What is the best way to run Windows on Mac?

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MacBook Pro 13" 2.4ghz i5, 4GB ram, 500GB SATA, OS X Lion 10.7.2 ~ I'm in love!!!
I want to run mostly Mac, but I also want Windows installed because I don't want to purchase all of my commonly used programs all over again...and some of them aren't made for Mac anyways. Any advice?
 
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MacBook Pro 15" 2014, 2.2GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 250GB SSD, OSX 10.9.5 - iPhone 5s 16gb
I'd go for using Bootcamp, it's already installed, easy setup with your Windows disk and doesn't cost you any more.

HTH

- Simon
 
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Depends on the programs, if there mainly light office type programs, then running in a VM such as parallels or a free one like virtual box will suffice If you have games or graphic intensive apps then id go with bootcamp.
 

bobtomay

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Best? It's all relative to a given situation.

Perhaps start here to begin the education needed to find what's 'best' for your needs.
 
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I am a new Mac user of about two months. I am using Fusion to run Windows on my Mac. It works great. I have some programs that are windows only and it runs them fine. I did not try bootcamp because I did not want to reboot as I switch between applications frequently. I have Fusion setup up on one desktop and all my other Mac apps on another. I just press Ctrl and right or left arrow to switch between them it really works slick.
 
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I installed bootcamp and it works fine. I got tired of rebooting though so bought Parallels Desktop and installed it. Everything I've tried thus far (MS Office programs, plus a number of older programs) works great, no problems at all.

Don't mean to confuse you with too many choices but, at least in my experience, this is a choice that works. I'm sure there are others as well.
 
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MacBook Pro 13" 2.4ghz i5, 4GB ram, 500GB SATA, OS X Lion 10.7.2 ~ I'm in love!!!
Thanks for the advice. I downloaded Parallels to try it out, but before I spent $80 on it I wanted to make sure there wasn't a better option for cheaper. I've been using it for about a week, and there are some things I like about it and some I don't. The biggest thing is I have a few programs that I don't have an actual disc for...they are things I bought or downloaded off the internet and they won't load because I don't know how to get them to work with Parallels.

I like that Bootcamp is free, but I also don't want to reboot every time I want to switch. It sounds like I might have to use it for my video editing software though, because that is a large involved graphics program.

I'll have to look into Virtual Box since it's free, and Fusion as well and see what I think.
 
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I downloaded Parallels to try it out, but before I spent $80 on it I wanted to make sure there wasn't a better option for cheaper.

For what it's worth, Parallels V7 can be had from Amazon for $57.37.
 

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