“The 12 Days AFTER Christmas” Giveaway: Day 13 – Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac
This contest is closed. Congrats to faithful Macenstein reader Chad.
On the Thirteeth Day After Christmas, Macenstein gave to you (or, more accurately, gave you a chance to win…) Your very own copy of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac!
Sure, we all love Apple and the ease of OS X, but sometimes there’s things you just can’t do on a Mac – like run the latest games, business software, and viruses. But who wants to go through all the trouble of partitioning their drive and rebooting into Boot Camp? When you HAVE to use Windows, you want to get in and out QUICK, and there’s nothing quicker than Parallels 5 for Mac. Optimized for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and boasting unmatched virtual machine performance, Parallels 5 lets you launch thousands of Windows apps directly from the Mac Dock. Best of all, Parallels lets you show as much or as little of the Windows interface as you like, so your friends won’t even know you’re running Windows, thus preserving your Mac Street Cred.
Choice is good. Not having to choose is even better.
Mac OS or Windows? Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac lets you seamlessly run Windows and Mac OS X side-by-side, drag-and-drop your files between operating systems, and run Windows software on your Apple computer without rebooting.* Run thousands of Windows programs faster on your Mac
* Enhanced! Install Windows XP, Vista or 7 in 3 easy steps
* Enhanced! Optimized for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
* New! Full support for Aero, including Flip 3D in Windows Vista and 7 & OpenGL 2.1
* New! OpenGL 2.1 support for Linux guest Operating Systems
* Enhanced! Parallels Compressor automatically reclaims hard disk space
* Enhanced! Intel VT-x2 virtualization technology drives maximum performance
* Enhanced! Unmatched virtual machine performance
* Enhanced! KVM paravirtualization for Linux gives unmatched performance
To enter:Among Mac users there is a perception that Windows is… um… somewhat less than secure. But how deserved is that reputation? To enter, leave us a comment telling us have you or anyone you personally know ever lost data to a Windows virus? Winner will be picked randomly 7 days later and notified (kind of like in The Ring, only with less killing… we hope). Open to all readers world-wide. Good luck, and thanks for reading Macenstein! (Oh, and be sure to enter ALL our “12 Days AFTER Christmas” Giveaways!)
Please note: Comments may take a while to show up, please do not double-post. Thanks!
Sure- and I know even more people who spend tons of cash and valuable hours trying to keep their Windows boxes virus-free. Sad, I think.
Never lost data but back in the 1990s Symantec actually nabbed and quarantined a virus (on my old Windows machine) as it was set to go, thereby saving my data. Years of subscriptions to an anti-virus program with only one close call. Glad to be on a Mac now.
Yes, but usually my husband manages to save data for our friends and family with many hours of work.
Yup. I developed a couple of games by myself and they were completely erased before I got a chance to release them.
I know a friend who had a virus that deleted programs – it even deleted his antivirus program…
Back in the days of Windows 3.1 our computer contracted a boot virus. My mon had to take the computer back to the store to be wiped clean. Man was she pissed…
Yup.
Basically, the PC became unusable, had to reformat the whole darned HD.
No, I stay protected but I know plenty of others who have lost data due to a virus.
I have not lost data due to a virus on a PC but BECAUSE it is a PC I backup everything multiple times in various media.
Yea – chernobyl virus, lost everything
No, but with the few people I know who use PCs, I don’t really ask about them, and they never mentioned losing data to a virus.
I just cleaned an XP machine for my brother that was virus ridden and it infected most of their media. Bye bye pictures and tunes.
A windows server got a virus and lost some of my stuff once. Does that count?
Yup definitely the conficker bug. Mac ftw, although Windows 7 is shaping up pretty nicely, I’m on boot camp now 😀
I’ve known a few people that have lost data due to Windows viruses, but it finally hit home when my wife’s XP laptop failed to boot after our young son downloaded a “cool game” he found.
I’ve always kept pretty decent backups so I never lost any data to a Windows virus.
Don’t know anyone who’s lost data to a virus, thankfully. A corrupted hard drive, however, is another issue.
Yes, I’m not sure I can ount them all with only 10 fingers and 10 toes.
Yeah, one of my coworkers lost *everything* on her hard drive. Bummer.
Never run WIndows, so never lost anything to a Windows virus!
I know how to do a low level format because of Windows (and DOS) viruses.
Everyone I know has lost data, time and sanity to the effect of a virus or 500.
Who hasn’t?
Yes, friend lost a massive end-of-year 5,000 word essay and architect plans by borrowing one of the USB drives from the university print shop, which had a USB virus installed on it. When he opened the USB drive on his computer the computer (running XP) dies, as did 5 others who had borrowed these USB drives.
“The SillyFD-AA worm hunts for removable drives such as floppy disks and USB memory sticks, and then creates a hidden file called autorun.inf to ensure a copy of the worm is run the next time it is plugged into a Windows PC.”
Work also was attacked by a massive sustained virus attack which took a month and numerous virus bods to come in and fix it. bear in mind that over 500 people work there, and many could not do their job for a month.
Now that i think about it, everyone i know who has windows has been attacked by viruses.
Obviously the moral of the story is BUY A MAC. (or don’t use a USB drive … or any computer at all … in fact write your essays using a typewriter.)
I had an HP Pavilion (what a complete piece of junk that was), and the machine got a virius after my daughter was using it. I had to wipe the entire HD and list everything. I can’t wait until Apple overtakes the visionless Microsoft…
I have not lost any data, but I have lost a lot of time and money to keep the data safe.
I had many viruses over the years which crashed the computer deleting documents and files.
Hope I win one
Thanks
I’ve lost my entire pre-mac hard drive data seven times (at least)
Yes, many years ago, and i have become better with backups and keeping secrity up to date because of it.
I think I’ve seen more people lose data due to hard drive failure (mechanical) than to viruses.
I once lost my documents, my photos, and all my passwords when I played an infected country music file. Luckily I was able to play it backwards and get my documents back, my photos back, and my passwords back.
In!
I have seen departments of companies’ and educational institutions see most or all of their Windows machines lose data to viruses. Scary!
Yep. Not for awhile but had to reload everything.
Not the whole hdd, but some folders & programs yop 😉
I had a virus crash my PC constantly for months at a time. I would loose recent changes, but never any old files. Eventually we had to reinstall Windows.
My family has had numerous problems but fortunately I’ve moved my siblings and parents to a good backup regimen.
My Windows 98 computer had one, and back in the day, the guy we called for support told us to delete certain system files. The virus was gone, but along with some important files – as you can imagine. I got some warning every time I logged in from then on.
My friend just lost everything on her hard drive last night from a virus. Sigh. Glad I’ve never had to deal with it.
I’ve known a few. None of whom were happy about it
I myself have lost data to a Windows virus. Fortunately, I was using Parallels on a Mac equipped with Time Machine, and I simply restored the Windows VM from the previous day.
One year I received 5 desktop calendars… SUCKED
LOL all the time… my best friend I almost convinced him to get a Mac… for God’s sake… Sorry Windows users but that’s the worst worst OS ever… so yeah I have xD but not me I’m a Mac ;)!!!
My sister attracts viruses with or without her PC
Not on a virus, but I lost a whole installation, fortunately not the data on installing a virus scanner
Many, many, many! I sell the Macs afterwards 🙂
Not so far.
Yes, I have (long ago before switching to Mac)
I have to use Windows machines at work, and it’s fairly regular to loose word or excel files to macro viruses. (well, to be honest, the anti-virus software is the one, who deletes them)…
Not a virus per se, but I have lost data due to nasty crashes before.
No. But I have lost a ton of time trying to remove the viruses from my computer.
More than once in fact, many of the poems I wrote, thousand of photos and other personal stuff, but that was prior to know the beauty of Mac OSX.
But the thing with virtualization is that you can run Windows based games or some software that currently is unavailable for the mac such as 3D Studio Max or so.