Boot camp or VMware: which is best?

Ok, I have read many posts on here, but really none answer this question.

If I have a new MBPro with Leopard (which comes with Bootcamp), and a purchased copy of VMware, I have two choices in how to run WinXP. I know this.

My question is which one works best in terms of being able to customize and allocate RAM?

I guess the short question is which one works best?

I have VMware on my iMac and it worked great with Windows XP until I started to update Windows with all the SPs (i.e. 2 and 3 really slowed it down).

Thoughts?

Sorry, but I believe I got my answer from a post just under this one that graphics intensive programs perhaps are better for Bootcamp vs VM. I only use one program for VM and it is text intensive, no graphics.

VM Ware has a setting to allocate the RAM to your virtual machine, among other tweaks. In Boot Camp, you get the whole thing but can't run OSX at the same time.

Cheers

Macaflan said:

If I have a new MBPro with Leopard (which comes with Bootcamp), and a purchased copy of VMware, I have two choices in how to run WinXP. I know this.

My question is which one works best in terms of being able to customize and allocate RAM?

I guess the short question is which one works best?

I have VMware on my iMac and it worked great with Windows XP until I started to update Windows with all the SPs (i.e. 2 and 3 really slowed it down).

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I'm going to suggest that you may not be asking the best question.

If you setup your Mac to run Windows with Boot Camp...then you will be booting into Windows just like a PC.

VMware is a program that allows you to run windows "WITHIN" the Mac OS....and not have to reboot your Mac if you run Windows with Boot Camp.

If your desire is to run Windows within the Mac OS (without rebooting)...then your question should be...is VMware or Parallels better (Parallels is another program that allows to run Windows within the Mac OS).

I hope this helps. If not...do a Google search for VWware & Parallels to learn more.

- Nick

Also be aware that VMware can only access 1 CPU while Parallels and Fusion can access up to 4. So if you are doing CPU intensive work, you might want to try a different emulator or use Boot Camp.

-Yolande

oops - scratch my comment. there is a freeware VM that only runs on one CPU. I realize that you are talking about VMware Fusion which can run on up to 4 CPU. Parallels can run on up to 8 CPU I believe. Sorry for the confusion.

-Y