Crossover - an alternative to Parellels
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007I just downloaded and installed Codeweavers‘ Crossover for Mac. As a Mac-using website developer, I need access to the Windows environment to view my websites through the filter of the dark side.
I have been using Parallels since I purchased my Intel Mac this summer. And it’s great. Fast. Secure (with a few extra steps). And easy to use.
Just one drawback, without installing another Windows partition on my Mac, I can only run IE6 or IE7 in my Windows XP environment.
It was at a MacForce class on running Windows on a Mac that I heard about Crossover and decided to give it a try.
My plan was to run IE6 in Parallels and IE7 in Crossover. However, I’ve needed to readjust since learning that IE7 does not work in Crossover. Instead, I will switch that around and run IE7 in Parallels and IE6 in Crossover.
IE6 installed flawlessly in Crossover. I chose the minimal installation. I must say, it is a little unnerving to see the Windows dialog boxes on my Mac screen. Did some minimal surfing to known and trusted websites. No problems.
Now to install IE7 in my Parallels Window environment. Easy. Again I surfed some known and trusted websites in IE7 and had no problems.
I have not tested keeping both programs open and going back and forth between IE6 and IE7 in the two environments. In the Codeweaver forums, I read about a possible runtime interaction issue, machine “getting confused about whether to relay packets to the virtual machine in Parallels vs. IE running natively on your Mac.” Although this individual, a staff person at Codeweavers, says he does run Crossover and Parallels at the same time without ill-effects.
Another day, I will try that. For now, it works well for me and achieves the results I was looking for. Looks like I’ll be purchasing Crossover after my trial runs out.
