Boot Camp or VMWare?

Sorry if this has been covered before but my search didn't come up with any answers....I'm currently running Vista Home Premium using Boot Camp on a 2.4ghz 15" MBP and it gets extremely hot on the bottom. I would also like to be able to use more of the Mac features.

My questions are:

1. is there much speed difference in how Vista runs if I use VMWare instead of Boot Camp?

2. will the MBP run any cooler using VMWare?

3. it was mentioned in another thread that you can use your existing Boot Camp partition as your VM...is this correct and if so how do you do it?

4. if I use VMWare, can I still reboot and go directly into native Vista?

5. Lastly, would it be better to wait until Leopard comes out to make any changes like this?

Thanks in advance for your help....

VMware allows for Windows to be emulated in OS X, and we all know that emulation leads to performance drops. Fortunately, both VMware and Parallels are mature products and Windows essentially runs at native speed in a virtual machine, albeit with a lack of 3D graphics support (well, not entirely, VMware supports up to DirectX 8).

Now, I don't know what your system specs are, but if you don't have that much memory (say only 1GB of RAM), then you'll notice a slowdown in both OS X and Windows for obvious reasons. Things work just peachy when you have 2GB or more. So if that's the case with you, expect little to no performance drops.

Can't say whether it'll run cooler. Depends on what sort of load you put on the system when running Windows within OS X. Anything that spikes the CPU utilization will ramp up the heat.

I'm not exactly sure whether VMware allows you to virtualize a Boot Camp partition, but I'm definitely sure Parallels allows it. Then again, I only have marginal experience with VMware, so perhaps somebody else can give a more definitive answer.

Having virtualization software in no way affects your Boot Camp partition. So you will be able to boot into it, no problem.

The only benefit Leopard will really provide is a final version of Boot Camp. But since it's a pretty robust program already, the most you can expect from the final version are better drivers, which leads to better stability.

Thanks Kash. I have 2g of RAM and dont run any 3D stuff so I guess the performance won't be bad.

Another question: What is the difference between Parallels and VM Fusion?

Thanks again...

Why are you bothered about it getting hot? It won't do any harm and laptops are now called notebooks because they are no longer designed to be suitable for use on your lap.

I have a Boot Camp partition with XP, and use VM Ware to access it within OS X. You can select how much system resources your virtual machine can access (I set mine to 1 CPU core and 512MB RAM because I only use Windows for... well, so far I've only used it to uninstall the U3 thing on my flash drive and register my machine on the university network), so that, along with what you're doing in OS X will affect speed.

When you start VM Ware it will display your Boot Camp partition as an available virtual machine, so it's really simple to set up.

I've used Parallels briefly and I really prefer VM Ware, and the "Unity" mode seems a lot better than Parallels' "Coherence" mode. Saying that Parallels does have some nice features too. See if you can try them both and see what you prefer.

Don't worry about it getting too hot, you are using an all aluminum computer so any heat generated will be pulled directly to the case, it's going to get warm. As long as your processor doesn't get much over 70C you have nothing to worry about. As for VMware VS Parallels both are great. I use parallels myself but there is nothing wrong with VMware. It's really just a matter of personal preference. Download both and try them out. Good luck!

Yes VmWare can use your Bootcamp partition - just follow the directions you'll download along with VMWare - think it was on page 11.

You'll have to re-register windows the first time you open it in VMWare and again the first time you boot back into the Bootcamp partition - at least I did with XP Pro - MS didn't give me a hassle, but I did have to make the phone call rather than being allowed to do it online in VMWare.

Have only done the trial period in both of them myself and continue using BootCamp when I need Windows. And quite a period of time apart - when I tried Parallels they still had no support for the DVD drive which made it useless for my purposes. Probably will not purchase either one until after upgrade to Leopard myself and then will give both of them a shot again.