Running Windows on a Mac: Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop & VMware Fusion

Think of it as a great marketing strategy.

The people who bought the MBP to use Windows already bought it - so now they'll have to upgrade to Leopard. Apple won't have to worry about any noticeable or practical repeat transactional effects until at least a few years down the road, when arguably it won't be as noticeable or matter by that point.

On the other hand, people who are going to buy the MBP in the future won't care about Boot Camp being tied to Leopard at all, since it won't affect them at all.

I just can't wait to see the next frivolous class-action lawsuit raised against Apple for this. I hope it'll be almost as entertaining as the one raised against Microsoft for advertising "Vista Capable" machines.

 

Hehe, has Apple lost any recent lawsuit? All the recent class-action lawsuits seem to have been resolved without court rulings, or ruled in favour for Apple .

 

There are still quite a few pending and more filed all the time. Just recently, someone filed a complaint for that whole iPhone "bricking" update issue.

 

I'm confused. If I've already got Window set up using the Tiger Boot Camp, will I still have access to XP even after the program expires?

 

Sticky Update

I've edited the guide to reflect the confirmed release date for Leopard (October 26th, 2007), regarding Boot Camp and when its final version will be released.

 

Is BootCamp just a trial ware? I've heard you can download it for free but you can use it only for certain period of time.

 

Well, Boot Camp Beta 1.4 already is no longer available for download.

Boot Camp isn't trialware, it expired after a certain period of time because it was a Beta. The final version (which will be in Leopard) does not expire.

Boot Camp is a feature of Leopard, so to use Boot Camp's final version, get Leopard.

 

So if you get a new Mac with Leopard, there's no need to purchase Boot Camp separately since it has it built-in?

BTW, will Windows hardware like mouse, keyboard, etc. work with OS X and Boot Camp? Thanks!

 

Yes, if you get a Mac with Leopard, Boot Camp will be there. Also, if you get a Mac now (without Leopard) and buy Leopard/upgrade for $10, it will be there as well. So basically, Leopard adds Boot Camp as a feature.

And yes, Windows hardware will work with Macs running Windows.

 

Okay so can I ask you a question:

Let's say I want to reinstall my Tiger right now. I do have a Windows partition going on too, would I have to delete that and reinstall Windows too?

Or I can just boot up from the OS X Tiger CDs and do a reinstall?

Basically format my OSX partition and reinstall Tiger...

 

Stupid PC junkie question:

Is it possible to wipe OS X on the HDD, install XP and turn it into 100% PC but with the design and style of a Mac? I assume the Mac will come with OS X install CD should I change my mind down the road.

 

You can't turn it 100% into a PC because it has no BIOS for Windows to boot from. What you CAN do is leave the minimum 20gb (I'm not sure 100%) for OS X and have it always boot into Windows...

 

I believe its 5 GB minimum on either side of the partition...

 

Oh, that's even better

 

Something odd I noticed is that VMWare Fusion is being offered at my university's computer store for $39.99. Is this part some sort of universal education discount?

 

There's a seperate SKU for the education discount, that just about anyone can use. It's available through brick and mortar educational stores or through places like www.academicsuperstore.com. You can do a search for VMFUSMBX2ED. So far I haven't found any purchasing restrictions.

 

I'm a late bloomer to Bootcamp *just in the nick of time*. In response to cdnali: I've noticed my MBP will boot right into the OS I used last automatically, unless I hold down the Option key at boot-up. I don't know if this is typical, but so far XP has been a welcome addition.

 

You can reinstall/upgrade/erase your Mac OS X partition without altering the Windows partition. When Leopard is released you can use any installation method and your Windows partition will remain intact. You will not need to reinstall Windows.

The default OS actually has nothing to do with the previous boot. It's a user configurable setting. To choose the default OS from Windows, go to Control Panel --> Boot Camp. In OS X, System Preferences --> Startup Disk.

 

Ya, you're right. I knew about the startup disk, but it seemed to be booting my last OS.. and then I realized it was just booting Windows. Oh well, Ya, I'm gonna fix that later tonight.

 

Sticky Update

I've updated the guide with new dates and the release of OS X Leopard (so its no longer "the upcoming OS X Leopard, being released on October 26th", but now is "Mac OS X Leopard, released on October 26th").

I'll continue updating throughout the next few days as reviews and notes regarding Boot Camp's final version on Leopard come in.

 

@Xander that's awesome. I'm buying Leopard in a few days and I'm doing a clean install, and Windows is gonna stay right there! Great!

Thanks!

 

Sweet!

Since Leopard has been released you can access all of Apple's Support Information for the new OS, including Boot Camp.

OS X Leopard Support

Boot Camp Support
Boot Camp Installation Guide (PDF)
Boot Camp Frequently Asked Questions
Upgrading from Boot Camp Beta

...And there's much more available too...

 

Thanks a bunch dude!

 

Sticky Update

I'm sure there's going to be tons of questions asked about this, so good thing it was found it quickly .

Users of Boot Camp Beta do not need to repartition their Windows partition, nor do they need to reinstall Windows when they upgrade to Leopard.

To update your Boot Camp Beta to Boot Camp 1.0 in Leopard, just follow these simple instructions.

 

Does anyone know if the drivers in Boot Camp 2.0 have actually been updated over Boot Camp 1.4? I hope when Apple's FAQ said to use the Leopard disc to install Windows drivers, that isn't a sign that they are going to be slow to release new driver versions from now on. Now if only Apple would get around to releasing 64-bit Windows drivers. I'm not a big Vista fan so XP x64 might be may upper limit for a while.

And VMware seems to have lied since they said they would release 1.1 as soon as Leopard ships, but it's been nearly 2 days and they still only have 1.1RC. I guess they meant NBD.

 

Actually, i think in an interview a few months back, Steve said Apple was working on ways to update Boot Camp without having to burn new drivers onto a disc every time.

 

I guess that would make sense since the Apple Software Updater in Windows mentions keeping Boot Camp up to date. But I still prefer the option of having a driver installation disc. That way if I do a clean format, I can just install the latest drivers instead of going through an update process. I might be paranoid, but I prefer to reduce problems of stray old system files being left around the computer when updates are performed. I use the same CD-RW for the Boot Camp drivers all the time anyways so it's not like I'm wasting CDs.

 

I don't think the Boot Camp 2.0 drivers are any different from the previous Beta. Just check the dates in the Windows Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs. Or look at the actual Drivers in the Device Manager. Nothing is new in XP except now the About window says "Boot Camp Version 2.0".

I hope that we will just use Apple Software Update in Windows to get new Drivers. There will be a way to extract the newest drivers.

I don't use VMware so I'm not sure about that.

 

Hey guys, its been a while since I've posted here but I have a question regarding Boot Camp 1.4 (beta). I read in some web sites that the beta would stop working at the end of the month for 1.4 beta users, and so I'm worried that I absolutely have to upgrade to Leopard just to continue to use Boot Camp. Does anyone have any clear information on this? Where is the ability to purchase Boot Camp by itself? I thought I read somewhere a while back that Apple was going to allow people to purchase it separately from Leopard...

 

First of all, only the Boot Camp Utility expires, not the Windows partition. So your Windows won't suddenly stop working, but you won't be able to open up the Boot Camp Utility to update drivers or repartition your hard drive anymore.

So in short, yes, you will need to upgrade to Leopard eventually if you want the latest drivers and to repartition your hard drive, etc. Its a good idea to do so, and Leopard surely is a worthy upgrade to Tiger anyways.

As for the ability to purchase Boot Camp for Tiger...I did have this up on the guide before, due to a report that seemed pretty accurate. But considering there hasn't been any news of it for months and Apple hasn't made any announcement that Boot Camp will be available for Tiger, I've taken down that note. Don't expect Boot Camp to be available on Tiger, it seems Apple's advertising it as a Leopard feature.

 

Groovy, for a minute there I thought there was some hidden timer thingy running in the background just waiting to kill my Windows partition at a moments notice. I am looking forward to getting Leopard soon when I have the time to clean out my system.

Thanks Sam, breathing a sigh of relief here.

 

Has anyone here actually tried to run Parallels 3.0 and VMFusion 1.1 using the same Boot Camp partition and still able to boot natively?

I have a MacBook Pro with 2Gb RAM and run Windows XP Pro with no problems through Boot Camp on Tiger 10.4.10. I have been running Parallels 2.5 off of the BC partition for a while but am very unhappy with how it slows down my Mac, especially with PShop, InDesign and Illustrator (all CS2, non-UB). I also want to run Lightwave and maybe SoftImage XSI so I hear that Parallels 3.0 might be better due to (limited) Open GL support. Don't know if DirectX support helps with 3D apps. One of the other main reasons I am using Windows is to run Quicken 2007.

So, I would like to sample both Parallels 3.0 and Fusion 1.1 since they both have trials but I am afraid of hosing my Boot Camp partition and having to start from scratch. Any experiences to share or links to other threads?

Thanks!

 

Small question from me, does anyone know if it is possible to resize the Windows partition? I have realised that 32gb isn't really enough room given the rather large size of games these days.

 

It's possible, but not recommended. The best option is probably to reformat and reinstall Windows. In Leopard you can use Disk Utility to resize partitions on-the-fly though I'm not sure how reliable this is. There was another thread on this topic recently, Partitioning my MBP - What tools/how?

 

Ahh I see, thanks. I've been planning on reformatting my Windows partition and putting XP on rather than Vista, might give it a try then. I do like Vista, just I'd rather have a bit of extra gaming performance.

Also, a quick question: Parallels or Fusion? It's hard to find an up-to-date verdict on the two. Right now I'm using the release candidate thing of Fusion from their website, but I'm curious as to whether Parallels is better or not.

 

I don't use either. Boot Camp Windows only for me. I've tried both Parallels Desktop and Fusion and was unimpressed. Especially with Vista, you really need more than 2GB of RAM. You can try both for free to see for yourself though.

Parallels Desktop for Mac
VMware Fusion

Occasionally I use CrossOver Mac. You can try that too for free.

If you're going to game in Windows on a Mac there is no substitute for Boot Camp at the moment. Any if you want to run a few Windows programs in OS X I think CrossOver is more suitable than virtualization if your program is compatible. Or even look into Darwine for a free alternative. I'm sure someone else has a different opinion to share?

 

If you use or plan to use an external hard drive, I would advise against using Parallels. If your external drive is connected and powered on and you attempt to start Parallels, it won't boot your Windows partition. If you start up your virtual machine and then turn on the external drive, Parallels will lock up. This is an issue that Parallels knows about, and they have some kind of solution for it, but it's very cryptic and involves editing some low-level configuration files.

I'm trying VMWare, and it works much better. I only use virtualization for running MS Office from my Windows partition, and so far so good.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm trying out Fusion now. With Vista Ultimate it is a bit slow, but still perfectly usable.
I only really use it to grab files of my Vista partition or maybe do a bit of light 3D modelling, but for anything remotely intensive like rendering or gaming (especially Crysis... ) I find myself rebooting into Windows natively. Thanks for the feeback though.

 

Hi, I was just wandering is there any way to run only windows on a mac?

 

There probably is a way, but its not going to be easy. The easiest way to do it would be to use Boot Camp and just resize the Mac OS X partition to 5 GB and leave the rest to Windows .

 

Thanks for the reply! So will windows run to its full potential? Like will everything that works on say a dell with vista be the same with the mac?

 

Yes, everything that runs in Windows normally will run on Windows on a Mac .

 

Straaaaaaate I'm definitely getting one now! so can you do it just like a dual boot with vista and xp? then just resize the partion on mac osx to 5gb? Oh yeh and how does Photoshop CS3 run on mac?

 

If your main concern is Photoshop and other software like that, you would want to keep OS X around, because the Mac versions run like crazy on it. Faster and more reliable. You should consider it

I mean, if your work consists of Adobe suite, it's a pity to rule out the best operating system

 

Well I'm only 15 so its not exactly work as such! However the 5 main programs I currently use on vista are:

1) Firefox with extensions (is that possible)
2) Itunes (coverflow runs sooo slow on vista)
3) AIM
4) Photoshop CS3
5) Office 2007

Is mac osx faster than vista? maybe then I wont have to buy 4gb of ram!

 

Well, Firefox (yes, extensions work in OS X), iTunes, Photoshop and iChat (for AIM) is all available for OS X, and iTunes works even better in OS X (faster, smoother).

As for Office, there is Office for Mac, and the next version is being released in early next year, known as Office for Mac 2008 and it is the equivalent to Office 2007 for Windows.

 

These programs will definitely run faster on OS X.

 

Alright thanks guys, I'm defiantly sold on using mac leopard! is it true you can upgrade from max osx 10 to leopard for cheap?

 

If you bought your Mac on or after October 1st of this year you can get a Leopard upgrade disc for $9.95. Check this site for more details: http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

 

Great to hear! Anyways, if you get a Mac now, it will already have Leopard pre-installed, if not there should be a Leopard upgrade disc included in the package. If you bought a Mac after October 1st (Leopard was released on October 26th), you can get Leopard for "free" plus the cost of shipping (so that's $10 for Leopard).

And if not, you can purchase Leopard (full version) for $129 anywhere.