Windows on you Mac: VMWare Fusion for Mac, and Crossover Mac
Way back in August of Last Year when Windows on Mac was hot and new I discussed BootCamp, Parallels and WINE. Fast forward to now, and we have a few updates.
Very, VERY high on the cool scale is Crossover Mac, from Codeweavers. Crossover is a commercial implementation of WINE. It is intended to let you run Windows Programs on your Intel Mac, WITHOUT Windows. If that's not thrilling and exiting for you, then unlike most of the people I know, You probably have a life. For the rest of us though, this is the Holy Grail of PC/Mac Software interoperability. It means if you have an application that only runs on Wiindows that you absolutley need, you can still keep your Mac, and simply run that bad-boy, as required, right alongside the rest of your Mac Applications.
Unlike most things that sound too good to be true, it actually is true! We tried it. But there are a few catches.
Foremost, is that what belies this product is REALLY hard to do. It is just super sophisticated software engineering - in effect a rewrite of the WIN32 API, so, you can expect a less that perfect experience, and a few glitches as you go. So far though, Jeff has had a chance to install and try it since March and he says he's...
"Pretty Impressed". "Installed Office 2000 and it ran straight-up on the Mini. It appeared Fast and Stable".
That's a pretty solid endorsement.
Codeweavers has a creative strategy for mitigating the compatibility issues with various Windows programs, and they seem like a pretty good company. Basically the idea is that they work from a list of Applications with the intent of improving Crossover to work with the Applications on the List. You can check the database at any time and find out how well (or poorly) your program is know to run. If your program is not on the list, it might very well run perfectly - it just has not been evaluated so its simply not reflected in the list. They prioritize the list, in part, according to a financial incentive scheme supported by pledges. The more dollars pledged to any given Application, the greater priority it receives. I like this model, and it seems to work! As of this writing there are 13 "Gold" level Applications on the List. These are the programs considered to be totally compatible.
Thanks for checking in. I'm planning on doing the next post on VMWare.
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