Click for MacWindows home

$5 Off Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac   Run Windows on your Mac without rebooting! Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac includes 3D Graphics support, SmartSelect, SnapShots and more. Get the best of both worlds. Click here to buy now.

Running Windows on Intel-based Macs

Updated December 12, 2007

At the introduction of Intel-based Macs in January, 2006, owners of the new Macs were left without a way to run Windows on the Mac. Microsoft Virtual PC and most other x86 emulators were not compatible with the Intel Macs. Microsoft decided not to go forward an Intel-Mac-compatible version of Virtual PC.

Since then, a number of products have appeared that take advantage of the Intel processor for better support of Windows than ever. These fall into several categories, each with different strong points. This page will help you determine which is the best for you.

1. Dual booting. With a dual-boot system, Windows can directly start up the Mac. You can choose to boot either from Windows or Mac OS X, but you don't have access to both at the same time. Apple's Boot Camp gives you this.
2. Running Windows in a virtual machine. With this approach, you boot the Mac with Mac OS X and run Windows in a virtualization application. The advantage is that you can switch between the Mac OS X and Windows environments without rebooting. Most tools let you moving files between the two operating systems and sharing peripherals and networking. The main products for doing this are Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. There are other, less significant products as well.
3. Running Windows apps directly in Mac OS X -- without Windows. CrossOver from CodeWeavers runs Windows applications directly in Mac OS X, without using Windows. Because you don't need to own a copy of Windows, CrossOver is the least expensive way to run Windows programs on a Mac.
4. Running Windows apps remotely. Northstar is a subscription service that hosts Windows applications on an Internet server. Mac users access Windows apps via Apple's X11.
   Macs can also run Windows applications from application servers that are located on your local network. These are not described on this page. There is a list of these solutions on our Operating Systems Solutions page.

This page is a survey of all of the options for running Windows on Intel Macs. The next section look at setting up a dual-boot system, followed by your choices of virtual machines. After that is a description of Crossover and DarWine and then Northstar.

Intel-powered Macs have the potential for booting from Mac OS X or for Windows XP and Windows Vista. However, you can't just stick a Windows installation disc into a Mac and expect it to install. You need to first install Apple's Boot Camp on the Mac. Boot Camp will create a separate partition on your hard disk for Windows. (Boot Camp installer assistant "dynamically creates" the Windows partition for Windows, so you won't lose your Mac data). Boot Camp also provides Windows drivers to support the Mac keyboard and various hardware and peripherals from within Windows. (Boot Camp does not provide Windows; you'll need to supply your own copy.)

Running Windows in a Virtual Machine

The term virtual machine describes an instance of an operating system running in an environment that it thinks is a PC. Normally, an operating system controls an entire PC. With virtual machine software, you can run several operating systems, such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux, all at the same time, within Mac OS X.

When you use a virtual machine application to run Windows in Mac OS X on an Intel-powered Mac, Windows run at near-native speeds, as opposed the native speeds of Boot Camp. The advantage of the virtual machine approach is that gives you the ability to switch between Windows and Mac OS X (or other OS's) without rebooting. You can move files between the different operating systems and even copy and paste between Windows and Macs applications.

Currently, the best virtual machine software for running Windows on Intel-based Macs are Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. Parallels has the lead at this time in terms of the numbers of features, but VMware Fusion is also a very good product. A third virtual machine product, VirtualBox, looks promising, but is still in beta.

Below are descriptions of the current state of virtualization packages for Intel-based Macs.

Parallels Desktop

The day after Apple announced Boot Camp, Parallels, a builder of virtualization software for Linux, surprised Apple-watchers by releasing a beta of Parallels for Mac OS X. Parallels Desktop. The company said that the software will run “nearly any x86-compatible OS,” including Windows 3.1-through Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003, as well as Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, and MS-DOS. Drag and drop files between Mac OS X and Windows.

Parallels Desktop includes a feature called Coherence Mode, which hides the Windows desktop while displaying Windows applications, much as Classic mode displayed OS 9 applications in Mac OS X on PowerPC Macs. Windows still runs in the background, but is hidden from view. Windows applications appear in the Dock, letting you switch between them without using the Windows interface.

Version 3 added support for 3D hardware acceleration, enabling it to run some of the most demanding PC 3D games. It also added a feature called SmartSelect, which lets you set defaults so that a Mac program opens a type of file when you double-click a file in Windows. For instance, you could double-click .doc files in Windows and have Parallels Desktop launch Word for Mac. You can set another file type to launch a Windows application when double-click in the Mac Finder. You can also select a Mac or Windows application to open a file by right-clicking (or Control-clicking) that file.

Version 3 comes with Parallels Explorer, a Mac OS X utility that lets you see into and add or move files to or from the virtual hard disk, without running the virtual machine.

Another feature is Snapshots, which saves the state of a virtual machine, including settings and configurations. You can get back to this state and erase all changes at any time. (Snapshots is similar to Deep Freeze from Faronics Technologies, which does the same for Mac OS X.)

Parallels Desktop for Mac Premium Edition (US$99), a bundle of the Parallels Desktop along with three utilities for Windows XP and Vista.

For more on Parallels, see our Parallels Desktop Notes and Reports page.

VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion is a virtual machine application for Mac OS X on Intel-powered Macs.

Like Parallels Desktop, it can run Windows, Linux, and other x86 operating systems while allowing access to Mac OS X. Like Parallels Desktop, Parallels Desktop lets users drag a file from the Mac Finder into Windows and vice versa, but VMware also lets you drag files in between guest operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Solaris.

VMware has a feature called Unity feature is similar to Parallels Desktop's Coherence feature, for hiding the Windows Desktop from view. VMware does not have a feature similar to Parallels Snapshots, however. VMware Fusion also has a feature called Virtual Battery, which passes along the state of a notebook’s remaining battery power to Windows native power display.

• iEmulator: first product to run Windows Vista. On June 30, 2006, iEmulator.com released iEmulator 1.7.9 (US $24, free updates) of its x86 emulator/virtual machine environment for Macs. The new version is now a universal binary, which runs on Intel-powered Macs as well as PowerPC Macs. It was notable in that it was the first virtualization product to run the Windows Vista on a Mac. iEmulator includes some of the features found in Virtual PC, including the ability to access Mac files and folders from Windows, the ability to run multiple virtual machines, and quick PC state saving. Although it was out of the door first, iEmulator is not as advanced as Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion.
• QEMU. QEMU is an open source x86 emulator available for a variety of operating systems and hardware platforms.
• Gwenole Beauchesne ported QEMU to Mac OS X for Intel. However, Beauchesne says that he will not be maintaining or updating the project. Beauchesne points us to Mike Kronenberg's Q, which is based on QEMU and packaged for users. (For more information see the QEMU forum.)
• Q. Mike Kronenbert's Q is a free, open source virtualization environment that can run Windows on Intel-based Macs. Q uses the QEMU virtualization engine port to Intel Macs by Gwenole Beauchesne , the same as used in WinTel 2.1 and later. Universal binaries (PowerPC, Intel) are available. (For more information, see the Q FAQ.)
• WinTel from OpenOSX. WinTel is a commercial ($25) emulator/virtual machine environment for both PowerPC (G4, G5) and Intel Macs. WinTel uses a Cocoa graphical user front end over an open source engine. Version 2.1 and later use Gwenole Beauchesne's port of QEMU. Earlier versions used Bochs ported to Intel Mac, which is slower than QEMU.

Running Windows Apps without Windows

CodeWeavers CrossOver enables users to run Windows XP applications in Mac OS X, but without running Windows itself. Crossover is not a virtualization environment or a dual boot enabler. Instead, it adds code to Mac OS X that certain Windows applications need to run. Document files created by Windows applications are stored in Mac folders, not in a virtual disk image or a separate partition.

CrossOver runs each Windows application in a Mac OS X window. There is no Windows desktop or start menu; Windows programs can minimize in the Mac OS X Dock. CrossOver has a Programs menu in the Mac OS X menu bar that lists Windows applications.

Because CrossOver doesn't require the user to own a copy of Windows XP, the total cost of ownership is lower than any virtualization solution and lower than Apple’s Boot Camp solution.

CodeWeavers also says that without the overhead of Windows, CrossOver runs PC games on a Mac faster than Parallels and VMware. (CrossOver has support for the Intel Mac’s native graphics.) CodeWeavers offers a version called CrossOver Games, which is optimized for games and supports more game titles that the standard CrossOver.

The tradeoff to CrossOver is that it only supports a selected Windows applications, including Outlook and some games. The company said that it would be adding support for more applications as time goes on. Some readers report that a few non-supported do run, but most do not. The CodeWeavers web site has a list of supported applicaitons.

CrossOver is a commercial version of the open source WINE software for Linux and Unix. CodeWeaver is the leading sponsor of the WINE project. A Mac port of WINE, Darwine, is still in the early stages of development.

For more on CrossOver, see our CrossOver Tips and Reports page.

May 22, 2006 -- As tools for running Windows applications on Macs proliferate, newcomer True North Technology is taking a different approach. Northstar is a service that lets Mac and PC users run Windows applications that run on the company’s servers over the Internet. Windows applications run in the X11 windowing environment, a Unix graphical user interface that Apple includes on the installation discs of Mac OS X 10.3 and later.

You can buy a US $100 annual subscription at Apple’s online and retail stores. This gives a user access to a library of Windows software. For an extra fee, other Windows applications can be added. Users can also supply their own copy of a Windows application if the company doesn't have it.

Northstar runs on G3, G4, G5, and Intel-powered Macs. The company says that Northstar does not use “significant resources” on the Mac.

A spokesperson described how Northstar works:

Apps are running on servers in our data centers. The network switch determines each user's privileges, subscriptions, and then provisions the appropriate server and other resources for that user. Our connection with the user has SSL security and compression.

Macs can also run Windows applications from application servers that are located on your local network. These are not described on this page. There is a list of these solutions on our Operating Systems Solutions page.

---

Also moves apps, files, settings from your old PC to your Mac running Boot Camp, Parallels, or VMware