Anyone use a MacBook Pro and ONLY running Windows?

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Hey guys, I've been reading the forum for a bit now and tried to find this discussed, but couldn't find anything.

Is anyone strictly running Windows 7 only (or for the most part) on a Mac?

I am in the market for a new laptop, and the style and features of the MBP have caught my eye. Love the backlit keyboard, size, feel, etc.

I need to run Windows primarily for my work, and would have little need for anything else. I plan on keeping Snow Leopard installed, but doubt it will get much use.

Anyone else doing anything similar and experiencing any problems or inconveniences? From what i've seen most of the heating, right-click, backlight, and other problems have been corrected with new updates of BootCamp.

Would I have any problems using an external HD, or does anyone foresee any problems I might experience?

Is this even a practical solution? I would like to have access to both OS', but again, 90% of the time would be running Windows 7.

Appreciate the help!
 
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Also want to ask - would I have any problem running bootcamp/Win7 and hooking up an external monitor via the mini-port?
 
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Hey,

First of all, you cannot run BootCamp from an external HDD. However, you CAN run Win7 on a virtual machine using something like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (I'd recommend Fusion, just from personal experiences) on an external HDD.

Here:

1. Format your external drive (Mac OS Extended - Journaled) as a boot drive.
2. Install OS X (Leopard or Snow Leopard)
3. Install Parallels v5.0 or VMWare Fusion v3.0 (or possibly VirtualBox although I've never tried it on an external drive)
4. Install Windows 7 as a virtual machine (using VMWare Fusion or Parallels)


Also, you will have no problems hooking up a monitor.

:)
 
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If you're going to run Windows primarily, why not just get a Windows 'book? The point of getting Apple is to get the software. If you're willing to spend $1500 or more on a MacBook just because you like how it looks...

... I've got some ocean front property out in Arizona that you'd love.
 
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Kind of a waste of good hardware, but yes you can run Windows 99% of the time via Bootcamp on any Intel-based Apple hardware. Just follow the Bootcamp instructions on Apple's website. I'd imagine you will want to update some of the Windows drivers once all of the Bootcamp drivers are installed. Many people seem to go out and grab the latest NVIDEA drivers for gaming. Obviously, whatever OS's you are planning to boot from should be installed on the internal HDD as it would be incredibly slow running from an external drive. The external monitor will work fine controlled by the Windows 7 OS, just like a laptop from any other manufacturer. Good luck, but you might consider playing with Mac OS X once you are up and running. Many people prefer it to Windows after a few tries.
 

Raz0rEdge

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If you're willing to fork over the money for the MBP, then there are some very nice Lenovo and HP laptops that are just as powerful and would cost you less..

If you're going to run Windows through Bootcamp, I believe there is a limit on how big of a Windows partitions (32GB?) that you can have and so on..

Personally, I think running Windows on a Mac is OK for that occasional software/task that absolutely requires Windows, but if you're going to use it primarily, you're better of with a regular Windows laptop..

Regards
 
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Actually I generally run windows on my MBP... probably 95% of the time. For me it was because the lightly used MBP was cheaper than a equal windows laptop with a high end graphics card... but you have to know what you are getting into.

To correct what others have said, there is no 32GB limit for the size of your windows partition in bootcamp... You can allocate nearly all the hard drive to windows if you want to, which I would encourage you to do, not because you will never use the OS X but because Snow leopard can access the NTFS partition and use the windows hard drive while Windows will not be able to access the Mac partition (by access I mean read and write).

You will have no right mouse button because Steve Jobs is a button-aphobe, so you have to do a little figure gymnastics to for the right clicks that windows relies so heavily on.

But if you just want one for windows it will work perfectly for that.... In fact I have had better luck with Windows on my macbook than I have with snow leopard... for whatever reason I've had to do a re-install of snow leopard twice now because the OS corrupted itself somehow.. and windows side has been error free.
 

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Actually I generally run windows on my MBP... probably 95% of the time. For me it was because the lightly used MBP was cheaper than a equal windows laptop with a high end graphics card... but you have to know what you are getting into.

To correct what others have said, there is no 32GB limit for the size of your windows partition in bootcamp... You can allocate nearly all the hard drive to windows if you want to, which I would encourage you to do, not because you will never use the OS X but because Snow leopard can access the NTFS partition and use the windows hard drive while Windows will not be able to access the Mac partition (by access I mean read and write).

Boot Camp 3.0 adds read accessibility to the Mac partition while running Windows. Additionally, there is Read/Write support for NTFS built into 10.6, but it has to be done through a change in the Terminal. Alternatively, you can use MacFUSE/NTFS3G or Paragon NTFS to do the same, with more robust support.

The 32GB limit that is often spoken of is artificially enforced by Windows for FAT32 partitions. In reality, FAT32 can support partition sizes into the TB range. But for best performance, you'll want NTFS - and with Paragon NTFS it's completely seamless both in OS X and in Windows, since Paragon has added full HFS+ read/write support in Windows.

You will have no right mouse button because Steve Jobs is a button-aphobe, so you have to do a little figure gymnastics to for the right clicks that windows relies so heavily on.

Enable two finger tapping in Boot Camp control panel in Windows and you'll have a right mouse button just as you would in OS X.

But if you just want one for windows it will work perfectly for that.... In fact I have had better luck with Windows on my macbook than I have with snow leopard... for whatever reason I've had to do a re-install of snow leopard twice now because the OS corrupted itself somehow.. and windows side has been error free.

Probably because the partition size is so limited. OS X is generally rock solid with 20% of the volume's size available.
 
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Boot Camp 3.0 adds read accessibility to the Mac partition while running Windows. Additionally, there is Read/Write support for NTFS built into 10.6, but it has to be done through a change in the Terminal. Alternatively, you can use MacFUSE/NTFS3G or Paragon NTFS to do the same, with more robust support.

That's good to know I haven't used the latest version of bootcamp and was basing my answer of the previous version.

Enable two finger tapping in Boot Camp control panel in Windows and you'll have a right mouse button just as you would in OS X.
I'm aware that you can do the two finger tapping, but doing it is not as good as having a right mouse button when you are doing some graphic work because it will often result in your mouse moving slightly from where you are when you need to click on the right mouse button... to me if you can't simply click a right mouse button its finger gymnastics.


Probably because the partition size is so limited. OS X is generally rock solid with 20% of the volume's size available.

On that I have do disagree, the macbook that has been so finicky with snow leopard and solid with Windows is my daughter which is partitioned with near identical space for both Mac and Windows... so size doesn't seem to be the problem. In fact she is at the moment stuck using the windows side only because failure number 3 happened a few weeks ago and I have not taken the time to reinstall snow leopard on it... if she keeps using the Windows on that machine and stops asking for the Mac side I'll likely just leave her macbook as a windows only machine.
 
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As for myself... I use my MBP's OS10.5.8 partition 50% of the time strictly for music production BKA Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) (Logic 9 Pro, Ableton Live 8, Traktor DJ, NI FM8, ChickenSystems MV Kit Creator, Recycle 2.1).
The Win XP SP2 partition I use the other 50% strictly for work (Office 2007, Adobe 9 Pro, CAC card reader programs).
Using a Mac is trully the best of both worlds!:Cool:
 

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