Boot Camp or VMware (virtual machine)

Hey everyone,

I'm currently running VMware on my MBP right now for when I need to use a program designed only for windows but I just bought a new hard drive and i want to know what you guys think is better, virtual machine using VMware or Boot camp to partition the hard drive with both OS's.

I don't use windows VERY MUCH but i just feel that it's "safer" to use boot camp but i could be wrong...i haven't dealt much with virtual machines so i wanted to get some input on what u guys recommend or think is better...=)

Thanks in advance!

Bootcamp is really the way to go for what you want...... your machine won't lag and you won't have the Ram getting sucked up by the VM.

VM or Boot camp

The previous post is correct to a point. But it has its draw backs and depends on what app you need to run in windows.

At start up you have to boot into the windows partition. To use any of the mac apps or files you have to shut down and boot to the mac. With a virtual environment running you can work in both at the same time. Dragging from one to the other.

If you are only running one or two windows app's virtual is the way. Just make sure you have the max amount of ram installed on your machine.

I run Bootcamp, VMware and Parallels on my macbook pro. All run perfectly. I personally prefer Parallels (I'm not plugging it) It just best not to keep the VM running all the time if you are not using it.

The only real hassle is the windows OS and all the time it takes to do anything, patches and security. Don't what ever you do put Vista on. XP is still the most stable and lightest.

I use VMware Fusion and run Windows 7 right in Mac OS. Sure it is not as fast, but it still has a very high efficiency and as long as you allocate 2 GB to the guest OS, and have a fast hard drive or even a Solid State HD, it will fly. Basically as long as you have 4GB of ram on the system, it should be sufficient in most cases to run in VMware or Parallels.

thank u everyone for your input! I thought about it and i'll stick with my virtual machine..only reason being is because i don't heavily use windows...it's basically only for a school math program that is only available in windows.

Thanks for the input everyone!