Dual Booting windows

Ok so i have finally raised the cash to get a new Mac Pro which ill be ordering tonight. I need to know how i dual boot windows though.

i have windows on CD, how do i partition and install windows to run alog OSX

thanks

joe

Depends on if you want to "Dual boot" or "run along at the same time". For true "Dual Boot" you need to use Boot Camp from Apple. That allows you to actually "Dual Boot", in other words you choose at boot time to either boot OSX or Windows. You would want this if you were running a lot of games or some high powered windows software.

If you want to "run along side" Windows and OSX then use Parallels. This will run most Windows software, but not most games, and you could jump back and forth to Windows or OSX without rebooting.

Both Parallels and Boot Camp will help you set up.

Boot Camp is free and easy to set up. It will do the partitioning for you. As James said, it is a true dual-boot solution. You can download it for free from here:
Boot Camp beta

Parallels create a virtual machine on your OS X desktop. It is more limited than Boot Camp but has the benefit of simultaneously co-existing with your normal OS X applications, files, etc. It's fairly easy to set up. Parallels is a commercial product, you have to pay for it.
Parallels home page

edited to add: You will also need to have a copy of WinXP SP2 to make these work. Neither Boot Camp nor Parallels includes Windows itself; they simply provide ways to install and run WinXP on your computer.

i have been thinking about this, I have a bunch of windows programs that does not have a mac version (Pro Show Director) reading through the posts on which way to go either dual boot or a run along side setup, I have a few questions.

1. If we do a run along side is it the same as the one that comes with the MAC:Microsoft Office? When I got my MAC MS OFC, it came with a windows xp, does it affect graphics/resolution? Will you just have a window that displays the XP app? Or is it a log off and switch OS and your entire display becomes XP ?

2. In dual boot situations (pertaining to MAC BOOK PRO, which I am planning on getting in Frys tonight) when you boot in XP mode, is it like seeing the exact PC version? I love mac for all my graphics but i have to use XP stuff for some of my graphic programs that they dont have MAC versions yet.

3. In running XP in a Mac Book Pro, have you tried installing a windows version of Photoshop CS2? does it run faster in a PC with the Duo chip and about 2 gigs of ram? (I am very curious in this if some has tried it)

Thanks people!

1. Parallels runs significantly faster than Virtual PC mainly because of the change from PowerPC to Intel architecture.

As far as resolution is concerned, you have two options.

One, you can run the entire Windows desktop in a window that sits in front of the Mac desktop. With the latest version of Parallels, there's an option called Coherence that, simply put, allows you to open Windows programs on your Mac desktop. I've tried it and it works like a charm.

Second, you can run Windows in full screen mode, kind of like when you load up a game that takes up the entire screen but Mac OS is still sitting in the back. This works really well if you have a virtual desktop manager installed, such as VirtueDesktops. You can have Windows running full screen on one desktop and Mac running normally on another. When you want to switch, you just hit the shortcut to switch desktops and then you're in a fully functional Windows environment. Plus, the cool factor of switching between OSes is neat.

2. When running Windows via Boot Camp, it's as if you're running Windows on any other machine. It runs full speed without any problems. All the drivers you need are burned onto a CD by Boot Camp, which you install as soon as Windows is setup. Then you can use your machine just how you would use any other laptop, such as a Dell or HP.

3. As far as installing Photoshop on a Windows partition, it would run just as fast as any other laptop with the same specs as a Macbook Pro. So it would obviously run full speed, which can be pretty fast seeing as how the Macbook Pro has really fast parts in it.

hey Kash, thanks so much! this is the perfect info

thanks for your help im going to dual boot. i might get a 2nd harddrive to dual boot windows on, seems like a good idea to keep things tidy. What do you guys think? ill be getting a 500GB for my main stuff and 80gb for windows. (reason for 500gb is i do alot of film production photography and grpahic design work and have over 3600 music tracks and 140 films so need alot of space!)

Also i partition my drives on a PC so i will have c:system, d:software, e:games, f:music, g:data, h:vidoes Is J:work

Is it worth doing this on mac? heard the way macs stores files is so good i need not bother to do this?

Last but not least i need software for me to browse the RAW files from my camera. i.e i transfer the RAW files from my digital cameras comfact flash card onto my hard drive and instead of having to load up every single file in photoshop i want a program where i can just flick through the RAW files to choose which ones i want to process and develop in photoshop

Thanks

Joe

sorry please delete this post

i have just had a thought (sorry for the triple post guys)

Im going to be running two monitors so is it possible to run windows on one and OSX on the other? ill be using windows for 3ds Max and a game here or two and thats about it.

thanks

OK. I sucessefully intalled Windows XP on my Mac book with Bootcamp.
Now when I shut off and turn it on it will go directly into windows. How do I boot to Mac? I thought I was gonna get a screen that will give me the option which operating system I want to boot to.

Thanks.

You need to hold down the option key when booting up. Then you'll see the choice.

Thanks schweb. it works..
I can only find the driver for the built-in ethernet.
Where can I obtain the rest of the driver that I need for the macbook.
I especially need the video driver and wireless.

thanks

Sorry about the previous post.
I just realized that I had made a driver CD prior installing windows from bootcamp

thanks

I have another question.
Is there a way I can repartition the hard drive to make the portion for windows bigger? I want to increase the size of the hard drive.

Thanks