- Joined
- Jun 11, 2007
- Messages
- 484
- Reaction score
- 7
- Points
- 18
- Location
- under a rug
- Your Mac's Specs
- 13" MBP 2.53 DC2, 09 Mini 2.0 DC2, 07 Mini 2.16 DC2, MB 2.0 DC2, iBook G3 900MHz, G4 Sawtooth 1.6Ghz
i had been working on find the best setup to have XP running on my macbook and have been using VMware/Parallels for years now and i decided to sit down and make it how i want it.
i thought i would share what i did here:
specs:
- Aluminum Macbook 2.4 running 10.5.6 with 4GB ram
- VMware Fusion 2.0.1
- XP Performance Edition SP3 which is only 250mb
Vmware settings:
Sharing = complete ability set to read and write on both'
Processor = since i am running a lite version of XP i gave XP only 1 processor with 1048MB of ram
everything else = i pretty much left as default
once i had it all setup i run VMware in unity mode which works great.
System Resources Used:
i have installed iStat Menus so that i can keep an eye on how much this will put on my system resources because my goal is to just run it with XP on all the time.
With the following running all the time on OS X:
- iChat
- Mail
- Address Book
- iCal
- Safari
- VMware
- iTunes
- smcFan Control
- Bluetooth Mouse
i am usually running with:
-almost no noticeable impact on my processors while idle of course. as you can see in the second picture that i was doing some stuff on my other monitor when i took that picture and the temperature and processors were higher.
- smcFan Control set on "Higher Rpm" (usually around 4000 RPM's) i stay between 105F and 150F
- i usually have about 1GB of memory free
- about 3 hours battery life
cool tweaks in XP
to give XP a blended look and not noticeable see a big XP task bar across the bottom of my screen as well as smooth out open XP windows:
in XP
start>control panel>display>appearance
1. change it to Windows Classic style
2. go to the advanced button and you can then change the appearances of your task bar, windows, text in windows etc...
you will have to play around with these until you get what you are looking for. once you have it BE SURE to go back to the "Themes" window in display and save it and name it whatever you want. if you do not then when you restart XP it will go back to default classic and all your work will be lost.
i usually have a darker desktop wallpaper so i made few different them to match my favorite wallpapers.
anyway i will post a picture below and maybe someone will find this useful
i thought i would share what i did here:
specs:
- Aluminum Macbook 2.4 running 10.5.6 with 4GB ram
- VMware Fusion 2.0.1
- XP Performance Edition SP3 which is only 250mb
Vmware settings:
Sharing = complete ability set to read and write on both'
Processor = since i am running a lite version of XP i gave XP only 1 processor with 1048MB of ram
everything else = i pretty much left as default
once i had it all setup i run VMware in unity mode which works great.
System Resources Used:
i have installed iStat Menus so that i can keep an eye on how much this will put on my system resources because my goal is to just run it with XP on all the time.
With the following running all the time on OS X:
- iChat
- Address Book
- iCal
- Safari
- VMware
- iTunes
- smcFan Control
- Bluetooth Mouse
i am usually running with:
-almost no noticeable impact on my processors while idle of course. as you can see in the second picture that i was doing some stuff on my other monitor when i took that picture and the temperature and processors were higher.
- smcFan Control set on "Higher Rpm" (usually around 4000 RPM's) i stay between 105F and 150F
- i usually have about 1GB of memory free
- about 3 hours battery life
cool tweaks in XP
to give XP a blended look and not noticeable see a big XP task bar across the bottom of my screen as well as smooth out open XP windows:
in XP
start>control panel>display>appearance
1. change it to Windows Classic style
2. go to the advanced button and you can then change the appearances of your task bar, windows, text in windows etc...
you will have to play around with these until you get what you are looking for. once you have it BE SURE to go back to the "Themes" window in display and save it and name it whatever you want. if you do not then when you restart XP it will go back to default classic and all your work will be lost.
i usually have a darker desktop wallpaper so i made few different them to match my favorite wallpapers.
anyway i will post a picture below and maybe someone will find this useful