Rotolab on my I-Mac

[Snake]

I apologize if this has already been covered, but my search did not find anything.

I just paid for Rotolab. I just bought an I-Mac. I'm not sure these are compatible as I'm having some technical trouble. This was the message I got from Rotolab support:

"No native Mac version, but we have many Mac users that run it on the Mac
under Fusion or Parallels which are Windows emulators for the Mac.
They say it works fine and I think the newer Macs can boot up Windows as
well using Boot Camp."

As a new Mac user, I'm not familiear with Fusion or Parallels. Can anyone help me? Please.

Thanks!

[RAY@HQ]

Fusion or Parallels are programs that let you install and run Windows on your Mac. Once you set up a Windows environment within your Mac, you can install Rotolab on the Windows environment.

For further explanation, I'd probably consult our Google overlords.

[NICK@HQ]

Yeah, best thing is to Google Fusion/Parallels and see what their sites tell you. Right now conventional wisdom in the Mac world is that the latest version of Parallels is the program of choice between the two.

That said, you could also go with Boot Camp that's already sitting on your iMac's hard disk because it comes from Apple. Just run the Boot Camp Assistant program that is sitting in your Applications/Utilities folder.

In either case (Parallels or Boot Camp), you have to have a Windows CD so that you can install Windows. This is not a backup CD, but a full blown install version of Windows. Note this usually does not come with a PC since Windows is already installed on the disk, so you'll probably have to get a Windows install CD on Ebay.

Why pick Parallels? You'll be able to run Windows and OS X simultaneously and can share data back and forth between the operating systems. But it will cost you money to buy Parallels, and emulation is never as fast as the native OS.

Why pick Boot Camp? It's free and you already have it installed. It's faster too because you'll be running Windows natively. But you'll have to choose to run Windows or run OS X, but never both, when you boot up. You won't be able to share data between the two sides. It's Windows in its own world, or it's OS X in it's own world.

Hope that helps.

[makelele]

I run RotoLab on Windows through VMWare Fusion, and it's fantastic. I haven't used Parallels but I do not have any desire to switch away from Fusion. If you have an old PC you could always install RotoLab on the old PC and then connect through Remote Desktop Connection and run RotoLab on your mac that way. That would be free (assuming you have an old networked PC), but slower.

[Snake]

Yeah, best thing is to Google Fusion/Parallels and see what their sites tell you. Right now conventional wisdom in the Mac world is that the latest version of Parallels is the program of choice between the two.

That said, you could also go with Boot Camp that's already sitting on your iMac's hard disk because it comes from Apple. Just run the Boot Camp Assistant program that is sitting in your Applications/Utilities folder.

In either case (Parallels or Boot Camp), you have to have a Windows CD so that you can install Windows. This is not a backup CD, but a full blown install version of Windows. Note this usually does not come with a PC since Windows is already installed on the disk, so you'll probably have to get a Windows install CD on Ebay.

Why pick Parallels? You'll be able to run Windows and OS X simultaneously and can share data back and forth between the operating systems. But it will cost you money to buy Parallels, and emulation is never as fast as the native OS.

Why pick Boot Camp? It's free and you already have it installed. It's faster too because you'll be running Windows natively. But you'll have to choose to run Windows or run OS X, but never both, when you boot up. You won't be able to share data between the two sides. It's Windows in its own world, or it's OS X in it's own world.

Hope that helps.

Thanks guys for the feedback and advice. I think I've decided to either go with Parallels or get a refund on Rotolab. I visited the Parallels web site as Nick recommended, but it looks like Parallels is supportive of Windows 7. Any idea if Parallels would work with Windows XP? (I probably have a Windows XP install CD from my old Dell. I skipped Vista altogether.) Parallels costs $79.99 so this is getting a bit expensive just to have Rotolab, especially if I have to buy Windows 7 on top of that.

[NICK@HQ]

Thanks guys for the feedback and advice. I think I've decided to either go with Parallels or get a refund on Rotolab. I visited the Parallels web site as Nick recommended, but it looks like Parallels is supportive of Windows 7. Any idea if Parallels would work with Windows XP? (I probably have a Windows XP install CD from my old Dell. I skipped Vista altogether.) Parallels costs $79.99 so this is getting a bit expensive just to have Rotolab, especially if I have to buy Windows 7 on top of that.

Yes, of course Parallels works with XP. They advertise WIn 7 since that's the latest tech, but they've been around through the Vista time and certainly do work with XP unless they've made some recent change that I'm not aware of (or could make sense of).

If you want to be safe, email 'em and verify.

If money is an issue, and you do have that XP CD, you can try Boot Camp for free. But I'm guessing you don't like the idea of being in XP-only mode on your computer.

[usualsuspects]

Thanks guys for the feedback and advice. I think I've decided to either go with Parallels or get a refund on Rotolab. I visited the Parallels web site as Nick recommended, but it looks like Parallels is supportive of Windows 7. Any idea if Parallels would work with Windows XP? (I probably have a Windows XP install CD from my old Dell. I skipped Vista altogether.) Parallels costs $79.99 so this is getting a bit expensive just to have Rotolab, especially if I have to buy Windows 7 on top of that.

If you are willing to use Parallels v4.0 instead of v5.0, it's about 15 bucks on eBay.

[makelele]

Thanks guys for the feedback and advice. I think I've decided to either go with Parallels or get a refund on Rotolab. I visited the Parallels web site as Nick recommended, but it looks like Parallels is supportive of Windows 7. Any idea if Parallels would work with Windows XP? (I probably have a Windows XP install CD from my old Dell. I skipped Vista altogether.) Parallels costs $79.99 so this is getting a bit expensive just to have Rotolab, especially if I have to buy Windows 7 on top of that.

If you're a student or in academics, academic pricing for Fusion offers a big discount.

[Bill Macey]

I've used XP/Parallels to run Rotolab for a couple of years now and no issues other than the initial pain of installing XP from an old backup disk belonging to a retired desktop. I've even survived the Parallels upgrade process from 3.0 to 4.0 to 5.0 without having to reinstall RL or XP.

[Snake]

Money is not my concern here, but my wife does work for the school district so I could probably get the discount for either Fusion or Parallels. I'm more concerned about exposing my I-Mac to virus attacks from running Windows. I still have my Dell so may go the route of running two computers at once with Rotolab on the Dell. Never used Rotolab before, but I'm hoping it will help me in my first ever auction draft. (It's a keeper league too so I want to draft as well as possible.)

[Vaj]

The Windows partition will certainly be exposed to viruses, but the Mac partition will be unaffected. Worst case, drag Windows into the trash and reinstall.