Windows 7 on Macbook Pro

I was wondering if installing Windows 7 on a macbook pro had any side effects when running OS X side? Does it make the computer any slower or perform worse than if it was an OS X only machine?

None whatsoever.

Just be sure to print the guidelines in Bootcamp Assistant if you go this way, and download drivers and burn to a CD.

Just takes up drive space. That's all.

Besides printing the Bootcamp Assistant guidelines.. read them thoroughly.

Do I need a special copy of Win 7, or will the Best Buy bought copy work? I have a CD of Win 7 that I was gonna install on a PC that has hardware problems. I am trashing that PC so I have the Win 7 CD that was never used.

Just be aware that backing up wirelessly was taken away from Windows Home 7 that was available in Vista Home now you either need a third party software or purchase Professional or Ultimate.

osxx said:

Just be aware that backing up wirelessly was taken away from Windows Home 7 that was available in Vista Home now you either need a third party software or purchase Professional or Ultimate.

Click to expand...

What do you mean backing up wirelessly?

A hard drive connected to your router or something like the Time Capsule.

Ah I never used that feature in windows anyway. And besides even on both of my Mac's I get nothing but "Sparce Bundle" errors when trying to backup using time machine.

Nola26 said:

Ah I never used that feature in windows anyway. And besides even on both of my Mac's I get nothing but "Sparce Bundle" errors when trying to backup using time machine.

Click to expand...

There's an easy fix for that -- reformat the TM drive and let it make new backups.

chas_m said:

There's an easy fix for that -- reformat the TM drive and let it make new backups.

Click to expand...

Im not using TM. I have ATT UVerse that comes with a wireless router. I didn't want to pay for a feature I really don't need (Router), and TM is a bit on the pricey side for a 2TB drive.

I bought a Seagate Go Flex Home 2TB networked HDD for about $150. At first TM backups worked great, just like they were supposed to. But then about a week into it I started getting the search bundle error. I use the NAS drive for movie storage so I can't really reformat and lose everything. Right now I am using an old 3.5 internal HDD in a BlacX box as the backup drive.

So will any commercially bought copy of Windows 7 work or do I need Windows 7 for Mac software?

Any commercially bought copy of Win 7 will work. I use Windows 7 on mine but not bootcamp. I don't want to reboot all the time just to use Windows. I don't play games so I just use Parallels which works great for me. No re-boot needed thank you.

Pat

Whats the difference between the two (parallels & Bootcamp)?

Boot camp allows you to use all of the resources of the host computer. For instance memory. It's useful if you are a gamer. I am not a gamer and thus to boot out of the Apple operating system does not have any advantage and actually is a disadvantage. With Parallels and other software solutions you can also share files easily between the Apple Operating system and windows. With Bootcamp it's more difficult. With Parallels you can adjust how much memory you need based on the needs of your windows computing.

You can go to this website and get additional data.
http://www.parallels.com/

Pat

The only thing I would say to be wary of is Spotlight performance if you have NTFS-3G installed. If you format your Windows partition as NTFS and have NTFS-3G on your Mac, Spotlight will run nonstop searching that thing and writing its little Spotlight indexing files to it. And it will keep doing it, even after it's finished searching the whole thing. This leads to increased noise from your hard drive and decreased battery life. The simplest workaround for this is to go into the Privacy tab of your Spotlight system preference pane and add your Boot Camp partition to the list of items Spotlight shouldn't search.