A few years ago I moved over to using a Mac as my primary device and went down the rabbit-hole of Windows virtualisation in order to keep MM5. There are historical questions related to this dotted around the forums, and mostly for MM4, so I thought I'd add this update with some questions.
MM5 and MM4 run very well for me in
Windows 11 within a Parallels Desktop virtual machine, except for syncing and streaming (
until 5 mins ago!). No matter what I tried, I was never been able to get wifi sync or media sharing to work. USB sync is very problematic, often requiring multiple device restarts or driver deletion/reinstalls.
Ironically, in the various steps that I took below, I eventually came back to retrying many parameters/steps in the Parallels VM again today and
it has finally worked for sync and streaming: Parallels configuration must be Network>Bridged, then consider the various possible issues in the MM5 documentation:
https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/kno ... ccessible/.
As Parallels Desktop is not the most pleasant company when it comes to squeezing customers for repeated upgrade fees and being underinformative about real compatibility between macOS and Parallels versions, I have been looking at other options.
I have tried using
UTM (a free virtualisation software, similar to Parallels), but had the same problems with MM5 and unlike above, I haven't manage to solve networking issues (can't successfully override the assigned IP address which is outside my home LAN).
I recently installed
Crossover (
https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibili ... iamonkey-5; built on Wine) to trial for its free 14-day period. On the Crossover site MM5 is marked as having some problems, and indeed there are visual rendering issues -- lots of flashing of elements and black areas that come/go depending of mouse movement or other visual activity. I haven't been able to work out how to disable hardware/graphics acceleration successfully despite a bit of Googling. Other than the visual annoyances, however, MM5 works pretty well so far (4 days) and, most importantly, wifi sync and media sharing are currently as smooth as butter! But mounting an Android phone for USB syncing seems impossible.
I tested a version of
Whisky (similar to Crossover, free;
https://docs.getwhisky.app/) but it had more visual rendering instability than Crossover. I'm about to upgrade from macOS Ventura to Sonoma (macOS 14) and the most recent Whisky version doesn't work on Ventura, so I will be able to test the newest version soonish.
It'd be great to know of successes, and solutions (for not just the most technical of technical users;) ) to visual rendering problems, network problems, etc for MM5 in various virtual boxes, until the native macOS version of MM is ready.
A few years ago I moved over to using a Mac as my primary device and went down the rabbit-hole of Windows virtualisation in order to keep MM5. There are historical questions related to this dotted around the forums, and mostly for MM4, so I thought I'd add this update with some questions.
MM5 and MM4 run very well for me in [b]Windows 11 within a Parallels Desktop virtual machine[/b], except for syncing and streaming ([i]until 5 mins ago![/i]). No matter what I tried, I was never been able to get wifi sync or media sharing to work. USB sync is very problematic, often requiring multiple device restarts or driver deletion/reinstalls.
Ironically, in the various steps that I took below, I eventually came back to retrying many parameters/steps in the Parallels VM again today and [i]it has finally worked for sync and streaming:[/i] Parallels configuration must be Network>Bridged, then consider the various possible issues in the MM5 documentation: [url]https://www.mediamonkey.com/support/knowledge-base/mediamonkey-upnp-dlna/mediamonkey-upnp-server-inaccessible/[/url].
As Parallels Desktop is not the most pleasant company when it comes to squeezing customers for repeated upgrade fees and being underinformative about real compatibility between macOS and Parallels versions, I have been looking at other options.
I have tried using [b]UTM[/b] (a free virtualisation software, similar to Parallels), but had the same problems with MM5 and unlike above, I haven't manage to solve networking issues (can't successfully override the assigned IP address which is outside my home LAN).
I recently installed [b]Crossover[/b] ([url]https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/forum/mediamonkey-5[/url]; built on Wine) to trial for its free 14-day period. On the Crossover site MM5 is marked as having some problems, and indeed there are visual rendering issues -- lots of flashing of elements and black areas that come/go depending of mouse movement or other visual activity. I haven't been able to work out how to disable hardware/graphics acceleration successfully despite a bit of Googling. Other than the visual annoyances, however, MM5 works pretty well so far (4 days) and, most importantly, wifi sync and media sharing are currently as smooth as butter! But mounting an Android phone for USB syncing seems impossible.
I tested a version of [b]Whisky[/b] (similar to Crossover, free; [url]https://docs.getwhisky.app/[/url]) but it had more visual rendering instability than Crossover. I'm about to upgrade from macOS Ventura to Sonoma (macOS 14) and the most recent Whisky version doesn't work on Ventura, so I will be able to test the newest version soonish.
It'd be great to know of successes, and solutions (for not just the most technical of technical users;) ) to visual rendering problems, network problems, etc for MM5 in various virtual boxes, until the native macOS version of MM is ready.