windows on a macbook

so i can get parallels and a copy of windows for next to nothing from my school, and i want to do it but i am skeptical. I want to run CAChe (aka Scigress), chemistry software that is currently unavilable for the mac which retails for a ton of cash, but again my school will give me for free

some questions:

1) is parallels > boot camp?
2) can i get virus that would effect osx via the windows?
3) how does it work, will it slow my computer, do i boot one os at a time? is it complicated

anything else i need to know? tips/expectations would be greatly appreciated.

1)Ok first of parallels and Boot camp are different thing.

Bootcamp is Apple's software that lets you run Windows on you machine.

Parallels is from another company that lets you run windows in OS X. So Windows runs in OS X.

Basically bootcamp is either OSX or Windows and Parallels is Windows in OS X.

2)No.

3)Well it can be slow and I recommend more RAM (4GB is good). It runs like program in OS X. It is basically virtual windows machine in OS X. It is all pretty easy and there must be guides online.

Just a more geeky response

FWIW - I'm really new to the whole Mac scene, but I'm a Windows geek for a living.

Boot camp partitions your hard drive so you can either boot into Windows (or any other OS) or into OS-X. It's an either-or situation.

I've got boot camp running Windows Vista.

Parallels is a Virtual Machine which you run on top of OS-X. The really funky thing about that is you can share data between the machines since both are running simultaneously.

I've got Windows XP running in Parallels.

In either case, you'd need an install disk for whichever OS you wanted to run. Bootcamp requires at least XP SP2 to install.

Good luck!

- BCB.

so if i wanted to use windows only to run one program, a chemistry modeling and predicting software, i might want to use boot camp so that it will run quicker?

which is better/easier for a mac relative noob to use

It might run quicker or it might run the same. If you have Parallels or Fusion, you can run it while doing other stuff on your Mac at the same time, and won't have to reboot. You can download a free trial of Parallels - why not just give it a try (since you can get a copy of Windows anyway) and see what works better for you? I wouldn't say either is "easier," except that Boot Camp installs can really trip up the unwary -- its no simple thing mucking about with your hard drive. I personally prefer the virtual machine route but the preference is really user- and application-specific.

cheers

Being a complete mac neophyte, I can't say which would be better for your application.

From a pure performance standpoint, I'd say the bootcamp route would be better, as its resources are not shared at all.

The Parallels partition would be shared resources between running OS-x and Windows, plus whatever other applications were running.

If Scigress was a really resource hungry app, Bootcamp would probably be your better choice, as Windows would be the only OS running, rather than (at a minimum) OS-X, Windows, and Scigress.

That's my opinion, anyway.

- BCB.

My two cents: I am relatively new to macs. I installed parallels on my MBP so that I could run a couple of programs. It is great, and easy to use. I did after a while upgrade my ram to 4 gig. That cost less than 50 bucks.