Researching the community I see no entries more recent than 2018 regarding running Intuiface Composer in a VM on a Mac. Much has changed since then. Composer is at 7.5.1 - 319. We are on Windows 11. Apple has introduced its new M Series Chip. Virtual Machine options have expanded beyond BootCamp.
Based on these changes, has anyone attempted the following (or similar) environment to Run Composer:
MacOS Sonoma 14
M2 Pro Chip (or M1 or M3)
32MB Unified RAM
Parallels VM Environment running Windows 11 (or VMware)
The appeal for us Mac users is that we do not require a dedicated PC to use Composer. The interest for me personally is if the Apple M-series chip (which makes my Creative Cloud applications scream), can be leveraged for Composer.
It would be great to know if anyone has tested this, and if so, what the experience has been, if there were any issues, any notable differences in performance.
I checked with some members of our team and got this info from those who are using a Mac.
Our Product Manager uses the MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro chip below.
In his own words: “Honestly, the performance of Composer is the same than if I were running it natively on a Windows machine, I never noticed any lags due to virtualization. I’m using Parallels and Windows 11, I recommend!”
Thank you for checking with members of your term regarding their experiences with Mac/VM instances of Composer. The feedback is both useful and promising!
I plan to move to a Mac environment with Composer and will contribute my experience to this community thread.
@shpeterson Scott, I’m running Composer on Bootcamp and I’m in the process of upgrading myself to an M3 configuration. Thanks for sharing your experience once you update your mac.
Certainly Paolo! I got my new MacBook Pro M3 Max this weekend, installed Parallels v19.2.1 with a Windows 11 VM, installed Composer 7.5.1 and tested a bunch of my XPs. I included some particularly intensive XPs with myriad hi-res graphics and videos, collections and scrolling effects, synced HCSM and added Intuiface Assets, like API Explorer, without incident. The one thing that I have not done is test any peripheral devices (like video cams, sensors, etc.). As I do, I will report back any issues that I identify.
I am delighted to report the performance is noticeably smoother and more responsive than my Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Gen i7 64-bit, 16GB RAM, Windows 11. I am confident the days are gone that I have to work from two separate platforms , sets of mice and keyboards, and can run all my native Mac apps in parallel (pun intended), use one magic keyboard and mouse and literally do everything from my MacBook Pro.
For those considering migrating to a Parallels VM on a Mac for Composer, you will need to turn off “Mirror Mac and Windows user folders.” Composer needs its own Intuiface folder inside the Windows environment. Article here:
You raise a great point because interactive touch is so important in our XP authoring. Of course it would be ideal if Apple provided native touchscreen MacBooks, but we may want a long time with such wishful thinking.
Part of my testing will be peripherals with Composer in the Parallels VM, starting with my iPad as a “sidecar” mirrored or extended display to see if the iPad’s touch capabilities will register when running Player inside of Composer inside the VM. See article: Use iPad as a second display - Apple Support
I also plan to test a dedicated touchscreen monitor, from which I run composer in the Parallels VM.
I will keep the community posted on my results, and look forward to hearing from others regarding their testing.
Hello Community. This is Scott Peterson again, but under a new Intuiface account. I have some feedback about running Composer on my MacBook M3 Max in a Windows 11 VM in Parallels. This is more of an annoyance, but is worth noting.
I have found I need to pay attention from an Apple Finder level how I update components in my Parallels VM based based on filename paths.
For example: If I directly open an Excel data source from my InterfaceAssets inside Composer on the VM, make changes, then attempt to save the Excel file, I get the attached error. From Excel on my Mac to its location in the VM, the path appears to not exist. The workaround, is I go to the file location in Composer, copy the Excel file to my Mac Desktop, make my edits, save, then from the Windows VM navigate to the Mac desktop (not from the Mac finder), then copy and replace the Excel file back into the InterfaceAsset location for the Experience in the VM.
If anyone knows whether or not there is a Parallels configuration setting to solve this, please let me know.
I seem to have similar issues when I drag files from the Mac Finder directly into the Composer XP in the Windows VM. The most stable approach appears to be to navigate to files in Windows File Explorer inside the VM, rather than drag and drop between the Mac Finder and the Windows VM.
Hi Scott. I also purchased a MBP M3 Max and installed Parallels with Windows 11. After several attempts and a tip from Intuiface support, I’ve been able to find a stable configuration to run Composer. I experienced your same error too when editing Excel files.
In short, I realized that you can’t mix anything Mac with Windows when it comes to Composer. My Windows VM has its own Office 365 install. When I edit an Excel file, it runs Excel for Windows. Intuiface support also suggested to uncheck this sharing box, which separates the file system of the two environments even further.
After I did this setup, everything seems to work. No more errors with paths. To open an Intuiface file, I first run Windows, then I look for the project folder (which I usually pin in the shortcuts), and launch the IFX file. I also selected Coherence view in Parallels, where Mac and Win11 windows happily coexist.
While I enjoyed the convenience of Bootcamp where everything always worked well, this setup is a decent compromise overall. Thoughts?
Thank you, Paolo, for the tips and advice. I too was instructed by the Intuiface Support team to uncheck Mirror Mac and Windows user folders. Great advice on running MS 360 natively in the Windows VM to solve the open-edit-save issue with Excel. I have also switched to Coherence view in Parallels. First thing I noticed, is how my windows Apps run in their own Finder window, not locked into the Windows workspace. I like that a lot!
I will report back to the community any other pertinent observations after making these changes.
@shpeterson What type of CPU / memory setting have you found works best on your Win11 VM and Parallels? I think we have similar hardware configurations, and RAM is not an issue. I set my VM to 4 processors and 16GB of memory. Despite running on the latest M3 hardware, I found Intuiface performance in Parallels to be just slightly better than Bootcamp on a 2018 MBP.
I appreciate your inquiry, Paolo. I have been in transition regarding my Intuiface account, and am now registered under Scottp (not @shpeterson)… finally getting back to you.
So far I have been running 8GB RAM and 4 CPUs without any discernable performance degradation. My M3 Max has 36GB. Since I am also running my full Adobe Creative Cloud frequently with Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects while running Intuiface simultaneously, performance has been suitable.
However, as I now explore XP development with AI Interface Assets, I will monitor performance while running Composer’s Player and experiment with the 14 cores (10 performance and 4 efficiency), and report back any performance issues that I may encounter.
