I could go the cheap option of Boot Camp, which only lets me boot one OS at a time, and is free. Or I could spring for a copy of Parallels or VMWare Fusion to do the whole virtual machine thing.

So the question today is which should I choose? Either because you want to know what the process is like, or because you recommend the solution – either one is fine by me.

That’s pretty slick if it really means you don’t have to install your favourite Windows programs all over again. It also looks a lot easier to use than VMWare’s converter tool.

So the $US100 Switch edition is clearly aimed at newbies: good to throw-in if you’re buying a Mac for a long-time Windows user. They’re the ones who may benefit from the included two hours of flash-based Mac tutorials.

More: VMWare Fusion vs. Parallels Desktop for Mac: Which Is Faster? [Parallels]

The short story is that in most cases, Parallels runs a solid 14-20 percent faster than Fusion, except in the rather limited scenario of running Windows XP 32-bit on two virtual processors.

Overall, running 32-bit Windows OSes with a single virtual processor, Parallels is 14 percent faster; with two virtual processors, Parallels is 20 percent faster with Vista, while Fusion is 10 percent faster with XP; and for 64-bit Vista, Parallels is 15 percent speedier. Depending on the task, the numbers vary—like transcoding MP3s can be up to 30 percent faster on Parallels.

MacTech’s tests are ridiculously comprehensive, spanning multiple machines with tons of different applications—the whole them took a couple months—so if you want the full, chart-heavy breakdown, head over there: [MacTech]

The virtualisation engine itself promises to use 15-30% fewer resources as well, while adding the option to run a Leopard Server in a virtual machine and including support for DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0. There are 50 new features and enhancements in all.

Parallels 4 is available now for $US80, existing Parallels customers can pick it up for $US40 and if you bought Paralells 3 on or after September 1st, you actually qualify for a free upgrade. Two months of lead time on free software upgrades? Not bad! [Parallels via MacWorld]

Microsoft’s relaxed their ruling, which was previously justified by saying that virtualisation wasn’t mature enough for consumer adoption, which allowed them to clamp down on only the supposedly more pro or business SKUs of Vista. Combine this with the news of 64-bit Vista support yesterday and this is a good week for people who want to run Windows on Macs. [Ars Technica]

Coexist With Parallels [The Official Parallels Virtualization Blog via MacSlash]

AU: Yay! We gave THEM some news this morning. ;-)

Product Page [via Gizmodo Australia]

These guys are fast. They announce one week, then deliver the next. Parallels Desktop 3.0 is now ready to roll, with all those juicy features we talked about last week.

Product Page [Parallels]

We went over some of the stuff we covered yesterday, but there’s lots of new stuff and even one major feature we didn’t mention: Snapshots.First off, the three major features are 3D graphics support, SmartSelect, and Snapshots.

3D graphics support is the shiniest feature everyone’s talking about now. Yes, it will support 3D games like Quake and Half Life, but no, right now it doesn’t support Vista Aero—that’s coming in a later release.

Parallels couldn’t give me an exact number when I asked for how much of a performance gap there’d be between running a game in Parallels and running it in native Boot Camp, but they did say that it’s very close to native and you wouldn’t really notice any gameplay problems. That, of course, depends on the game, but Half Life 2 ran fine on his machine.

One thing to note is that not all games will be supported by default. They’ll have a list of games they support, and the list will be updated whenever there’s a new build available. Hopefully your game will be supported at launch, but Parallels has a reputation for releasing frequent, and top-notch, updates.

The second major feature is SmartSelect, which allows you to set a preference for opening any file in any application, no matter which OS it’s in. Example: You can set text files to open up in Windows Notepad, so even if you double-click it in OS X, it’ll still pop open Notepad. Think of it as an extension of Coherence, which lets you run Windows apps in its own window on OS X.

On a side note, if you’re in Windows and you look in your start menu, you’ll be able to see all of the OS X apps listed under a Parallels folder, and have a similar option for opening Windows apps in OS X. Neato.

The third major feature is Snapshots, which lets you take a snapshot of your virtual machine so you can revert to it if something’s wrong. Do this before you install apps or make any major changes, and you’ll have something to fall back on in case anything goes wrong.

It’s super useful for software testers or people who make modifications to their OS, and only takes up minimal room on your hard drive per snapshot.

All in all, the guys tell us that besides the new features, everything else is more robust than even version 2.5, which just came out recently. With their track record, we believe them. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Parallels]