The interface for VMware Fusion has always been pretty minimal, though it has been spruced up a bit in version 4 by using OS X-inspired elements. It's subtle and sleek, and the spaces at the top are filled with additional items depending on the version of Parallels you bought. The Create New Virtual Machine also got a tweak: I think it's safe to say this motif isn't going to become brushed metal, which was the trucker hat of interface trends. The VM library now has the iOS/Lion textile pattern as a backdrop. This may seem like a no-brainer, but not all apps got this for free when running in 10.7-BBEdit 10 and Photoshop CS5 are two apps that come to mind that don't have support for this yet. Updates and interface changesīoth VMware and Parallels have made some small tweaks to their respective interfaces, both headlining these as 'Lion Ready.' Both support OS X 10.7's window resizing from all window edges and corners.

Mac OS X 10.6.7 or later OS X Lion recommendedīoth are 64-bit only now, but Parallels Desktop 7 is slightly less demanding by allowing you to run it in Leopard.

750MB free disk space for VMware Fusion and at least 5GB for each virtual machine.

Minimum 2GB of RAM (4GB or more recommended).

Internet connection required for select features and online updates.

Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later (Leopard)/ Mac OS X 10.6.7 or later (Snow Leopard) /Mac OS X 10.7 or later (Lion).

700MB hard drive space for Parallels Desktop installation, plus space to allocate to your virtual machine (1.4GB for the Switch to Mac Edition).

2GB of RAM (4GB recommended to run Windows 7).

Intel Core 2 Duo or higher Intel-based Mac required (Intel Core Solo and Core Duo processors are no longer supported.)

MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz Santa Rosa.

Radeon 5870 and Quadro 4000 test scenarios.

2TB HD striped RAID array for VM storage.

120GB OWC Mercury Elite on 6GB/s SAS PCI express card for system disk.Mac Pro dual-hexacore Westmere Xeon 2.66 GHz.

For the sake of consistency, I'll cover Parallels first and follow up with VMware Fusion's results. Differences are covered, and where there's a directly comparable result between the two apps, I've awarded a winner for that category. VMware's feature updates sounded familiar-3D performance updates, Lion-specific interface enhancements, and OS X 10.7 virtualization support-so we decided to throw both programs into one review. Shortly after we started reviewing Parallels Desktop 7, VMware released a major update to its rival consumer-oriented virtualization app VMware Fusion, now at version 4. (Read our original Parallels 6 and Fusion 3 reviews for more on the older versions.) We stripped the hype wrappers off of the new Parallels Desktop 7 and VMWare Fusion 4 to see who's the baddest, and who's just bad. The powerhouses of Mac OS X virtualization both got beefy updates in the last few weeks and they're begging for comparison.

Parallels desktop for mac os 10.7