Mac OS X & Windows in Parallel

The first most natural reaction for a Mac guy like me is "Ick! Windows on my Mac?!". And yeah, it is a bit disgusting. After all we all know that Mac OS X is obviously the superior operating system, right?

Well even if you don't necessarily agree with that assertion, you have to agree that if you're any kind of web developer you can't ignore Internet Explorer. Despite all its warts and laughable standards adherence, it is the browser that most people use. So if you care about giving those users the best experience when visiting your site you need to view it in IE.

My solution was to use Windows 2000 (with SP4 and IE6 installed) within Parallels and I've been pretty happy. W2K runs very well and being able to seamlessly run my webapps in IE while continuing to work in Mac OS X gives me exactly what I need. So here's the recipe:

1. Install Parallels (get a demo from Parallels to try it out). You might also want to give the beta 3036 version a try (I did). It has some great features like the "coherence" view that lets you mix the W2K windows in with your Mac OS X windows.
2. Create a Windows virtual machine and install Windows (take a deep breath its a little surreal)
3. Once you have the VM open go to the Parallels Action menu and choose "Install Parallels Tools...". This improves performance, mouse support, the graphics capabilities and lets you drag files to the Windows desktop (and probably a bunch of other stuff too).
   
4. Set Windows' screen resolution, colour depth, font antialiasing, and be sure to set "Show window contents while dragging". The last option is important if you use Parallels' coherence view.
5. Start up your web server in Mac OS X, and be sure to open the necessary ports in your built-in Mac OS X firewall to let Windows see your server (e.g., Tomcat is 8080 by default and WEBrick is 3000 by default).
6. Type in your Mac's IP address in IE and enjoy! (Well hopefully enjoy, IE has a tendency of frustrating a lot of developers).