Best app to run windows

Hi All,

First post for me so I hope I have posted this in the correct spot.

I am seriously contemplating the jump to a 15" macbook pro but I need Windows for a lot of work related stuff (and I actually do like Windows 7 too ).

I see there are a few different options for running Windows on Mac like Parallel, VMWare fusion and bootcamp. What is the best option out of these? (Or any better suggestions)

Thanks all for your help
Steve

1. Bootcamp
2. Parallels 7 (According to Ars Technica)
3. VMWare Fusion 4

Please read:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ru...4239-running-windows-mac-switchers-guide.html

The guide is a bit dated, but the main points are still valid.

And I would say that no matter how much lipstick and mascara they apply, Parallels is still less robust than VMWare.

Bootcamp will be the best option if you want native hardware support in terms of Windows it not sharing the hardware with OSX (as in Parallels or VMWare). It does require you to reboot into Windows and reboot back to OSX. It is a dual booting environment. This is the style I use and love it. Win7 runs super fast on my MBP.

Parallels and VMWare are virtualized installations of Windows. They share hardware with OSX as you first boot into OSX then run Parallels/VMWare and boot up a virtual copy of Windows. Both OS's will be running slower.

I also have a question about VMWare and Parallels. I am running Lion with Windows 7 Bootcamp. Will either VMWare or Parallels allow me to boot up my Bootcamp partition while I am still in Lion? There are some tasks that will run fine in virtualized hardware and I dont want to have to reboot every time.

Deckyon said:

I also have a question about VMWare and Parallels. I am running Lion with Windows 7 Bootcamp. Will either VMWare or Parallels allow me to boot up my Bootcamp partition while I am still in Lion? There are some tasks that will run fine in virtualized hardware and I dont want to have to reboot every time.

Click to expand...

Both products will let you boot into a Boot Camp partition as a VM. There are some limitations and things like suspend/resume are slower or not supported, depending on the version. And of course, you can't dynamically resize the disk like you can with a full VM.