Boot camp and Vmware

[cowman007]

Hey all

Im interested in knowing about these two pieces of software both have been in beta for awhile now and i was wodering if anyone could give any feedback. Are they both stable non-glitchy pieces of software or do they still both need some tweaking. Im interesting in installing Windows bvis boot camp and then use vmware to boot of my windows partion. Any feedback.?

 

[cowman007]

ummm hello. Is anyone gonna help me out. Has anyone experienced glitches with these pieces of software which are in BETA. W/e happened to that whole BOOT CAMP ERASED MY OSX PARTION- KERNAL PANICS and all that jazz

 

[bob5820]

I've been using bootcamp for about a week, and just installed VMWare on my Macbook. I've also had Parallels on my MacPro for a while now. No major problems with any of them. The only gitches I've found so far-
1) when switching between OSX and bootcamp I need to turn off my BT keyboard and turn it back on to get it to connect.
2) Eject key doesn't work in bootcamp.
3) Office 2007 requires reactivtion when going between bootcamp and Parallels/VMWare. Not sure if this will be a real problem or just a PITA, guess it depends on how many times MS will let you reactivate. From what I've read the product activation in Office 2007 is different then XP. I needed to activate XP in both bootcamp and Parallels (or VMWare) but only needed to do it once. With Office 2007 it looks like you need to do it each time.

 

[PCMacUser]

Well, VMWare and Parallels are completely different from Bootcamp, in that they use a hard disc image file rather than a partition. This means that instead of having to mess with your existing hard drive partitions, etc, the software simply sets up a file which it 'pretends' is a partition. So this means that your risk of damaging your current OS X installation is effectively 0%.

However, Boot Camp does provide better performance since it runs natively - as though your Mac were actually a PC, except that the drivers are not quite as optimised as they would be for a PC.

 

[cowman007]

So is it safe to download. Do you guys think they will be updating it anytime soon or is the latest stable version the one which we will be seeing in stores.

 

[winchest]

I have used both VMWare and Bootcamp lately and consider both quite stable. I think you will be good to go. Of course it would not hurt to backup your computer before running either, but that goes with out saying, I suppose.

 

[PCMacUser]

So is it safe to download. Do you guys think they will be updating it anytime soon or is the latest stable version the one which we will be seeing in stores.

I would guess that there will be numerous updates to the existing versions. However, with VMWare and Parallels, this only affects the actual software, rather than the disk image. In other words, you won't need to reinstall Windows XP each time you install a newer version of the software.

Virtualisation is great. If you are just wanting to run normal desktop apps under XP, it's probably the way to go. Virtualisation is commonplace in the IT industry, for running multiple servers on a single box. It's proven technology, and it does work well.

If gaming is your thing, you have no choice except to use Bootcamp.