Time machine & Windows help please?

Heya,

New member here - I've just bought myself a MBP 15" (2.4GHz i5) and a 1TB seagate external HDD for backups.

I need to install windows on there too although I'm not sure which version to go for - I have access to legit boot disks of;

Win 7 pro (32 or 64 bit)
Vista Business SP2 (32 bit)
XP pro SP3 (32 bit)

I need it to run Visual Studio 2010 (again, any version - I have all of them!) as I've just started a computing degree and this is a core program for my course! I also need to use Select SSADM but from what I can gather, this doesn't run on Win 7 - tbh though I could live without that one if there's another benefit to running Win7!!!

I've already done a time machine backup to my external, but I wondered if there's a way to partition it so that I can store photo's on there instead of on the MBP and still be able to use the rest for TM?



Lots of questions I know, and probably not the last but any help would be very appreciated!

Muchos gracias!


*edit* Forgot to add - I plan on buying either parallels or fusion, but no idea which would be "better" for me?!!

Time Machine: Yes, you can store data and the TM backup on the same partition. Some folks recommend creating two partitions. But, I've been backing up 2 Macs and a portion of my iTunes music library on a drive with a single partition for 3 years now with no ill effect.

You need to understand, if your photos are only stored on that external drive and it dies, you have lost all your pics.

If a piece of software doesn't work on Windows 7 then Windows 7 is out no? XP is still a fine OS - I still run it on my business system. You could try running windows xp mode in windows 7 for that one program. I would try loading it on 7 directly first though.
Windows 7 Features: Windows XP Mode
Windows 7 is also safer from a malware/virus/installer standpoint as it implemented UAC (and a few other things).

It is best to keep your time machine backup separate from data. You can partition it and assign 1 partition to time machine and the rest to data. That is simple enough to do from disk utility.

Parallels or Fusion both work. I tried fusion again but I still find Parallels 6 to be more responsive than Fusion 3.1.1 Some people here like Fusion better.

Anyway - Go with Windows 7 first and there are plenty of deals to be had on both VMWare and Parallels. I like these guys
VMware Fusion 3 for the Mac - The most seam... (FUS3ENGMCP) at OWC

Note - if you buy 1 other item Parallels is $50 - (if you don't need anything go get a $2 cable)
Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac - Run windows alongs... (PD6FM) at OWC

I had the same setup as Bob actually - I had a TC with music, photos, video and my TM backups. Ran out of room for both - so I moved my TM backup which turned out to be 640GB - not an easy task. Anyway It is because of this that I recommend setting up different partitions so you don't have to move around massive files. If you get a big enough hard drive maybe it is a moot point.