Windows XP

Ok, I am afraid I won't get a straight answer from the store, so I turn here... If I install Windows XP using Boot Camp, will my MacBook perform slower??? I want to purchase the MacBook to get a FULL Mac experience but not at the cost of it suffering perform-wise if I install Windows XP. I will planning on allocating 50G of the 160G HD to Windows.

Also, is the 3-year Protection Plan affected in any way once you install Windows?? Since you are installing Windows... do you need an Anti-Virus program on the Windows side and not the Mac side...

As you can see... I am NEW!!!

Thanks for your patience!!

didjaever said:

Ok, I am afraid I won't get a straight answer from the store, so I turn here... If I install Windows XP using Boot Camp, will my MacBook perform slower??? I want to purchase the MacBook to get a FULL Mac experience but not at the cost of it suffering perform-wise if I install Windows XP. I will planning on allocating 50G of the 160G HD to Windows.

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No, you are simply installing a second OS on your machine. You can expect performance to be the same, providing that you have adequate space on both the Mac OS X partition and the Windows partition.

Also, is the 3-year Protection Plan affected in any way once you install Windows?? Since you are installing Windows... do you need an Anti-Virus program on the Windows side and not the Mac side...

Click to expand...

The warranty is not effected. In fact, I don't believe that any software installation could void the warranty.

Windows is still Windows, and just as vulnerable to getting a virus or spyware, so you'll need an anti-virus product of some sort. I recommend AVG Anti Virus Free Edition, it does a great job and doesn't cost anything.

At the moment, there are no known viruses for Mac OS X in the wild, so there is really no need to run any kind of AV software on the Mac side.

As you can see... I am NEW!!!

Thanks for your patience!!

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Welcome! Hope you enjoy your time here on Mac-Forums. We're here to help. Be sure to take advantage of our Search feature, as there are vast amounts of information on these forums, ripe for the plucking

With Bootcamp, you are splitting the machine in two. The two sides have nothing to with each other, so there's no slowdown or anything.

Window XP

Thanks for your quick response!!

Do you think that 50G would be a good amount of space on the windows side?? I would be installing Windows XP, Office XP and probably just Frontpage 2003. I have created lots of websites in Frontpage and I am not ready to lose the usability of that program yet... I hope to eventually convert to Dreamweaver but let me get use to a Mac first...

If all you're doing is install Office, then 50GB is overkill. Stick to something like 15GB to 20GB.

I guess I was just trying to plan ahead... I heard that once you allocate space you cannot ad space but you are correct, 50G is overkill... This much space might never convert me fully over to Mac

didjaever said:

I guess I was just trying to plan ahead... I heard that once you allocate space you cannot ad space but you are correct, 50G is overkill... This much space might never convert me fully over to Mac

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That is correct to a certain extent. If you ever do need to resize the partition, the only method I'm aware of would be to make a backup of your Windows partition and the remove and recreate the Boot Camp partition and restore your backup to that partition.

One of the many nice things about running Windows in a Virtual Machine like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion is that you can dynamically resize the virtual hard disk. Another nice thing is that you can run both Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously and trade files back and forth between the two easily.

Definitely consider Parallels or Fusion once you get your Mac - especially if you don't intend to play games on Windows (although they are starting to implement better 3D acceleration capabilities in both products).

didjaever said:

Ok, I am afraid I won't get a straight answer from the store, so I turn here... If I install Windows XP using Boot Camp, will my MacBook perform slower??? I want to purchase the MacBook to get a FULL Mac experience but not at the cost of it suffering perform-wise if I install Windows XP. I will planning on allocating 50G of the 160G HD to Windows.

Also, is the 3-year Protection Plan affected in any way once you install Windows?? Since you are installing Windows... do you need an Anti-Virus program on the Windows side and not the Mac side...

As you can see... I am NEW!!!

Thanks for your patience!!

Click to expand...

indeed installing windows will open the doors to some viruses if you don't protect the windows side, but on the other hand it would not affect the Mac side as the 2 systems work differently. If you get any virus on the windows side, just reinstall it!!