Office 2007 in Parallel’s Coherence Mode –Cool but Flawed!
I’m writing this blog using Office 2007 for Windows on my MacBook Pro’s Desktop under Tiger, Mac OS 10.4.9. This is possible because I’m using Parallel’s (Desktop for Mac) Coherence mode which lets the Windows Desktop all but disappear against my standard OS X background. Since I had bought Office 2007 for Windows, I was curious to see if I could avoid buying Office 2008 for Mac when it’s released, especially since I like the Office 2007 User Interface so much and don’t care for what I’ve seen so far in the Office 2008 previews.
The short answer to my question is: “Yes!”. This is a really cool thing to be able to do. I can tell that I’m taking a noticeable but not significant speed hit using Office 2007 this way; and to be honest, I haven’t tried opening a complex document, spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation. I have opened one 42 page PowerPoint presentation and it opened without a hitch, but the pitch was mainly just text and did not have any complex graphics or animations.
There are a couple of interesting things to note about using Word 2007 this way. First, the application is responding to my Apple keyboard commands, i.e., “Save” was not performed using the Windows-standard “Cntrl-S” but was the Apple- standard “Command-S”. Secondly, the application’s Explorer Windows still open on the Windows Desktop, not the Mac one; so, you’ll have to preposition any files you want to work on there or in some other Windows’ folder.
From a speed standpoint, there’s no significant difference I can see between using Word 2007 for Windows this way vice using the currently available (and installed on my machine) Office 2004 for the Mac. But there may be one compelling reason to buy Office 2007 for Windows and run it on your Mac under Coherence Mode vice buying office 2008, and that is the Visual Basic Support Microsoft is leaving out of Office 2008 for Mac. (That’s enough to make one wonder if Microsoft was not up to its old, monopolistic tricks again.) I’m sorry to advocate buying Office 2007 for Windows and running it this way vice buying the Mac-native Office 2008; but if you need the Visual Basic support, it is one thing you can do to keep your Mac and still not lose any functionality.
An unanticipated advantage to running Word 2007 under Parallels instead of running it natively under Windows XP, at least on my MacBook Pro, is that Mac OS X remains in control of the machine’s innards, specifically, its fans. Fan speed remained normal when running under OSX/Parallels but really cranked up when I booted straight into XP using Boot Camp. I ran on external power the whole time but those cranked up fans would really draw down your batteries if you were running unplugged.
For those of you wondering what kind of configuration I ran Parallels in, I let it keep its default values except when it came to memory. My MacBook Pro has 2 GB of RAM in it, so I set the maximum memory usage for the virtual machine at half that, letting Windows XP and OS X split the RAM equally.
I hate to say it, but subsequently booting into Windows XP using Boot Camp did uncover what is for me a fatal flaw Parallels will have to fix before I will buy it. After running everything under Parallels, once I hit Boot Camp, I was required to re-activate both XP and Word 2007. Afterwards, when I booted into Parallels again the Parallel Tools also reinitialized, making me wait almost five minutes before I could get into Windows, and I had to re-activate Word again! I’ll wait until that’s fixed to buy Parallels. It may be a hassle to reboot using Boot Camp, but it’s stable and fast.
That’s too bad. After all, it might otherwise be worth it just to see the contorted look on a coworker’s face as they per over my shoulder and see me working a Word document in Word 2007 with a Mac OS X desktop and Dock in the background. Hopefully, one day, that will happen.
The short answer to my question is: “Yes!”. This is a really cool thing to be able to do. I can tell that I’m taking a noticeable but not significant speed hit using Office 2007 this way; and to be honest, I haven’t tried opening a complex document, spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation. I have opened one 42 page PowerPoint presentation and it opened without a hitch, but the pitch was mainly just text and did not have any complex graphics or animations.
There are a couple of interesting things to note about using Word 2007 this way. First, the application is responding to my Apple keyboard commands, i.e., “Save” was not performed using the Windows-standard “Cntrl-S” but was the Apple- standard “Command-S”. Secondly, the application’s Explorer Windows still open on the Windows Desktop, not the Mac one; so, you’ll have to preposition any files you want to work on there or in some other Windows’ folder.
From a speed standpoint, there’s no significant difference I can see between using Word 2007 for Windows this way vice using the currently available (and installed on my machine) Office 2004 for the Mac. But there may be one compelling reason to buy Office 2007 for Windows and run it on your Mac under Coherence Mode vice buying office 2008, and that is the Visual Basic Support Microsoft is leaving out of Office 2008 for Mac. (That’s enough to make one wonder if Microsoft was not up to its old, monopolistic tricks again.) I’m sorry to advocate buying Office 2007 for Windows and running it this way vice buying the Mac-native Office 2008; but if you need the Visual Basic support, it is one thing you can do to keep your Mac and still not lose any functionality.
An unanticipated advantage to running Word 2007 under Parallels instead of running it natively under Windows XP, at least on my MacBook Pro, is that Mac OS X remains in control of the machine’s innards, specifically, its fans. Fan speed remained normal when running under OSX/Parallels but really cranked up when I booted straight into XP using Boot Camp. I ran on external power the whole time but those cranked up fans would really draw down your batteries if you were running unplugged.
For those of you wondering what kind of configuration I ran Parallels in, I let it keep its default values except when it came to memory. My MacBook Pro has 2 GB of RAM in it, so I set the maximum memory usage for the virtual machine at half that, letting Windows XP and OS X split the RAM equally.
I hate to say it, but subsequently booting into Windows XP using Boot Camp did uncover what is for me a fatal flaw Parallels will have to fix before I will buy it. After running everything under Parallels, once I hit Boot Camp, I was required to re-activate both XP and Word 2007. Afterwards, when I booted into Parallels again the Parallel Tools also reinitialized, making me wait almost five minutes before I could get into Windows, and I had to re-activate Word again! I’ll wait until that’s fixed to buy Parallels. It may be a hassle to reboot using Boot Camp, but it’s stable and fast.
That’s too bad. After all, it might otherwise be worth it just to see the contorted look on a coworker’s face as they per over my shoulder and see me working a Word document in Word 2007 with a Mac OS X desktop and Dock in the background. Hopefully, one day, that will happen.
posted by Andy Foster at
7:04 PM
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