Windows on Mac?

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Hi! I'm trying to work at home, and the position I'm applying to requires that I have Internet Explorer whereas another requires I have at least Windows Vista. Someone told me about something called "parallel" where it gives me windows on my mac. Does anyone have any more info on this? Will this allow me to have internet explorer as well? And also, one of the positions does a diagnostic check of your computer and anti-virus software is required. Will it come up that my macbook has anti-virus protection? Sorry, this whole mac vs. pc thing confuses me! Thanks in advance!
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MacBook Pro|15" Hi-Res Anti-Glare|2.2 GHz quad i7|4GB RAM
You can use either Parallels or VMware Fusion to run a virtual machine on your Mac. With either of these two programs you can run Windows. You can also run Windows specific applications, without having to run the entire Windows OS. As for more information on how the products work exactly, I recommend browsing information offered on their respective websites. You shouldn't have a problem running Windows on your Mac as long as you have an Intel based machine with about 2 GB of RAM. The more RAM the better, but 2 GB works for me!

Bootcamp is also an option, but the main difference between Parallels and Fusion is that Bootcamp installs Windows into a partition on your hard drive, and in order to use Windows via Bootcamp you must restart your machine every time.

If you need anti-virus software for Windows, you have many options. For Mac, I recommend ClamXAV.

I would use Bootcamp, as it will essentially turn your Mac into both an OSX machine and a Windows machine. Parallels and Fusion will just make your Mac run Windows within OSX. If anyone else can help to answer, please do! This stuff is just off the top of my head.
 
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If you are just using Explorer in Windows running a virtual machine will be much simpler than rebooting every time you want to use it. VirtualBox from Sun is free, and both parallels and fusion have 30-day free trials. Either way you need to purchase a version of Windows.

Also, for anti-virus, you will need one on any Windows install and Microsoft Security Essentials is both free and works pretty well.

Please read the Switcher's Guide sticky above which will answer most of your questions.

Cheers
 

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