OSX and Windows 7 Dual Boot

mikester

mikester

mikester

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Blasphemous, I know. But hear me out.

My trusty Dell has finally died after five years, and a good friend has given me a massive discount on a 13" Macbook from 2009 - £100. I simply can't say no to that.

I am a complete novice with Macs, save for some playing around on my girlfriend's Macbook Pro. The dual boot would be to save my sanity while I get used to OSX and all the pretty buttons.

I'm told it's possible with certain software, but I am concerned that Windows 7 may develop conflicts with the hardware. Is this the case? What should I look out for?

Any help appreciated.
 
WeOwnTheSky said:
BootCamp (Apple, already installed), Parallels and VMWare are the main ones.

Should think Windows 7 will run just fine.
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I fully agree. :)

The question you have to ask yourself is how long term are you going to have your dual boot? Is it only whilst you learn OSX, or are you planning to game and use Windows after that time?

Bootcamp is the best option if you are planning long term, it is the fastest way to run Windows (as it runs natively on your hardware), but you can't use it at the same time as OSX.

Virtualisation, using VMWare Fusion and Parallels, is the best option if you want to use OSX and Windows at the same time. It isn't the fastest way to run Windows and uses a lot of RAM to do it, but running both simultaneously certainly has it's uses.

You can install a Bootcamp Windows partition AND run it in VMWare/Parallels if you want and that gives you flexibility and power when you need.

It is much easier to remove a virtualised OS in VMWare/Parallels as it is stored as a file, whereas Bootcamp partitions your drive to install Windows, which is tougher to remove, but not impossible.

In terms of reliability and stability, either way is very stable and reliable. I use both methods and have have no problems with either. Bootcamp's drivers are very stable, I run them and the latest nVidia driver from their site for my 9400m.

On the basic end you can get VirtualBox for free if you want to virtualise Windows, but it won't have the speed or features of Parallels/VMWare Fusion. You can get trials of VMWare/Parallels to try for 30 days, and with Windows you can run it without a license to try it out, without committing to either.
 
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Set it up via Bootcamp as the guys suggest and once installed go back into OSX and try out VMware Fusion it will pick up your Bootcamp installation and you can boot into Windows that way.

So thats a dedicated Windows installation via Bootcamp or access it with Fusion while in OSX.

Best of both worlds!
 
Was about to install Bootcamp when I noticed that I don't have the right version of OSX - need 10.6, I have 10.4 Tiger. Was pre-installed for me by a friend so have no idea how to upgrade, if that's even possible.

Help?
 
Confirmation: Win7 works. I have it on my bootcamp partition. It did corrupt on me after a week or so, but I have reinstalled and no problems so far.
 
Georgewhe said:
Confirmation: Win7 works. I have it on my bootcamp partition. It did corrupt on me after a week or so, but I have reinstalled and no problems so far.
Click to expand...

How did it corrupt? I've been running my Bootcamp partition for around a year and I've put it through some tough times. I even upgraded it from Vista to 7, and it works perfectly.

VaderDSL said:

£25 for the OS, then pop the disk in, then either install afresh or upgrade
Click to expand...

Yup, it really is that easy :) Once you have Windows installed, pop in the 10.6 DVD. Once you have booted into Windows, run the Bootcamp drivers setup found on that DVD. That enables you to increase/decrease brightness/volume and enables the eject button on the MacBook, as well as installing the sound drivers amongst other things. 3.0 is on the Snow Leopard DVD, and you need 3.0 to be installed so you can download and install the 3.1 update.

Official Apple walkthrough here.
 
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No idea how it corrupted, and not knowing much about Windows, and it was a while ago, but suspicions are surrounding using iTunes in Windows to get it's music from the Mac HD. Which shouldn't have been a problem... since it is only reading...

Could always have been a dodgy HD, which is slowly dying. (WD Scorpio Black 500)
 
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