@battra92: Newsleecher. Enough said. The Mac alternatives are garbage.

etc

What do you NEED Windows for. Not what do you want but truly need it for?

If it's just a few programs you can always try Wine for Mac if you are adventurous.

Otherwise, go with Virtual Box if all you need is a couple programs.

battra92

I too recommend using Virtual Box, the company that makes it was recently purchased by Sun as well. It's free and works on Linux, Mac and Windows.

robroy911

I know a ton of others have said it, but I want to throw my voice in with the VirtualBox group.

I tried 1.5.something and it was horrible. However, the latest 1.6 has actually been notably more stable. Heck, it can even run some games -- SimCity 3000 ran mostly-functionally in it (the sound was a tad stuttery), and I didn't even give the VM much in the way of resources.

I was really torn -- do I buy VMF or Parallels -- but no longer. VirtualBox is free and for most (but not all) purposes, is more than sufficient.

Brian

The Bootcamp Win experience on the Mac is much better than the virtual machine experience. I'm running a Mac Mini with 1.89 Intel Core Duo and 2 GB RAM. Even at that, the virtual machines are just too slow. (VirtualBox, btw, is easily as good as the commercial virtualization tools, and free.) Honestly - Win in Bootcamp is the best Windows experience I've ever had, even though it was just for testing and, ultimately, just "because I could."

It's also possible to dual-boot Linux on the Mac, using Bootcamp to non-destructively set up the partitions and rEFIt to handle the boot loading. A recent Hardy Heron install on the same Mac Mini took less than an hour. And, like Windows, it's the snappiest Linux installation I've had (of many, many dozens), including the amazing Compiz Fusion eye-candy.

steidler

People who trash Windows in this thread is so unhelpful. This thread is a discussion of bootcamp vs VM. Why can't that minority of smug and self-superior Mac users grow up, and stop that childish incessant comparison between Macs vs PCs. Many Mac users use both Apple and Microsoft products and see the value in both.

ICEBreaker

A lot of people talk about running games on Boot Camp. However, I am curious. Do you guys install the Nvidia/ATI drivers, or just use Boot Camp's? I installed Deus Ex, and it didn't work on the iMac 2.8GHz model. The graphics FPS of 0.5 (1 frame every 2 seconds) was much MUCH slower than the Pentium 2 300MHz machine I used to play it back in 2000.

ICEBreaker

Go with the VM so you can easily reclaim your space when you realize that Windows actually sucks and that you don't need it anymore.

Joseph

@cha: Except the fact that I wasn't born in the United Stated, speak Chinese fluently, and have a dual citizenship elsewhere? In fact I have probably lived in more countries than you can name.

My post was seething with sarcasm. It was meant in jest. I guess when God was doling out self-importance and self-righteousness, he figured he gave you so much that a sense of humor would just be unfair.

etc

I use vmware and running XP SP3, love the fact that I can switch OSes without rebooting. With only having a 80gig HD and 2 Gb ram with a dual core 1.8 windows runs really well(vm using 512mb for windows).

Lord_Hafu

Another vote for Boot Camp + Fusion or Parallels, unless you can't see the point in getting a Mac, in which case not getting a Mac could work. To do this, go to the Apple web store and then close the browser tab.

NineTailedFox

@chiman414: @SilverWave: Ubuntu with XP in Virtualbox here.

With "save state", I can have windows up and running in about 15 seconds. It's far from a memory hog and I don't see a performance lag. In fact, I vpn into my office and the lag is almost non-existent.

Jim (The Canuck One)

Boot Camp ISN'T free if you're running Tiger.
You have to upgrade to Leopard.
Pretty sure Apple isn't giving that away.

William Mize

Simple.
Buy a computer that is not overpriced and is powerful and can run lots and lots of great programs and games and can connect with a huge amount of peripherals, even years after the warranty has run out - to upgrade or fix things or expand. Buy a Windows PC - XP or Vista, they both run well and actually work with most software and hardware. No need to dual boot or virtual.....

Thor

@etc:

sweet. nice racism you got going on over there.
ridiculous american

cha

A couple of things that are important to note.

#1. You need RAM, RAM, and more RAM to run Windows virtualized effectively. I recommend 4 gigs of RAM to run things smoothly...any less and you will feel the crunch, bad. 2Gbs is absolutely bare minimum.

#2. For those that are students, and take the tests on your laptop. Most of the test software has security features where it prevents you from running the OS virtualized, since it is supposed to lock you from having access to other applications.

#3. Your activation will often break if you switch between bootcamp and virtualized bootcamp modes, because it sees the changes as "hardware" changes. So each time you switch, Windows is going to flip.

#4. For most people, virtualization is against their license agreement. For example, most of the Vista EULs preclude virtualized instances of the OS.

All in all, something that is worth mentioning is that it doesn't need to be mutually exclusive. You can have a partition in bootcamp that is bootable with VMWare. You can have the best of both worlds depending on how you want to go about it.

Also, this is a matter of preference. But I think Parallels is garbage. Not only is getting support from SWSoft a pain in the ass (their corporate headquarters are in Russia and Ukraine), but the software itself is so "unpolished". One time I called their corporate office looking for assistance with Plesk, and the guy kept screaming "greeviet" over and over again. Ot was obvious that he had just removed his hands from the yak that he was milking, or ducking the bombs of Chechen "freedom fighters".

etc

I've run the full gamut of options on a MacBook Pro with dual core Intel processors and 4gb of RAM and finally settled on using VMware Fusion with an XP install of Windows, I gave away Bootcamp altogether.

Admittedly in the early days I was running a Vista install on the BootCamp partition with Parallels and I've not tried that set up with XP. However, it wasn't until I got my current set up that I had any kind of stable install... Maybe it was the Vista factor (likely) but as it is now, for the few Windows only programs I have and the occasional need to check sites I'm developing in IE the system I'm using works really well, quick and stable.

deeleea

@jiindong: You're right, but as others have pointed out above, there are solutions to this such as MacDrive.

Personally, I use both Bootcamp and Parallels on my MBP. The ONLY reason I use Bootcamp is to game, so my XP install is pretty skinny. I use Deepfreeze to lock the install down- that way I don't even need to run antivirus software (any malware is gone after a reboot). All the Windows-based apps I need for day-to-day stuff I run through Parallels- this would be IE for those morons who can't figure out how to properly code websites; Access, because nobody's come up with a good substitute yet for OSX; and that's it really. Sometimes I check out site renders using Windows browsers, but not very often.

rustybadger

Today I own a MacBook PRO with Intel T8300, BUT I recommend windows XP pro, and before crucifiying me please read on: I'm a long time IT professional (15-20 years) and as a PROFESSIONAL, I have to put my feelings and emotions aside and be objective and unbiased regarding my recommendations. After all, i don't care about one vendor over another as I don't get paid by any vendor and I'm not a teenager anymore to get into flame wars. I use various OSes (Linux, AIX, FreeBSD, MacOS) Linux is the "best?" server OS and Windows XP is the best user (GUI) OS. Please read on for WHY? Honestly, microsoft DOS and Windows have SUCKED for the longest time (MS-DOS, Win3.1 and Win95 riddled with buffer overflow and buffer underruns or divide by zeros and parity NMIs). Does anyone even remember IBM OS2 Warp? Win98 was the first OS (in my opinion) that made some strides over mac-os, but still needed reboot every week. WinME is not worth mentioning. Then came along XP and at first it was horrible. But, with SP2 XP has become an outstanding OS. Today, I own a MacBook PRO with intel T8300, and I run XP-SP2 on it exclusively via bootcamp 2.1 The GUI is faster compared to Mac OS X Leopard. My laptop runs cooler and CPU utilization is less in XP compared to MacOS while running the same programs (Firefox and Thunderbird) But, why you will ask, WHY disgrace such a nice laptop (macbook) with Microsoft. Well, it's actually simple. The sheer power of numbers! 100s of millions of users on XP versus a few million users on Mac OS. The core programs (DLLs, etc) are compiled over and over, and optimized and tested my many more millions. Naturally when a product is used by hundreds of millions more people inevitably, the product turns out more refined. And there's the matter of that one critical software that's only available on Windows (VPN client or PDA syncronization, scanner or printer driver, etc, etc...) If Apple does not merge into Linux and Linux does not UNITE, MS Windows will win and Apple will become nothing more than a glorified PC vendor. No body likes paying for top notch hardware and get last years performance due to OS limitstions.

QudamahCaepio

To use NTFS partitions with the Mac, you can use NTFS-3g Driver and MacFuse, you can get NTFS read/write support working on Macs for Windows Partitions. Sometimes a bit glitchy though.

cooltech786

I recently went Mac but was not able to let go of Windows for lots of reasons. There are two paths to go as many people have already alluded too, dual boot and virtualization. What I used to do was Boot Camp, and then also virtualized my Boot Camp so that I can run it fully native, or virtual when needed. This worked pretty well, except for the fact that every time you wanted to start up the virtualization, or shut it down, you actually had to a do a FULL startup and shutdown since you are using a physical partition, this takes quite a bit of time, and can be very annoying.

What I currently do is run Vista only virtually via Parallels 3. This option works great, and it seems that Vista runs faster when it is fully virtual rather than a virtualized Boot Camp, and the biggest benefit is the suspend option so that you dont have to go through a full start up or shutdown when you want to use Vista.

Basically, my suggestion would be to go full out Virtualization, its faster, more convenient, and works fine. I've tried both Parallels and VMware, and both work great but I've personally liked Parallels more.

On another note, if you decide to go Boot Camp, there is this awesome piece of software called MacDrive. Not very expensive, and allows you to read and write to your Mac Partition from within a natively booted Boot Camp windows, which is a VERY useful function, must have if you plan on using Boot Camp, and plan on using Vista a lot in there.

cooltech786

My friend did it with his Macbook Pro using bootcamp. Great invention I would say. However, it only supports FAT file system if you wanted to access windows files in MAC OS and windows drive should not be bigger than 32GB. Correct me if I'm wrong.

jiindong

It's great that so many of you have found good solutions, however I have not.
I have made an almost complete switch to Apple and am very happy with my Intel MacBookPro but there is one piece of software that I still need on Windows-XP, Quickbooks. The Mac version is Ng-.
I tried running Win-XP on Parallels, but it was just too darn slow. So I set up a boot camp partition, but having to power down and reboot, then return to Mac each time I want to write a check is just too tedious. Then I tried using Parallels to run the boot camp partition. This ran very well for a while, despite the fact that some useful Parallels functions such as snapshot are unavailable in that mode.
Then I started getting error messages & weirdness. When trying a direct boot camp login from boot up, missing hal file errors show up. I cleaned and reinstalled everything Win etc as per Parallels paid support. Thrice. Even ran iDefrag on the Mac drive. Initially Ok, but still failed.
Perhaps VM works better, but I am ready to give up and just go get a cheap PC laptop with Synergy just for that one essential application.
And of course, Windows, Apple and Parallels support can all blame each other.
Shame.

rdav

@rodzilla: I disagree somewhat. I have a new macbook pro 4gig, penryn, that I use for Solidworks 2008 almost every day. I actually DO have XP installed under Boot Camp, **AND** I use VMWare Fusion when I don't feel like rebooting. Solidworks runs pretty well for small assemblies (less than 50 parts), I have some of the graphics performance options turned down, so my bigger assemblies look "jaggy" DURING rotation, but they are fine to work with. If I get into a big 8 hour session with a larger assembly, then I'll reboot into XP. If someone ports Solidworks to the Mac I'll send them flowers for a month....

chrislifehacker123

@DoubleFelix: @DoubleFelix: Indeed. I'm surprised this was not mentioned in the article.

I am happily dual-booting Vista and OSX. with MacDrive i can read & write to osx partition. In OSX, I can read my NTFS partition.

I am much happier since I swapped my MBP's hard drive for a WD Scorpio 320GB drive. Now I have it partitioned 50/50, with over 150gb to each OS.

Vista runs very well, Aero works great. I can easily run games such as Bioshock and 3D apps.

StevieQ

I'll second the sentiment that it depends on what you use Windows for. I use it for the occasional MS Office instance. I run XP perfectly fine as a VM w/ Fusion on a Macbook, and I only allot it 256 mb of ram! I disagree that virtualization automatically gives you degraded performance as Alicemagic states. BTW, I installed Windows XP using Nlite, which will also slim down your XP installation, and thus requires less resources. (I think there's vlite for Vista too.) I can't imagine rebooting my computer just for firing up Excel.

If you're using something more processor/ram hungry, like audio/video/photo editing, games, or programming, you're better off w/ boot camp.

professorjay

If you're playing video games, dual boot. Otherwise, virtual.

sgodun

Another absolutely free option is VitualBox from Innotek ([www.virtualbox.org]). Sun Microsystems has actually recently acquired them, but the Virtual Box code will remain open source.

It runs great on Mac, and is not resource hungry.

For people that have to run windows, this is an excellent option.

For those that wonder why would you buy a Mac above, because you get amazing Unix workstation (I do all my work from the terminal/VIM) and unlike other UNIX workstations this one runs Photoshop and my camera RAW conversion software. With my 8 core system I can run other OS in VM if I need to (including other Unix systems like Linux, Solaris).

So, all in all Mac is an amazing package, and everything is there and working. Each mac user has gcc, source control (subversion and cvs) and all Unix utilities right there (even though most don't even know it).

mario_grgic

vm

drsphincter

Gaming, Multi Media, Intense HD Movie/Photo Editing=
BootCamp

For Everything else there's VM Ware (or Parallels, what ever floats your boat)

Charli Wag

I reluctantly upgraded to Parallels 3 from 2.0. I would have preferred VM Fusion because it seems (a) cheaper; (b) MUCH better supported by the company and (c) perhaps faster, stabler, and more versatile. However, beware, Fusion beta does not input existing Parallel configurations of Windows XP well. So you may have to reinstall Windows and your apps. Hope this helps.

Durbrow

I just switched my wife over to a new iMac from a Dell Dimension that was crawling along. We found that one of the applications she needs to use is only in Windows, and the Mac alternative doesn't suit her needs, so I popped Parallels and XP Pro on there for her to use that app. With only 512MB RAM assigned to the Parallels Desktop, that instance of XP literally runs at least 4x the speed of a clean installation on the Dell, it was actually shocking to me when I brought it up the first time. Run it in "Coherence Mode" and you really have a seamless experience running Mac applications and Windows apps side by side.

AZTriGuy

The answer of course is both.

Both Parallels and VMWare can run your Boot Camp partition in a VM, which gives you the option to use the either half-assed (VM) or fully-assed (Boot Camp) Windows at no additional cost.

I think VMWare Fusion 2.0 even has the ability to suspend your Boot Camp VM.

Also, both Parallels and Boot Camp have free trial periods, which gives you a free opportunity to see how well each performs with your Boot Camp install.

astrosmash

It's pretty cool being able to run Windows natively via BootCamp, then access the same machine via Fusion on OSX. I go back and forth all the time.

Although it adds to the expense, I highly recommend a program called MacDrive. This makes the size of the relative partitions moot. With MacDrive, your Windows partition can read and write to the Mac partition. I only load programs in the Windows partition; all files are saved to the Mac partition, where they are accessible to both OSs. If you need the same files in Fusion, you just use the Shared Folders functionality.

cal82

I got Parallels 2.0 because I need to do some video editing using Adobe Premiere Elements occasionally for work. Doesn't work well at all, even though I've got 2 GB of RAM and a decent processor on my MacBook Pro. Hoping Parallels 3.0 upgrade will help, but I doubt it. As others before have said, it really depends on what you need doing in Windows. Photoshop and Illustrator, however, work very well.

SF_iris

I would recommend doing both, and it won't cost an additional Windows license. In VMWare (and I am using the free server version), under the advanced options you have the option of accessing a physical partition. This way, you can boot into Windows natively through boot camp, or load the actual physical Windows partition through VMWare from within Mac OSX. Specifically, I use Ubuntu and Windows XP. If I boot into Windows and install software, then reboot into Ubuntu, start VMWare and start Windows, that same software is installed in Windows. The VMWare windows is NOT different than the native Windows. The only catch is that you may have to add a hardware profile in Windows, one for the Physical setup and one for the Virtual setup.

cgravelle

Depends on what you want to do with Windows - and VERY much which version of Windows you're installing. Vista - in either VMWare or Parallels, is a dog. Unless you have some insane Mac Pro w/ quad-CPUs and 16GB of RAM, Vista will not be fun in a VM. XP on the other hand, runs quite nicely. You won't be gaming or anything, but it's totally usable.

ross.m

I saw a Macbook Pro running OpenSolaris in VirtualBox at JavaOne this year. Not that I'm advocating using OpenSolaris (it seems to suffer from all of the same slowness Solaris always has as a desktop), but VirtualBox looks slick, and has a decent list of OSes it can run.

psykotedy

@Rodzilla

Agreed! No games, no high-end graphics on VM for you.

Mau

Virtualization is still not an option for 3D CAD professionals. We're forced to dual-boot to get anything near usable frame rates and graphics horsepower. My $100 goes to the first company to get this working in a virtual machine. Ready... set... go!

rodzilla

I run Parallels on a daily basis for sites that sniff for IE (meanies!!!), but I installed Vista on BootCamp on my Mac Pro and runs very nicely, even before installing the video drivers and what not: Aero loaded right away. I have also performed an XP installation on through BootCamp: It will knock your socks off.

If you don't mind the dual boot, then BootCamp is for you. If you truly use your Mac, then use Parallels, which runs great even when it's a virtualized environment.

Mau

Personally, I cant even edit text files on a virtualized machine comfortably for long because the lag eventually catches up and it starts to get really annoying. It's worse when you're hot key crazy too, since certain keys are bound to OS X and will perform differently when handling Windows er.. windows.

The problem with virtualized machines (for me at least), is that once you get use to your single OS environment running at it's native speed, you tend to expect the same level of performance even while you're virtualizing, so no matter how fast the computer is everything feels jerky and not up to par.

If you're the type of person that gets easily annoyed with windows that take can up to 3 seconds to minimize/maximize, windows that leave trails of the non-existing background images of the virtualized machine, text input that can't keep up with your speed, and CPU/s getting hot as hell with fans spinning at close to 4k average (MBP), you're probably better off dual booting. Better yet, have two machines and Synergy if you really NEED to have both OS's side by side in order to get your job done... though I think that's pretty rare for most people.

Alicemagic

I have just dumped VMWare Server on Ubuntu for VirtualBox gotta say I am very impressed.

I just checked and there is support for OS X and a choice of the Open Source Edition (OSE) or the Personal Use and Evaluation License (PUEL) - which has USB support.

In Ubuntu a XP guest set to the defaults of 192MB RAM etc. runs almost as quickly as a real machine, VMWare was not as responsive or frugal.

Its free so no commitment if you want to check it out.

Oh and SUN just recently bought out the company.

SilverWave

You can also access your bootcamp partition natively from MacOS if you just format it as FAT32. Really, with the small partition you're giving it anyway, there's little reason to go NTFS.

As for the question of which way to go - do both. I ran both bootcamp and VMware Fusion (booting a true vm, and my bootcamp partition). VMWare running your bootcamp partition is probably the best all around performance/convenience compromise, however you give up the ability to quickly suspend/resume your VM.

Since I figured out I can't live without that particular feature after a few months of going back and forth, and after realizing that I haven't restarted into bootcamp in months, I have settled on a pure VMware solution. You situation and desires may vary though, so give them all a try.

As far as the above poster claiming that virtualbox is the 'free version' of vmware, that's not the case. It's a completely different software set that attempts to do the same thing, but that claim is like saying that KDE or Gnomeis the 'free version' of WinXP. It's just not true.

drogers

Didn't read everyones responses so this may have already been stated but a lot of it has to do with how much heavy lifting you're going to have your Windows OS do. If it's process heavy then you may want to boot into Windows. If not and its just your typical Office, browsing, etc, nothing beats the integration mode VMWare and Parallels provides. "What OS" almost becomes a non-question as you practically seamlessly manipulate files between the two different OS. Including things like dragging and dropping between the two different OS. For me, no better way to go.

Shocm

You can read/write to your OSX partition in Windows if you use MacDrive.

DoubleFelix

detection:

He is just trolling the comments looking for a place to start a Mac vs. Win flame, so he can sit back and enjoy.

Don't feed the trolls... ;-)

jsmorley

@JBu92: Not to be rude, but that's a pretty ignorant question. Perhaps someone would like to use programs only available to Macs? Or they prefer the behavior of the OS? Even if it's just a matter of preference, if there something wrong with using an OS other than Windows? This is all coming from a Windows user, by the way.

detection

I run VM on my Mac (free of charge, assuming you have windows licensing)

[www.virtualbox.org] - The free version of VM Fusion.

Just create a share on the mac and we're good to go. All windows junk can be completed, quickly with easy, and I can transfer the files right over to my mac for external storage. Not to mention VM over boot camp, just save VM system state, back that up that single file and your VM is up and running in perfect condition, upon request.

Note: for best performance have VM installed on separate hard drive.

calistyle

I haven't tried it myself, but there is an OS X binary for virtualbox that might be worth a try. Its free, and it works really well on windows.

wadel

Why would you buy a mac? I honestly see no reason to use mac, other than the virus-free-itude, which can be achieved in Win with common sense (i.e. not downloading/installing anything iffy).

JBu92

I have Vista on my Bootcamp partition and use Fusion to access it when I don't want to restart. I have the MacFUSE NTFS thing that Lifehacker mentioned and it works great. I also have virtual machines of XP and Ubuntu that I run through Fusion for other various things.

So I do everything mentioned in the article :)

andrewheiss

If you want to run Windows and not OSX, it's pretty obvious that you want to dual-boot. Fusion has excellent performance however and this way you get the best (or worst?) of both worlds.

playdoh

i don't have a mac, but i dual boot xp and ubuntu. reason i dual is because i don't want the performance to lag. with a 160gb harddrive, it was easy, i did 40gb for xp, 40 for ubuntu and 80 in ntfs so i could access it from both os'...i put my media on that drive, so if i have to do widows stuff, i can still listen to my music..

another advantage to dual booting, is if anybody needs to use my computer, they can boot into windows since most people don't really know how to run virtualization soft...

chiman414

I think it depends on what you need both OSes for. Since I have a static set of applications I run in Windows, I size the bootcamp partition to the smallest size needed. For the applications I use that don't require "native" performance, I access them using Fusion. When I need to use the few apps that need performance (mostly audio/video production), I reboot into Windows. My data goes to a Firewire 800 drive.

Works great for me.

eldub2000

I would really recommend setting vmware or parallels up to your bootcamp partition. While virtualization is nice, the performance drop you get from running 2 OS's can be pretty significant. Especially if you're using a laptop, the cpu overheating warning will probably pop up within minutes of doing anything demanding and your fans will start whirring out of control. For me I only usually install things and test websites on IE with VMware, or other small temporary tasks. And for that it's awesome.

I have a santa rosa macbook pro with 4gb of ram for reference

appleboy

I'm a fan of the Parallels program. Works REALLY well. I've helped clients setup networked Windows/Quickbooks and POS systems all through Parallels and their new Intel Macs.

If you have to run Windoze on your Mac, then either VMWare or Parallels are the way to do it.

shoregeek

@@etc: Unison works pretty well, if a little slowly. I really like the threaded multi-part binaries in Unison and haven't figured out how to have Newsleecher thread as nicely.

I am currently writing my dissertation, and Office '04 and '08 have not worked well. Too many equations in one Word document caused each version of Word to refuse to save my files as .docs. Also, Endnote is not yet fully compatible with Word '08. I switched to Word 2007 in a VM, but after using both Fusion and Parallels, I switched to dual boot. The performance hit for VM use was too great on a 3GB MBP when running Matlab. I did try the Fusion 2.0 beta, but it "converted" my Boot Camp partition into a crashing disaster (with no hope for reversing the process).

An upgrade from 120GB to 200GB hard drive ensured I had plenty of room for both partitions. The 64 bit version of Vista runs just fine, but it is probably not worth the hassle.

File transfer from Mac to PC is no problem when booted into OS X (using Paragon's NTFS program), but access to the Mac partition from Vista would be nice. I am afraid to try MacDrive after having it kill an earlier disc with mixed Mac/PC partitions.

wjfiii

I'm a web developer, a long-time Windows user with enough occasional Mac jobs that I've always felt comfortable enough with Macs. I went Mac last month, largely because I was tired of badly-built PC laptops (most recently Dell & HP) that constantly overheated and fried the circuitry and thought Apple might design better (so far so good).

I knew I'd need Windows so I bought VM Fusion right there in the Apple store and picked up Windows XP at the Staples on the way out of town. I have the 2.4 GHz Macbook w/2GB of memory--the second to most basic model out there, and can report that Windows and Fusion run fine.

I run it as a virtual machine and haven't bothered with Bootcamp. XP seems to run as fast as it did on my old laptop and I often have multiple browsers running on the both machines along with Dreamweaver and graphic program or two. I especially love the ability to drag and drop files from one OS's desktop to another (it took me three weeks to realize it was this integrated!). I use Windows for browser testing (I have Multiple IE's installed) and for old standby programs I own or know too well to want to give up. I pretty much run Windows full time on Spaces screen 3.

I was wondering if running Fusion off a BootCamp install would give me more speed so I appreciate cooltech786's comment up there that a Fusion virtualized XP is faster than a BootCamp-through-Fusion XP. For me the flexible disk structure, drag and drop and dual running is worth whatever slowdown in speed I might be experiencing.

By the way, I love the "Snapshot" mode of Fusion (it sounds like Parallel has a similar function). Whenever I'm particularly pleased with a Windows configuration I make a snapshot. If I had a virus problem or even a technical glitch of any sort I just trash my install and go back to the snapshot. Yippee!

martin_kelley

if you just need windows for some simply functions,VM my be a good choice.

spike502

Parallels suits me sweet! I have a 24" iMac with 4 GB of ram and my vm'd Windows runs better and faster on my MAC than it does stand-alone on my 3 Ghz - 4GB ram (I know!) PC! Seriously, 38 seconds from the time I click the Parallels VM Machine icon Windows is up and READY to go. My PC catches up about 2 minutes later! I've upgraded Parallels once sine I purchased it and it was very straight-forward and painless. Less painless in fact than some Window's service packs! LOL! Sorry too easy. Anyway, I tried VMware but definitely preferred Parallels. Coherence mode is amazing! As a 20 something year PC/Windows refugee I can say without any shadow of a doubt I should have switched to a MAC a LONG TIME AGOOOOO!

ShantiPeneus

@cgravelle, @astrosmash, @etc and others:
I was surprised to learn that, on top of what happened with some editions of Vista (namely, that Microsoft first didn't want you to run your "Home" edition inside a VM, then retracted), Microsoft still doesn't like you booting a native Windows XP installation into a VM, at least as long as it can prevent you from doing so (i.e. through activation), as illustrated by the vivid discussion on Microsoft Genuine forums here. (That's a 2006 discussion exposing Microsoft's position on the matter; but it still hasn't changed.)
The rationale behind this is that the physical/BootCamp configuration and the VMware/Virtual Box/VM Fusion one represent two different machines, even when used on the same computer, hence the requirement for a second license (though you still *can't* use two product keys on the same installation anyway.)
A co-worker told me after I ran into the issue myself that they denied him a re-activation as soon as he mentioned the two-letter word "vm". He then had to spend close to half an hour explaining he was trying to activate back his native installation.

JohnWait