magical world where Things Just Work
I think you'll only find that in Apple's literature.
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I have run it on my 2014 MBP and never noticed any fan noise or heat. I don't run it on the built in drive, too small. If I am going to do much, I use a Thunderbolt "holster" with a drive. Most of the time, I use a USB 3.0 attached SSD for the VM's. I used that setup for a presentation at a codecamp a few years ago, without incident. Maybe the fact I use an external drive for the VM's makes a difference. That said, I haven't used it much lately, since we haven't traveled. But, then again, maybe it is because I am old and slow. X| I have noticed that the current, higher density, flash media seem to get much hotter than the old stuff. Both SSD drives and thumb drives, same tech. I thought it was always below zero up there in the GWN. :)
>64 If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
It's so swampy and hot here I wish I could get back home to Australia to cool down. I've never been so hot, nor so cold, since coming to this place. re: SSD. Not sure. The poor thing was having conniptions, though, so I had to pull the plug instead of waiting and seeing
cheers Chris Maunder
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
Quote:
is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews?
I think that goes without saying, regardless of the state of your laptop. :) The only way I have seen Windows VM's perform as if native, is with ESX. I tried hyperv on a headless W server many years ago and couldn't get the performance. Could very well have been a short circuit between the headphones but I had better luck with ESX. To each his own, got to find what works for you. Mindless brand worship is foolish.
>64 If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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It's so swampy and hot here I wish I could get back home to Australia to cool down. I've never been so hot, nor so cold, since coming to this place. re: SSD. Not sure. The poor thing was having conniptions, though, so I had to pull the plug instead of waiting and seeing
cheers Chris Maunder
Oddly enough, our weather has been pretty normal. We are mostly influenced by ocean breezes. Takes some getting used to but the high is generally high 80's or 90.
>64 If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
Never used parallels, I am an old user of VMWare Player (free for private usage). VirtualBox used for a while back then, but never convinced me enough to deprecate VMWare. In my previous machine (13 years old, AMD Phenom II X4 with 8 Gb RAM and a SSD) opening my VM (1 core, 3,5 MB RAM assigned) needed some patience the first 5 to 15 minutes (CPU and RAM almost 100%). Once all services were up and running or idling (CPU back to 10% and RAM around 50%), then I could continue working with it normally. In my new machine (AMD Ryzen 7 5800x, 32 GB RAM, M2 SSD PCI3) I open 2 different VMs (2 cores and 8 GB RAM assigned to each) without even noticing it. And ready to go within seconds, once inside of guest-windows. In my case, the things that showed more impact usually were graphic works.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Every couple of years I read about devs running Windows VMs using Parallels on macOS, with VS and SQL Server and unicorns and butterflies. They wax lyrical about how this is the best thing ever, that there's no slowdown running the VM, and the whole thing is just so seamless. So like a Lemming I download Parallels, and download the optimised Development image from Microsoft, and I install it, and then I peer at my laptop (a 2020 Macbook Pro with 16Gb) and wonder, again, if it will take off and/or spontaneously combust, given the heat it's putting out. I fired up the Windows environment, fired up Edge, and loaded the CodeProject homepage. That was it. And yet the fan was running at 100% and it was clearly an untenable setup. I don't understand the world when this happens. I have a very, very powerful laptop. I'm asking the VM to do pretty much nothing. My experience is one of alarm and a little fear, and is so, so unlike the gooey eyed droolings of those that came before. Is my setup fundamentally "wrong" or (tell me it isn't so) is the 'net full of lying dogs, delusional fans and fake reviews? I'm assuming it's the former. I'd love to hear from someone who uses Parallels to run Windows apps smoothly. I need to hear about this magical world where Things Just Work.
cheers Chris Maunder
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It's so swampy and hot here I wish I could get back home to Australia to cool down. I've never been so hot, nor so cold, since coming to this place. re: SSD. Not sure. The poor thing was having conniptions, though, so I had to pull the plug instead of waiting and seeing
cheers Chris Maunder
Here in Cairns we have not had a dry season (winter) this year I'm not looking forward to the summer, I suspect the A/C is going to get a workout or maybe the pool.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Never used parallels, I am an old user of VMWare Player (free for private usage). VirtualBox used for a while back then, but never convinced me enough to deprecate VMWare. In my previous machine (13 years old, AMD Phenom II X4 with 8 Gb RAM and a SSD) opening my VM (1 core, 3,5 MB RAM assigned) needed some patience the first 5 to 15 minutes (CPU and RAM almost 100%). Once all services were up and running or idling (CPU back to 10% and RAM around 50%), then I could continue working with it normally. In my new machine (AMD Ryzen 7 5800x, 32 GB RAM, M2 SSD PCI3) I open 2 different VMs (2 cores and 8 GB RAM assigned to each) without even noticing it. And ready to go within seconds, once inside of guest-windows. In my case, the things that showed more impact usually were graphic works.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
I am using VMware Workstation Pro, mostly on version 14 something. It was doable but slow almost like a computer with 2GB of memory, but it had 10 GB. Upgraded to version 16 something. Now it is like the VM has only 500 Mb of memory, instead of the 10GB