Bootcamp/parallels - Confused

Hi there,

Im new to the forum so please bear with me. Ive orderd a new imac 27" which will be arriving this week. Ive never owned a mac before but have used them a lot in the work that i do.

As i am now getting my own personal imac i would like to run windows 7 for entertainment i.e some online games such as Warcraft and Lord of the rings online, whilst maintaing a much larger section of my drive for work purposes such as Photo and Video editing.

I have read a lot about bootcamp but seem to keep finding conflicting statements about what works and what doesnt work so i wondering if someone would clear this up for me.

I would like to install windows 7 on my imac - should i use bootcamp or parallels?(for mainly gaming reasons), Will windows 7 OEM work with bootcamp and is it fine to use an OEM edition on a mac?(it is a new purchase oem which has never been used) and lastly if i use bootcamp will it load OSX by default everytime or will i have to select manually (which will annoy my wife if its the case :/ ) I intend to also have an account for me and an account for my wife, will this still work.

Regards,

Welcome to the Mac Forums. And I hope you get years of enjoyment from your new iMac.

I would like to install windows 7 on my imac - should i use bootcamp or parallels?(for mainly gaming reasons), Will windows 7 OEM work with bootcamp and is it fine to use an OEM edition on a mac?(it is a new purchase oem which has never been used) and lastly if i use bootcamp will it load OSX by default everytime or will i have to select manually (which will annoy my wife if its the case :/ ) I intend to also have an account for me and an account for my wife, will this still work.

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Since you stated above that your main purpose for running Windows 7 will be for gaming, you should install it using Boot Camp. When installed that way, Windows 7 will be running natively. Installing it using Parallels or Fusion works well but not for gaming. At least not in the current versions of Parallels or Fusion. And both Parallels and Fusion will cost you additional $ to buy while Boot Camp is free (included with OS X Snow Leopard).

An OEM system builder's version of Windows 7 will work fine but keep in mind that an OEM version of any copy of Windows can not be moved to another machine once it's activated on the current one.

As far as choosing which operating system to boot to upon startup, there are many ways to set that up. The default is to use the OPTION (alt) key by holding it down during startup and then choose which OS to boot to. There are various other ways to do it automatically, some free, some not free. You can tackle that later on after you learn about your new Mac.

And yes, the startup option can be used by all account holders. Just create an admin account for your wife in addition to the one for yourself.

If you have other questions, feel free to use the search function of the forum. Our data base is extensive.

i would recommend boot camp if you want something stable. ive found virtualisation to be quite slow, especially for games.

you can choose the default disk to boot from.


Download BootChamp for Mac - Quickly boot into Windows via Boot Camp. MacUpdate.com
there is a great little app called boot champ that goes in your menubar, which switches to windows without doing the "option key at start up" routine.

i would recommend boot camp if you want something stable. ive found virtualisation to be quite slow, especially for games.

thanks guys,

Sound advice and boot champ sounds like a winner.

Regards,