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

Hey everyone. I'm a PC dude thinking about going to Mac land. Infact I'm almost certain I'll be running OSX in the next 24 hours. But I do have one thing I want to be clear on before I drop $2000. I need to run windows programs too, so boot camp will be helpful. Anyways, I've been out of the loop for awhile with Mac's. So once I install windows with boot camp, will I be able to run any windows program? Are there still glitches that come up in games or other programs?

I know its a very noobish question, but I figured I would ask anyway. might aswell be clear before I spend all my moola. thanks in advance.

 

You can run any Windows application using Boot Camp. Windows would effectively run natively on the hardware, for max performance.

Enjoy your upcoming Mac!

 

my MBP has handled everything Ive thrown at it so far through xp, overclocking on driver 169.09 working great here

 

Yeaps, anything that runs on Windows will run on the Mac running Windows via Boot Camp . Consider it just like any other PC at that point.

 

A small review of attempting to play a directx9 game in OS X:

I just tried the current VMWare Fusion 30-day trial (1.1.1 I think it is). My only interest in Windows is running EverQuest so I had a go. I used my existing boot camp partition (XP Pro SP2) as the virtual machine. Worth mentioning here is that EQ does not require much cpu, but does want a lot of RAM. VRAM I am actually rather uncertain about, you don't need much of it but it probably helps.

To my amazement EQ did start up (great success given my previous tries with Parallels), but was excruciatingly slow even with plenty of RAM allocated to it. Directx9 is still not fully supported but enough of it is to run the game at least. I could move around, though with extremely choppy graphics. Some minor issues with text (font thing possibly, though it was only certain characters, including a few capital letters), and textures (that'd be the not-yet-full-support of directx9), but those could have been ignored if the speed had been better. Right-click didn't work either, which was more of a bother. I was told to try ctrl+click so I'll see if that works next.

As I said, only a small review. It's a step up from previous attempts, but Boot Camp is still the only way for me at the moment (which works perfectly, I might add - I just hate having to reboot to Windows to play EQ). Still waiting for someone to step up and make it work...

I know CrossOver is working on it, so once they release the next version that might be the one to try. Parallels were nowhere close last time I tried unfortunately.

 

using fraps EQ maxs out at 60 for me 1440x900

 

I'm having an issue running Windows in VM Fusion. The issue is when I "control" and click within Windows itself. This would be done to select certain choices within a dialog box. When I do this however, I get a right click (as Mac's right click when "control" and the mouse button are clicked. Anyway to get around this? I must be doing something wrong. One of the programs I use for my job requires me to control click within Windows... Thanks for any help you can provide me with...

 

Yes, there is a way around this. You can open up the VMWare preferences window (command + comma, I think) and uncheck the "Use Mac OSX keyboard shortcuts" (or something like it). There is also an option for Mac OSX shortcuts that you can disable while using virtual machines with it as well.

 

Forgive me if this has been addressed elsewhere, but I'm setting up my MBP to run VMWARE Fusion and the Windows XP CD that I have is a Dell customization CD so I can't upgrade it to SP2 for Fusion. A buddy can set up a virtual machine image with SP2 windowns and burn it onto a CD for me. Anyone know of any compatibility issues with this set up? I can fork over money for a SP2 version of XP, but I'm really tired of giving more money to Bill Gates.

Thanks,

John

 

Unfortunately, as much you as may dislike Microsoft, you have to use a proper Windows license if you want to use Windows. So you can get Windows XP SP2 from the shelves if they're still there, or use an OEM copy of Windows, but if it is a manufacturer OEM such as Dell, it is not legal to use that for running Windows on another computer other than Dell.

So sorry, you have to use a un-restricted OEM license or just a Windows license in general .

 

Sticky Update

Microsoft no longer requires users who want to use Windows Vista virtually to get a business or Ultimate version of Vista. Now, Home Premium can also run Windows Vista virtually .

 

Seems like Microsoft is desperate to increase Vista sales... Vista is cool, but requires some getting used to. Leopard on the other hand about 30 minutes to get used to the basics. Vista, 30 days.

 

Sticky Update

As with the Mac Switcher's Guide, I've added a banner to the introduction, just to spice things up .

 

I have run it just fine on my mbp w/ 8600 and 2.4 c2d

used it a lot but I was also using updated drivers from video2go

I do not know how it works on the stock drivers but it was smooth enugh that I dont expect you to see any performance loss on the stock drivers

and as a comparision, I ran it on my bolth my desktops, one of which is a intel 1.8gig pentuim d with 1 gig ram and a 6800 video card and it also ran perfectly.

your internet connection will have more of an effect on it then you system will

also bolth the desktop and laptop where running it on wifi connections, laptop connected at N and desktop connected at G

 

I did a search for "partiton size" but didn't find much. I'd like to know, how large the partition for OS X has to be for a) the OS itself (without the trials) plus b) Final Cut Express plus c) a couple of fun stuff/tools (approx' 1 gig). The reasoning is, that I intend/need to install Vista for several purposes and need to create two partitions for it, ~40-45 gigs for the OS and another 10 for another partition. If this could be done through Fusion as well that would be worth a thought for me.

Next thing: can I choose the partitions size when running Bootcamp, for the one for OS X and the other one(s) for XP/Vista/whatever, and/or create more than one new partition in the same course and have them formatted with the file system of my choice in one go?

Another question, related to the first: can an intel-Mac boot off of a bootable non-Mac-CD/DVD like the one you get when buying a copy of Acronis? This question may sound incredibly ignorant, but since there is no BIOS but EFI instead (which is far superior und should have been the standard for years on all platforms, as far as I've read/understood so far), I thought, maybe the Mac's EFI only allows for special Mac/EFI conform CDs/DVDs, which is one of the things Bootcamp does take care for in that it writes a special bootsector when you set up a Windows OS through it, no?

Again, sorry for my blatant ignorance, I'm new to the Mac stuff in this regard.

EDIT: My Mac came two days ago and I just went ahead and installed Fusion. After setting up a Vista VM, I just used Vista's integrated option of resizing the partition, which went fine. I can store files to the newly created partition and the whole setup already survied many restarts of the VM. I still would like to know how huge the partition for Leopard has to be for the system itself and Final Cut Express. I'd be going to use the integrated program of OS X to resize the single partiton that my Mac's harddrive came with.

 

One big 7000th post .

 

I have a similar question if someone can help. I just got the Air with the 80GB HD. After installing my files etc i have 52GB left. Now i want to install Vista Premium via boot camp. Will 20GB be good enough to run Vista with Excel and word installed as well ? I dont plan on add many files to the vista partion so i want to make sure this will be good ?
Im new to mac so im still learning , thanks all

 

Vista in general recommends 40 GB of disk space but if all you will be doing is working with Microsoft Office then 20 GB should be ok as well. Vista might complain that 40 GB is the minimum but it shouldn't stop you from installing it.

 

Great, thanks.
Ill bump it to 25GB just in case.

 

25 should be enough. If it doesn't torpedo your requirements, I'd suggest thinking about installing Vista to an external harddrive. I did that (with Fusion) and it boots/runs really fast, no problem so far. It's a 160 GB/5400 rpm SATA-drive (Hitachi), connected via USB (FireWire would be even nicer though).

 

Hi,

I have a few questions regarding MacBook Pro 15,4":

1) I believe that Mac OSX is great user friendly OS. I can install Windows XP or Vista via BootCamp or use Parallels or VMware also, bu can I delete OSX partition after this to save diskspace if I will be use only Vista ? Bootcamp is a part OSX on HDD or on Flash memory (EFI BIOS) ? Do I need to make a copy of Leopard OSX or image partition ?
2) Can I install Windows XP on MacBook Pro?
3) Can I savely use Windows software (MS Office) under Windows (BootCamp) on MacBook Pro ?
4) Which windows emulation software is better - Parallels or VMware (can I use Matlab, Mathcad, AutoCAD PSpice without irrtating issues) ?

Thanks,

 

You can delete the OS X partition safely, but good luck updating your firmware without it. Apple do not provide any way to upgrade it outside of their OS.

Yes, and it most likely win run better than Vista.

Perfectly fine. Running windows in boot camp is exactly the same as any other Windows based machine.

Virtualisation is not a good idea for running 3D applications. They may not run at all, and when they do it will be dog slow. Use boot camp if you need to do any actual work.

 

Has anyone upgraded from Parallels 2.5 to 3.0? Any issues with that? I'm thinking of upgrading my version on my MBP, but since its running fine and I use it for work, I dont want to risk any mess ups

 

I'm not sure its possible to wipe out the Mac OSX partition. In fact, I'd keep the bare minimum space needed for it, which is around 5 - 10 GB. You never know if you'll need it to update the firmware for you Mac.

Yes. It will work perfectly and incredibly fast once you install the boot camp drivers in Windows XP. Just yesterday I decided to put Vista back on again, since Service Pack 1 is now available for the masses. It is just as good as XP is in most things and good driver support is there (finally).

{Edit}
One other thing, if you decided on putting Vista in, the 32-bit edition is well supported, but there are some guides on what to do if you choose to go the 64-bit route.
{/Edit}

Yes. Microsoft Office will work very well in both the virtual world and under boot camp.

Lots of people claim VMWare Fusion runs a lot better than Parallels. I use VMWare Fusion for my stuff. However, as Lysander said, 3D graphics apps might suffer greatly when running virtually. Also, it helps to have additional memory installed. 4 GB of memory can be had for about $100 (or much, much less) these days.

 

Yes I know that I can 3D under virtualization is extremely slow. I am going to use only CAD electronic software to simulate electronic circuits and make some calculations. I received on monday my XPS1530 with LED screen, but there is a small dot on LCD screen so I must to return it and buy MacBook Pro 15.4" with VMware Fusion and maybe Apple Care (1 year warranty for such expensive product is some kind of joke from Steven Jobs )

I have some technical questions (maybe this is not a place to post it):

- can I use a Microsoft Wireless Mouse Notebook with my Macbook Pro under OSX ?

- can I also replace my HDD in Macbook Pro - I bought WD My Passport Elite 320 GB (WDL3200TN) ?

- is any difference between RAM memory to traditional laptop memory and MacBook Pro ?

 

Hi limerro,

- Yes, you can, no problems .

- Technically yes, but Apple can void your warranty for it, so unless you are absolutely sure what you are doing I'd say get an enclosure and just keep that as an external hard drive.

- Nopes! Just get the same type and its fine .

 

I've just installed Boot camp on my MBP. Where do I get the drivers for the hardware devices within XP ?

Is it on the DVDs which came within the box

 

yea. it is.

 

I am thinking of switching to a MBP from my HP but my main concern is running Scottrade Elite which is only available for Windows.. It is an intesive application that pushes my current laptop to the edge.. Mostly due to the graphics card that I have. Two questions:

1) What would be the best way for to run this application on a MBP ??
2) Has anyone run the windows experience feature for Vista to see what rating the MBP delivers?

Thanks!

 

What hardware is in your HP? If it has 1 GB of memory, maybe all you need is to upgrade it to 2 GB.

But if you really want to change to the MBP, and need to run a Windows-only application such as Scottrade Elite, then maybe using VMWare Fusion to run Windows virtually would be the way to go. In my experience, Fusion handles itself very well with Windows XP Professional. But if you choose to run Windows Vista, it might not go so smoothly unless you have 4 GB of RAM on the MBP.

I ran the Windows Experience feature on the MBP using Boot Camp and got a score of 5.2. The weakest link was the hard-drive. But with a score like that it still blazes through stuff. I haven't scored it when running virtually though, but I'll try it out when I get home tonight.

 

Thanks for the quick answer. My HP has 4GB and it still scores a 2.0 on the experience.. Mainly due to slow hard drive and low graphics memory. A 5 is a great score in my world.. Besides I would definately go back to XP pro vs. the vista.. Vista has been nothing but problems so far.

Thanks again!

 

I would definitely recommend Boot Camp for intensive applications over virtualization options like Vmware or Parallels.

Especially if you intend to do any gaming on the laptop.

(I run Palm Desktop and BitPim only so I went with Vmware instead. )

 

Is booting into Windows and/or using virtualizaion a dual option or is it one or the other.. I think I would like the ability to do both depending on what my application is at the time.


Thanks

 

I believe you can do both.

 

Yep. As asmallchild says, you can have the best of both worlds. You could use Boot Camp to setup Windows XP/Vista, and use VMWare Fusion or Parallels to run the Boot Camp version. Then, if you decide that you want the full power of the MBP you can just boot up into the Boot Camp partition for Windows. Or if your in Mac OSX and decide you want to load up Windows, you can use Fusion to load up the Boot Camp partition.

Edit: One more thing... if you install Vista Service Pack 1, you will definitely notice much better performance when running virtually or not.

 

Yes, you can. In fact, that's my recommended method; partition with Boot Camp, direct the software to use the partition.

 

Ok so here we go:

I've got Windows XP Pro 32bit running right now through bootcamp but I've got 4gigs of RAM, and of course, I can see only 3 on a 32bit OS.

Seems as though bootcamp offers drivers for Vista 64bit now ( http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/bootcampupdate21forwindowsvista64.html ), so I was wondering if any of you guys actually installed it.

I don't wanna go buy Vista64, come home, and see that it's not working.

Especially for those of you who have 4gigs of RAM.

Cheers!

 

As pointed out in this thread, that Vista x64 download from Apple is an update to BC 2.0. You can't just install Vista x64 and then the BC 2.1 update. You still need the 2.0 drivers from a Leopard install disc. In that thread, I linked to a discussion on the Apple forums that contained a link to a torrent file that contained said drivers (they were on a Mac Pro install disc).

 

Yes, and the torrent link has been removed by a mod.

 

Not on the Apple forums it wasn't. Check my post in that thread. I only linked to the thread on the Apple boards, and the torrent was still there (just checked about 2 minutes ago).

 

i've a problem with the update. i'm running a fresh WVista x64 Sp1 install, and then i install the macpro drivers, and then when i run the update to 2.1, it appears a windows that says 'windows is preparing the installation' (not in the exact words but you know what i mean), and then nothing happens.. it is just like this? or there is a problem?

 

help please =P

 

How long is it meant to take for a penryn white macbook to install winXP through parallels?

Its up to installing devices stage in winXP and hasnt move in a while

Any ideas?

 

I'm not entirely sure as I did it on a MBP under VMWare Fusion but I remember it being remarkably quick. The whole process took well under an hour and possibly under a half hour.

 

Do you think that VMWare Fusion is better than Parallels?

 

Immeasurably. Trying to run my Boot Camp partition with Parallels was an exercise in frustration and failure. Fusion has been a smooth ride.

 

Seconded. I just run Windows under VMWare Fusion but it has been oh-so-smooth.

Definitely not for gaming but I get very smooth performance with pretty much anything else I throw at it.

 

Is there any way to disable/turn off the touchpad in XP Pro while running it in bootcamp. I use a trackball mouse when typing, and whenever my palm accidentally touches the touchpad, cursor moves in ways I don't want it too.

I know I can set my touchpad to turn off automatically whenever a mouse is used in the MAC OS, but cannot see any way to do that from XP Pro running under bootcamp.

Thanks!

 

After upgrading to 10.5.3, my bootcamp assistant always says: "you have to update your software" when i click the first Continue button....
What should i do -.- ? . I updated everything in Software Update. Still it's a no go....

 

I have a question, that I can't seem to find the answer to...
What 3D graphics card does VMWare and Parallels emulate?
Thanks.