Boot Camp question

I recently purchased an i5 2.4ghz Macbook Pro, but before I decide to keep it and take it out of the box I have a question about Boot Camp and Parellels.

After playing with Macs vs PCs I fell in love with the ease of use of the interface. I'm not a power user so ease of use is more important to me than upgradeability etc.

However, I have a couple of pc only programs, a pilot logbook program and Quickbooks, that I need to keep. How does the Windows window work if I run BC with Parallels? Am I correct in assuming that it would just be its own 'window' that you can swipe to, but once there the track pad acts like a PC machine? Or do you have to do something else to switch between Mac and Pc programs?

Thanks

Both Parallels and Fusion integrate well within OS X and have a mode which looks and feels like OS X but is actually running Windows programs within a virtual machine. My suggestion is to download a trial version of Parallels and or Fusion and test them out to see which you like best.

Both can run Quickbooks, however, I'm not familiar with the Pilot Logbook program but if it's not anything out of the ordinary (for a Windows program) it too should run well. No dual booting is required since Parallels and Fusion are native OS X applications.

I should also mention that there is free VM software: VirtualBox It's not as frilly or easy to setup as Parallels or Fusion but it may do the job for you and since it's free, you've nothing to lose by trying it.

chscag said:

there is free VM software: VirtualBox It's not as frilly or easy to setup as Parallels or Fusion but it may do the job for you and since it's free, you've nothing to lose by trying it.

Click to expand...

There is also a free version of VMware: VMware Player

You have to create an account with them to get it, but I've never received a single bit of unsolicited marketing from them since doing so.

I'm using it to run the Windows 8 Developer Preview, and it's smooth as silk (ironically, VirtualBox has a Windows 8 setting but can't run it properly on my machine; where as it runs fine in VMware Player using the Windows 7 setting!)

It has the "Unity" setting of Fusion (having apps running via your guest OS in windows on your host OS's desktop), but I'll admit I've not got that to work yet; still, it's another option.

Good luck either way

Thank you for the advice. I apologize for jumping the gun with my post, I have since read the 'Sage Advice' sticky and have learned a lot. It seems I should follow the advice and live with Apple's OS for a while before adding Windows into the mix, If I can keep my aging Dell alive long enough.

I am looking forward to having many more questions to ask as I explore my new laptop.