boot camp or parrellels?

hi, ive just read ur post and was wondering if you could give me some advice, i have just brought a macbookpro, i used bootcamp to install xp as i have programes and files i need to run with office programes, since doing this i have just read about parrelles, was wondering what i should do, should i undo boot camp and just us parrellels as i dont do gaming but i am finding rebooting to switch is a bit of a pain. hopefully u can give me some advice thanks alex

From what you've said, Parallels sounds like the ideal solution. If you main requirement is quick access to Windows apps at the same time as Mac apps, then parallels is your thing. If you want to play games or guarantee 100% resource availability for Windows for performance reasons, then stick with bootcamp.

thanks cazabam would you happen to know how to either get rid off bootcamp and the xp on it and setup parrallels? i would be grateful for any tips or info on how to do this.

If you do a search I'm sure this has been answered. From what I remember, you can run the bootcamp installer and select the 'restore single system partition' option that removes bootcamp and windows, and grows your OS X partition to fill the disk.

cazabam is right. bootcamp will resize your OS X partitoin and overwrite the XP partition (and it does it fairly quickly and painlessly, too).

Before you go to all the work however, check and make sure that paralles will work on your system. I just bought a new Mac Pro and it will not work on it yet...they are still working on that...it may however work on yours, but check before buying it and doing all the work.

James said:

Before you go to all the work however, check and make sure that paralles will work on your system. I just bought a new Mac Pro and it will not work on it yet...they are still working on that...it may however work on yours, but check before buying it and doing all the work.

Click to expand...

Parallels works on everything except the Mac Pro.

I've used both, and I am a *huge* fan of Parallels.

The biggest advantages:

(1) You don't have to reboot to enter the new environment;

(2) You can copy files between OSX and your guest OS (in my case, XP) while both OSes are "live"-- and if you're anything like me, you'll always be going back and forth between the environments;

(3) You can make the guest OS full-screen so you have full access to all the available real estate.

It's the best $40 (I was in the beta program) I've ever spent on my Mac.

I edit our podcast (shameless link in my sig) using Adobe Audition running in the XP environment in Parallels on my MacBook. Sweeeet.

parallels v boot camp - viruses?

sorry for the newbie question - just got my first mac. is there a difference between parrallels and boot camp with regards to my mac acquiring windows based viruses? Do you need virus protection, spyware and firewall for parrallels (if you are not using IE)?

cheers.

big wookie said:

sorry for the newbie question - just got my first mac. is there a difference between parrallels and boot camp with regards to my mac acquiring windows based viruses? Do you need virus protection, spyware and firewall for parrallels (if you are not using IE)?

cheers.

Click to expand...

Whether you're running Windows through Parallels and Boot Camp you can still get viruses. These viruses aren't likely to affect your OS X partition, but it's still a good idea to use virus protection.

AVG offers excellent, free virus protection.

http://free.grisoft.com

thanks for the insight

big wookie said:

sorry for the newbie question - just got my first mac. is there a difference between parrallels and boot camp with regards to my mac acquiring windows based viruses? Do you need virus protection, spyware and firewall for parrallels (if you are not using IE)?

cheers.

Click to expand...

Well, as it was said... NO your Mac cannot get Windows based viruses. :black:

Your Windows installation can, though. That being said, it would be wise to use some sort of antivirus application installed with your Windows installation.

hi everyone im running parrallels now and im finding it really slow dont really know what to do now. its running so slow its rediculous and it also slows my os x down aswell any ideas? also cant get media player to work and dont seem to be able to view and videos in safari gggrrrrr lol

youngbo said:

hi everyone im running parrallels now and im finding it really slow dont really know what to do now. its running so slow its rediculous and it also slows my os x down aswell any ideas? also cant get media player to work and dont seem to be able to view and videos in safari gggrrrrr lol

Click to expand...

Since you only have 512MB of RAM, it's going to take a toll on your computer to run 2 OSes at once. OS X needs 512 to run well by itself, adding Windows to the mix will definitely slow things down. I suggest you buy more RAM and turn down the graphics settings in Windows for better performance.