A few questions regarding running Windows 7 in virtual machine on OS X High Sierra (v10.13.5)

NickH88

Honorable
Jan 16, 2013
9
0
10,510
I have a few Windows-only applications that I want to run on my Mac. I like how virtual machines offer fluidity between the Windows environment and OS X, so I'm thinking I'll try that rather than BootCamp. One of the programs I want to run is a bit memory-intensive, and struggled at times on my old Windows PC (4 GB RAM and a 2.7 GhZ AMD processor), but I was told that if I allocate 8 GB of RAM to the virtual machine on my Mac (3.5 GhZ Intel Core i7 processor and 16 GB RAM), I should be fine. This application also requires Microsoft Visual Studio. I have an unused license for Windows 7, so that's the version I'm planning on using within the virtual machine.

Can I install Microsoft Visual Studio in Windows 7 within the virtual machine? I'm not 100% sure how they work, so I don't know if this is possible or not. I know Parallels Desktop Pro Edition comes with Visual Studio integrated, but it requires a license of $99/year.

For my purposes, which virtual machine would be best (Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox, etc.)? Free or cheap would be ideal, but I definitely want something that can best support the software I have described above.

Thanks!
 

USAFRet

Illustrious
Moderator
I don't have experience with VM's in a Mac host, but I do with Windows as the host.

You can absolutely install VS on a Win 7 guest OS. No problem.
Which VM tool? I use VirtualBox exclusively.