Parallels 'Coherency' Mode

Windows XP app running in its own window on the Mac desktop.

Thanks to DF reader Michael Ströck.

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Comments

mattrobs says:

That's impressive. But is there an option to hide the Start Menu from the Mac desktop?
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

RodBegbie says:

Wow, that's just bad, wrong and awesome in about a million ways!
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

PowerO says:

Yes, you can turn off the start menu.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

russell bassman says:

Sick and wrong as it is, that is pretty freakin' cool. ;)
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

yesno [deleted] says:

Here's another.

flickr.com/photos/yesno/311726811/

You can autohide the taskbar like in Windows, but you need it to launch windows applications.

Also, mine at least is running Windows off of a bootable partition. The fact that you can both boot off of and use in a VM the same installation is the most amazing thing about the recent update.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Jer Wood says:

I wonder how seamless you could make it? Could you use window blinds or some such in Windows, and make your Windows apps look 95% like native mac applications? Also, I wonder if the Parallels people will be able to go further than just making the desktop transparent, and get us to the point of being able to interleave Windows and OSX windows...
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

ramyo says:

Wow, that's awesome. Does this mean that the Mac desktop is shared between Mac OS and Windows?
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Hivelogic says:

Been using that here for a short while. It's not perfect yet, still lots of bugs when it comes to displaying things in "Coherence" mode, but it's pretty cool.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Dillon K. Hoops says:

Ew... you crapified your mac! :)
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

William Adams says:

COOL
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Jesuspower says:

It would be nice to have a macos theme for the windows apps.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

pauldwaite says:

Viewed 5,837 times?

In a day???

Having readership is awesome :)
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

aetherworld says:

Slashdotted :)
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

J.D.Hoyt [deleted] says:

@Jesuspower

osx.portraitofakite.com/ should do the trick

The website is a bit strange. but they offer a theme and tools to make XP look and behave just like a mac.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

kangadru says:

Yes, it's cool. No, it's not bug-free.

Someone asked about WindowBlinds, yes, it's doable but some of the complex effects look strange and can leave artifacts. I've posted 3 shots, using the silver XP theme, but without the start bar, and a fourth with a Mac theme applied via WindowBlinds.

www.flickr.com/photos/92941447@N00/312985861/

And in honor of Gruber's opinion that Windows is the New Classic, I give you the last picture of the set, using John T. Folden's MacPC theme :-).
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

randyedmonds05 says:

What happens when you do Expose? Do the XP windows get scaled and arranged just like OS X windows?
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

kangadru says:

yes
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Mother Puncher says:

The XP windows do not mix with the OSX windows when using exposé. They all stay in their relative positions because the entire XP desktop is still one giant window with a transparent background.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

joezombie333 says:

So are the 'windows' programs just emulated and skinned using Win32 libraries?
If so, Awesome...
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Anonymous Freak says:

joezombie: No, this is the virtualization software 'Parallels', which is running a 100% complete copy of Windows XP in a virtualized machine. They have added a feature where, essentially, the Windows desktop goes away, so all you see are the Windows programs sitting on top of the Mac environment.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Bevan R says:

And another:

Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

gregory lee says:

Omg hot!
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Oskar Lissheim-Boethius says:

Creepy.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

gascan555 says:

lol, these PC emulators make me laugh so much. They make no sense anymore. Why do you need soooo much integration? If you really need to run everything a PC does, just buy a cheap barebone deal. Otherwise, you shouldn't have to make "that ONE program you need to run" a big deal. I'm not batting down this program itself (which I do have to say is pretty impressive) nor the programmers (who must be very talented and I respect them), just PC emulators in general. That's just how I've always felt.

BTW, I'm not anti-mac. Just incase anyone thought that.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

aliquise says:

Eww, explorer ;/
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

Tony Vallad says:

Realy funny and good idea
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

maikerumaako says:

Just a clarification: The Virtual PC of old was an emulator. It made x86-based software run on PowerPC hardware (G3, G4, G5), albeit not terribly well. Parallels is NOT an emulator. It doesn't need to emulate anything, 'cause these days Macs have Intel inside. "Compatibility environment" is probably the most accurate description, but it's a mouthful.

And it certainly has its uses. God only knows how many people need to run Outlook for work (Entourage isn't an acceptable substitute if you need full-on Exchange client functionality) or some other weird-ass esoteric application that's Windows-only. It's nice to not have to lose that in the switch. Just use Parallels to run that one application (or whatever) and still enjoy all the benefits of a Mac. And even a barebones PC is at least $500. A legit boxed copy of Windows can be had for about $250, and Parallels itself goes for $80 (I think). On top of that, you're dealing with two actual computers. Think of it this way--do I want to drive two cars, one for city driving and one for highway driving? No, I want one car that does it all.

Just my two cents.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

schwabsauce says:

yeah, gascan, your point may have been expired by this update. I don't see any drawback to using this system once they iron out the bugs.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

nhurtley says:

Too cool.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

jnx404 says:

*brrrr* :(
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

kick52 says:

i wonder how they actualy do it...

im not very knowledgable on the topic of emulators...

maybe it uses a wine type thing?
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

ch0ng says:

As far as I know, parallels takes advantage of the built in virtualization hardware in the new Intel Core cpu's. It doesn't have anything to do with emulation whatsoever. Emulation would be like the example someone else posted above where you used to be able to get something like virtual pc to run windows inside of its own self contained environment. The virtual pc software sat as middleware between the powerpc hardware and the windows os (which doesn't run on powerpc). The job of the emulator (virtual pc) was to essentially translate the language of the machine code that windows was written in to the language of the machine code that powerpc hardware understood. This is generally what we refer to as emulation.

WINE stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator" it doesn't do the translation from one CPU's language to another. WINE is an open source implementation of the Win32 API which is what you need to run Windows Software on Windows. Windows itself provides this API and a lot of programs use it. The WINE project allows you to run (some of) those applications on different Operating Systems (ie linux) that run on the same types of computers that Windows runs on.

Parallels is virtualization software. Basically it uses a virtual CPU to run your non-native (Windows) applications inside of a virtual os (Windows) on your mac. Virtualization is not a new concept. The fine folks over at VMWare have been actively developing a product for years that does exactly this. What is interesting about Parallels (and I suspect new versions of VMWare) is that we now have hardware support for this. Like I said, Parallels leverages the built in virtualization support in modern Intel CPU's this allows for some applications to run almost as fast as they would be if windows was running on your mac rather than MacOS. The big benefit as stated in other posts is that there is no need to reboot.

In short, there are 3 different methods to doing things. There is Emulation; use this when you need to run an application that runs on a different computing architecture (eg intel vs powerpc). There are projects like WINE that reimplement APIs of other Operating Systems; many times this is "faster" than running the application in a virtual environment. Then there are projects like Parallels which create and use virtual machines to run your non native software in. Virtualization is nothing new, but the hardware support for it now makes it much more viable. Think of this hardware support as a virtualization accelerator. For years people have been buying Graphics Accelerators to improve performance of various display functions (like rendering the latest games in 3d).

Good work Parallels on the new accomplishments. My friends with Intel Based Macs swear by your software.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

shutterflood says:

ewww noooo the horror
Posted 31 months ago. ( permalink )

pixelant says:

cool
Posted 31 months ago. ( permalink )

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Parallels 'Coherency' Mode

Comments

mattrobs says:

RodBegbie says:

PowerO says:

russell bassman says:

yesno [deleted] says:

Jer Wood says:

ramyo says:

Hivelogic says:

Dillon K. Hoops says:

William Adams says:

Jesuspower says:

pauldwaite says:

aetherworld says:

J.D.Hoyt [deleted] says:

kangadru says:

randyedmonds05 says:

kangadru says:

Mother Puncher says:

joezombie333 says:

Anonymous Freak says:

Bevan R says:

gregory lee says:

Oskar Lissheim-Boethius says:

gascan555 says:

aliquise says:

Tony Vallad says:

maikerumaako says:

schwabsauce says:

nhurtley says:

jnx404 says:

kick52 says:

ch0ng says:

shutterflood says:

pixelant says:

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