OSurreal
The ability to multi-boot on the new Intel-based Macs was not on the list of factors involved in my switching back, but rather something extra to love after the decision had been made. However, I did intend to install and occasionally run Windows in order to use Microsoft Word at work without giving Gates another $400, and as a means of waiting out the release of Intel-compatible image applications and so forth. But I bought this machine in July and am just getting around to putting Windows into it. Longtime Mac users probably won’t wonder what the hold-up was — and will probably wonder the opposite: why would anyone want to put Windows into a Mac?
My main answer would have to be because you can. After licensing Pages, Apple’s own word-processing program, and gradually learning to use the Linux-based Gimp for photos, I really don’t have any need for Windows anymore, and certainly don’t miss it. The main impetus that finally led to me putting XP into the Mac was the project discussed in the previous post: playing around with the Rasterbator’s download version, which comes with the request from the developer, “If you manage to run it on Linux or Mac, please tell me!”
So I loaded up Windows. After half a year of OS X bliss, it was surreal to watch Windows boot in a virtual machine courtesy of Parallels Desktop. And I mean ‘surreal’ in both the ‘wow, I’m in the future!’ kind of way, as well as in the ‘this ain’t right!’ sweaty-palms-tentacle-porn-nightmare kind of way.
I am amazed at how well Parallels works. Windows runs alongside OS X, actually inside it, in its own window, which can be expanded to full-screen (thus turning your Mac into a very expensive Windows box) or shrunk down so that whatever Microsoft program you need runs in its own little pane just like any other application. No speed hiccups, no issues, and Windows boots in seconds and runs more smoothly than in our Windows machine, which has a full GB more RAM. Though I doubt I’ll use it very often, it is nice to know that any time I need it, with Parallels the Macbook is perfectly capable of being not just a Mac that can also be a PC, but of being both of them at once.
It still gives me the creeps, though, hearing that Windows music coming out of it.
I suppose things could be stranger still.
