“Currently there are 2 solutions for Mac owners with an Intel chip for running Windows XP on their machine. First up is the solution from Apple called Boot Camp and secondly is the Virtual Machine (with Virtualization) from Parallels. So what’s the difference? With Boot Camp Windows will be running ‘natively’, this means it will be running on the machine as if it was running on any regular PC from any manufacturer. This means full access to the CPU, Graphics and all other aspects. With Parallels Windows XP will be running on a ‘Virtual Machine’, this means that OS X will be running like normal with WinXP running inside a separate application, in effect two operating systems running at once.”
Guide for Choosing Boot Camp or Parallels on a Mac
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
…on a MacTel box that if you need performance for 3D gaming and the like then Apple’s “BootCamp” with Windows is the way to go.
If you want more options to run many different versions of Windows (other OS’s too) and don’t need quite as much performance then the Parallels Workstation solution is the way to go. Also more secure than “BootCamp”. Maybe any present Win viruses might not be able to access a HFS+ partition where Mac OS X lives, but eventually one or a hacker will.
I would like to see the next version of Mac OS X (10.5) have these features.
1: Run Windows apps without needing to boot or run Windows.
2: If Windows is needed, then a sandboxed invisible ‘plug-in’, the only time one will see ‘Windows’ is with the logo on the cd cover it comes on. No rebooting necessary. EFI can run the fans/other hardware specifics.
3: At any time if the user or OS detects the Windows sandbox partition is corrupted/infected/compromised a Mac OS X option/window will ask the user if they want to ‘rebuild’ the Windows partition data from a previously saved/encrypted partition. This way getting the Windows machine back up and running will be a snap. Of course it would be nice if Mac OS X had this option too.
Apple should treat Windows like the red-headed step child it is.
Windows was written for x86 and last time I checked MacIntels use x86 CPUs too. So I am not sure who is the step child and who’s not. It would have been better to avoid such sentences.
I was refering to the OS “Windows” as it’s a copy of the Mac OS and not about the processors.
But I’ll take your advice anyway.
I’m just a old fart that’s been around before either OS materialized.
Well, Windows was on x86 first, but it seems to have stolen/been inspired by a lot of stuff Mac OS came up with…
I’d have to say Windows is the step child though, since Windows XP half-inherits a lot of stuff from DOS/Windows 3.1/95/98/ME, wheras Mac OS X seems to be VERY different from previous Mac operating systems.
🙂
Edited 2006-06-15 01:55
“Well, Windows was on x86 first, but it seems to have stolen/been inspired by a lot of stuff Mac OS came up with…
I’d have to say Windows is the step child though, since Windows XP half-inherits a lot of stuff from DOS/Windows 3.1/95/98/ME, wheras Mac OS X seems to be VERY different from previous Mac operating systems. ”
Troll
What we need is good emulation of XP rather than having to buy an additional OS license from MS. We shouldn’t encourage them.
If you want to run your windows games, I believe you should own a license for MS Windows. I don’t know if it’s probable, but I would like to see Apple create a virtualization layer to run MS Windows apps like they did for OS9. I imagine it would require a license of MS Windows, and I would be more than happy to pay for a license if I never had to physically boot into the OS.
It would be so awesome to run *BSD, Linux, Windows, and OS X all at the same time.
Been there, done that.
You just need a whole buttload of RAM — preferrably 2 GB or more.
Well, I’m eager. I love OpenBSD, but trying it out on a PowerBook G4 wasn’t exactly great. I had to manually boot by entering into OpenFirmware and issuing the boot command. I tried but could never get yaboot to work. And I couldn’t even get 24-bit X (I love KDE). I’m even considering purchasing an x86 box just to use OpenBSD or FreeBSD.
You’d be buying an x86 box if you bought an Intel Mac.
Parallels is rather awesome.
I use bootcamp (for some gaming) and Parallels for testing webpages in explorer.
Parallels is great (I bought it the day I got my macbook pro) but it does use a lot of ram. About twice the ram of your VM. So if you launch a 256 mb vm it will eat over 400 mb. A nice trick is to run a lighter version of XP such as TinyXP rev 03. Sadly this version is not legally available. I would so buy a mini windows license with low memory requirements. Tiny xp (which is a hacked version) starts with 60 mb of ram usage and runs fine for browsing in a 128 mb VM. Stock XP usually eats about 150mb on a clean install. I am pretty sure microsoft could make some money by selling a tool to trim down your XP. Basically disabling some rarely used features..