I’ve loaded up the demo assemblies, and they are okay, but I don’t know how the compare to running native on the same hardware (I haven’t installed Boot Camp on this machine).

What version of IV are you running. Are you simply modeling parts or are you dealing with assemblies and if so how large are you getting

Thanks very much for the back ground and detailed explanation. I’ve always liked the concept of the Macs but have been pinned to PCs in a corporate setting and because of PC only engineering software. I am starting my own company - a small design and manufacturing firm and have the opportunity to set things up like I want. I am glad to hear that the Mac alternative is working with Inventor.

Thanks again,

TOM

My background regarding Inventor is limited to mostly an education environment. I teach Inventor to high school students, although I have used it for my own personal furniture designs too.

Once you have a mac, and install Parallels or VMWare, it acts like a seperate Windows machine. You can (in theory) install any software on it, and it should run pretty much the same as it would on a “proper” machine. In practice, there are some performance issues, particularly with games.

In my situation, I only use Inventor at school, and it connects fine to the License server that authorises me to use the software. In theory, you should be able to make the Virtual Machine look pretty much like the machine you have a license for, so that you could use it authorised on that machine instead, if you are a single-user licensee. (Of course, doing that may be a breach of your licensing conditions).

Both VMWare and Parallels allow you to “merge” the Windows application windows with OS X ones, although I tend to teach from a projector, and run Windows full-screen on that. Parallels has slightly better integration at this stage that allows you to open files from within Windows, and they will load up in the default OS X application, but both systems allow you to have files opened in a Windows program from OS X.

I probably wouldn’t (and won’t) buy any machines other than Macs in the next little while. Even my server runs OS X (this is slightly dodgy, since it’s an old Dell machine), as I find integration between the machines is a bit better and more stable on OS X. The only things I need to run Windows for now are Inventor, Internet Explorer (for testing websites), and Microsoft Access (for a dodgy reporting database). Everything else is all OS X.

Thanks for the update. So in your opinion do you feel comfortable with going out and buying another Mac (keep in mind I have never used a Mac) and starting the Inventor start up process all over again?

I am new to the sight and read your “about” blog, but could you give me a little more of a snap shot of your back ground?

Thanks again for your input and advise!

TOM

I am looking at buying a Mac Book Pro and HAVE to be able to run Inventor on it.

Thanks for the input and advise.

TOM

I was worried that it wouldn’t, as I’d read somewhere it was unsupported. But, it’s running okay now!