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bdj · July 11th, 2006, 08:30 PM

My older son is going off to college in September, so we bought him the 17" Mac Book Pro. As I understand it, it is capable of running windows as well as Mac OS. My question is, there is a program called Parallels that runs windows in the Mac environment. Is it a good idea to do that, or is it better to dual boot?

Does anyone have any info on the Parallels program? Also, there is a program that allows for dual booting as well. Anyone know the name of that program?

Thanks

bdj

**RobRich** · July 11th, 2006, 08:46 PM

Apple's Boot Camp allows for dual booting. It is beta software, meaning there is no official support.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

As to virtualization versus dual boot, the decision comes down to how applications are being used. Does your son need to be able to quickly switch between Windows and Mac apps? If so, Parallels is a good approach. If not, but he still needs a few Windows apps for whatever reason - games perhaps?

- then Boot Camp would be a good idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_Workstation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Camp

Mr.Macintosh · July 11th, 2006, 10:39 PM

Boot Camp will be built into 10.5 rumor is. I mean Apple would be stupid to charge people when it gets out of Beta. I would do Boot Camp. Boot Camp creates two paritions on the HD. Thus, if the Windows portion gets a virus, the OS X partition won't be affected. Not sure if it will be the same for the parallel thing.

bdj · July 12th, 2006, 01:59 PM

Thanks for the info.

bdj

ShuckyD · July 12th, 2006, 02:12 PM

i also am looking into getting a MacBook since i hear the new Intel articheture can do Windows XP as well. Is it true that windows XP will run better on a Mac due to the different artecture, or is it the complete opposite?

If i were to get one it would be in a few months and i would need to be able to dual boot between WInXp Pro which i know very well and Mac OS which i would like to see how easy it really is to use

bdj · July 13th, 2006, 02:17 PM

Two questions regarding Parallels.

1. If I install Parallels, should I upgrade the memory from 1gig to 2gigs?

2. If there are two OSs running simultaneously or concurrently, how does that effect the network connection?

bdj

bdj · July 14th, 2006, 03:52 PM

^^^^ bump ^^^^

**RobRich** · July 14th, 2006, 04:12 PM

Depending upon the software being used in the guest OS, you should be able to slide by with total of 1GB memory. If professional apps are involved, then seriously consider 2GB.

**RobRich** · July 14th, 2006, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Is it true that windows XP will run better on a Mac due to the different artecture, or is it the complete opposite?

The MacBook Pro is essentially a high-end Core Duo notebook. If you want Mac OS X, then it is a good notebook. If you want a Windows notebook, you can get a better deal on a standard Core Duo model.

bdj · July 17th, 2006, 03:26 PM

Thanks.

bdj