Ask Ben Anything - Moving a Win2K machine to a Mac, Working with Leopard, USB 2.0 vs. USB 1.1 : @VMblog

Article

Search:

Follow VMblog.com:

Improve end user experience in VDI, DaaS and physical endpoint environments

Ask Ben Anything - Moving a Win2K machine to a Mac, Working with Leopard, USB 2.0 vs. USB 1.1

Ben Rudolph's latest "Ask Ben Anything" for Parallels Users:

Quick question. Isn't there a Parallels utility that will allow me to grab an image of my Wintel laptop drive and create a virtual machine from it rather than walking thru a complete install of Win2K plus all of the apps? Thought I'd heard of one.

- Scott T.

You're thinking of Transporter, our free migration utility. Transporter can move an entire Windows 2000, 2003, XP or Vista real PC - OS, apps, settings, files, and all - to a virtual machine running on a Mac. Transporter is in beta now, and will be bundled with the Update of Parallels Desktop for Mac. It will also be available as a stand-alone app for PC users. Transporter will be particularly useful for users looking to move to a new Vista PC, since it will enable them to use Vista, but also have the "security blanket" of their old XP box.

Is this build really compatible with Leopard? How's that possible if its not even out yet?!

- Anonymous

We, and thousands of Mac developers worldwide, have had access to developer builds of Leopard for a few months. This build is completely compatible with Leopard developer builds! When Leopard goes live, Parallels will totally compatible with that, too.

What's all the hype around USB 2.0 support? Is it really that much better than USB 1.1?

- Tanya K.

Actually, yes it is! USB 2.0 supports three data transfer rates: A Low Speed rate of up to 1.5 Mbit/s (187.5 kB/s), a Full Speed rate of up to 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s), and a Hi-Speed rate of up to 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s).

USB 1.1 only supports Low Speed and Full Speed, whereas USB 2.0 supports all three rates. In short, this means that USB 2.0 devices and ports work MUCH faster than USB 1.1 devices.

What's this mean for you as a Parallels user? By upgrading our USB support to 2.0, you're able to "plug and play" USB devices like printers, scanners, webcams, PDAs, BlackBerries, and more, and use them at full native speeds without any compatibility issues or complicated setup. It's not the flashiest feature in Desktop, but certainly one of the most important!

For more information on USB, check out the Wikipedia article on the subject . This is where I pulled the information on transfer rates.