Just curious about an program that apparently runs Windows apps from the Mac Dock, without installing Windows. . . . On the surface it would seem to be easier to use than Parallels, but since I have no experience with Parallels I would like to get some feedback if possible.
I've been running Parallels for years. It's a well-designed, mature commercial product, which integrates cleanly into the OS X environment. VMWare's Fusion is a direct competitor, similarly functional and similarly priced.
If you want to avoid a license fee, when I used it a while back I found VirtualBox (
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads) to be quite reliable, although it didn't provide the functionality for executing Windows applications without displaying the Windows workspace. It is developed and supported by Oracle, but is available as a free download.
I've never tried CrossOver, but I played around with WINE a while back. As
howardm says, very hit-or-miss.
(Just out of curiosity, why is this thread posted in the "Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks" section?)