iMac for Windows Programmer

counthcounth
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hallo

I hope that I put my topic in the correct forum.

I am the software developer which programs mainly for Windows Platform. Does any one have any experience in:

- Running Visual Studio 2005 + SQL Server (local Express Installation) on iMac using Bootcamp and Windows?

- Running the above configuration using some kind of virtualization.



How does it work?



Regards

CountH

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    allbrainallbrain Posts: 61member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by counth


    Hallo

    I hope that I put my topic in the correct forum.

    I am the software developer which programs mainly for Windows Platform. Does any one have any experience in:

    - Running Visual Studio 2005 + SQL Server (local Express Installation) on iMac using Bootcamp and Windows?

    - Running the above configuration using some kind of virtualization.



    How does it work?



    Regards

    CountH



    Hi there. I'm in the same boat as you. I work with VS2005 and SQL during the day and sometimes bring my work home to my iMac. I was originally using Boot Camp but hated having to restart all the time. The performance was excellent while they were running but as I said, the restart thing is annoying.



    A couple of months ago I bought myself Parallels and have had an excellent experience using that. It's much more convenient and still runs really quickly (though I have boosted the memory in my iMac to 2Gb but I recall it being ok before I got the second gig).



    Personally I wouldn't use Boot Camp anymore unless I desperately needed to play games (which I don't seem to do much anymore). Parallels is well worth the money they charge you. It's a really great tool.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    counthcounth Posts: 5member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AllBrain


    A couple of months ago I bought myself Parallels and have had an excellent experience using that. It's much more convenient and still runs really quickly (though I have boosted the memory in my iMac to 2Gb but I recall it being ok before I got the second gig).



    Hallo AllBrain

    Thank you for the tip. I found Parallels page and it looks really OK, in fact I'm using virtual pc right now for programming too on Windows XP (it's easier to reconfigure and safe).



    Looking for it I found out that Microsoft has made the version of Virtual PC for Mac:



    http://www.microsoft.com/mac/product...?pid=virtualpc



    Have you tried it? Is it any good?



    Regards

    CountH
  • Reply 3 of 10
    allbrainallbrain Posts: 61member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by counth


    Have you tried it? Is it any good?



    As I understood it Virtual PC doesn't run on Intel-based Macs yet. I was going to try it at work on my Windows machine but it doesn't even recognise a 64-bit processor! So, for this reason, I've not had a chance to use it at all.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    sandausandau Posts: 1,230member
    virtual pc is not supported on intel macs.



    I'm running a macbook 1.83, 100gb drive, 2gb ram.



    parallels works fantastic for development. i installed Windows Server 2003 in a 20gb partition, with office 2003 (+ visio +project), visual studio .net, visual studio 2003 enterprise architect, visual studio 2005 enterprise architect, sql server 2000 enterprise, sql server 2005 enterprise, textpad, and its my primary C#/sql development machine.



    I still have 4gb free for development, more than enough.



    Backups are easy, just drag the image to your backup drive and you are done.



    even better, my macbook started random shutdowns all of a sudden, so while my macbook is in applecare, i just drag my windows 2003 image to a company windows machine, install parallels and i haven't missed a beat.



    this is the best solution I've ever had for development, hands down. I even kept an image backup that i haven't touched with just 2005 edition items just so it would be ready for when I needed it....clean.



    note: max your ram, you need it. I run server 2003 with 800mb and it flies. Zero problems, no slowdowns. perfect.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AllBrain


    As I understood it Virtual PC doesn't run on Intel-based Macs yet. I was going to try it at work on my Windows machine but it doesn't even recognise a 64-bit processor! So, for this reason, I've not had a chance to use it at all.



    I think the MS Mac Business Unit acknowledged during the WWDC06 event that they don't have any plans to support Intel Macs. They said updating it amounts to more work than a complete rewrite and that it's not worthwhile when there are now other means of running Windows.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    counthcounth Posts: 5member
    Thank you all for the answer, that's a lot of useful information!
  • Reply 7 of 10
    counthcounth Posts: 5member
    Thanks to your help, I decided to order a new iMac 20' (with added video memory expansion to 256 MB) along with Parallels software. I didn't expand the standard 1 GB of memory because I got short on cash but I will expand it if it will need it. Since it's built-to-order configuration, I have to wait, but I'm already happy :-)

    Count H.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by counth


    Thanks to your help, I decided to order a new iMac 20' (with added video memory expansion to 256 MB) along with Parallels software. I didn't expand the standard 1 GB of memory because I got short on cash but I will expand it if it will need it. Since it's built-to-order configuration, I have to wait, but I'm already happy :-)

    Count H.



    The memory is basically the only user-upgradeable part on it, so I think you made a good call, that's the single thing that you can put off until later. That, and I paid about $200 (including shipping) for 2x1GB sticks, which isn't much more than what Apple wants to upgrade from 2x512.



    I don't understand why they don't offer a way to get just a single 1GB stick as an upgrade from 2x512.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    sandausandau Posts: 1,230member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by counth


    Thanks to your help, I decided to order a new iMac 20' (with added video memory expansion to 256 MB) along with Parallels software. I didn't expand the standard 1 GB of memory because I got short on cash but I will expand it if it will need it. Since it's built-to-order configuration, I have to wait, but I'm already happy :-)

    Count H.



    well, you just killed any use of Parallels until you get more ram. you need at least 800mb for a good development environment and you can't leave OS X with only 200mb to run in, it'll bog the whole system down. your only option is bootcamp i think.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    counthcounth Posts: 5member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sandau


    well, you just killed any use of Parallels until you get more ram. you need at least 800mb for a good development environment and you can't leave OS X with only 200mb to run in, it'll bog the whole system down. your only option is bootcamp i think.



    Thank you for your advice!

    In fact my Virtual PC machine with 2003 server and development environment has 500mb of RAM to run (from total 1GB on my notebook) and it's perfectly usable. Either you have higher standards than me, or Parallels is not as good in memory handling :-(

    Anyway, as JeffDM hinted, memory is user-exchangeable part and it's cheaper to upgrade it myself than in the store. I probably will buy 2 G anytime soon, I can live with Bootcamp until then, no problem :-)
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