Boot Camp Question

[shuffles]

Hey,

Ok so heres my problem... a few weeks ago I broke my Macbook Air. Still waiting to see if insurance covers it but I'm looking at getting a new laptop. I love Apple's OS but I'm in the process of setting up an online business and my business partner uses Windows. For the most part, it won't matter if we're using different OS's but for things like business online banking and some programs I'll have to use Windows.

My question is if boot camp will cover me completely if I buy a Mac again? Probably sounds like a stupid question but I don't want to make a quick decision without fully checking first.

Part of me says to bite the bullet and get a windows laptop and I've been looking at the Dell XPS 16 or 13 (13 seems the best of the two as it's quite portable although the 16 comes with a Blu Ray drive, tv tuner, 500gb hard drive for the same price as a 13 inch Macbook Pro).

The other part of me knows that I'll miss the silly but important things about a Mac such as multi touch, stacks, a dedicated download icon etc etc etc that none of my friends would know about because they have Windows laptops.

What should I do? If boot camp will allow me to do everything I need to do for my business I'll probably sway towards getting another Mac. I also thought about getting a Macbook Pro and a Dell 10 (netbook) for 300 euro but that might be silly.

Any suggestions?

 

[shuffles]

Heres the spec for the Dell XPS 16 for 1,499 euro (the same price as the Macbook Pro 13":


PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600(2.80Ghz, 1066MHz, 6MB)

OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 (64 BIT) - English

LCD White Leather back cover : 16" (inch) Truelife 1080p Full HD RGBLED Edge to Edge Display

MEMORY 4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]

HARD DRIVE 500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive

PRIMARY BATTERY Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery

OPTICAL DRIVE INTERNAL BLU-RAY ROM COMBO (BLU-RAY, DVD AND CD READ, DVD & CD WRITE) SLOT LOAD DRIVE WITH SOFTWARE

GRAPHICS CARD 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card

TV TUNER AND REMOTE CONTROL Integrated DVB-T TV Tuner and Antenna (MLK base)

BLUETOOTH Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module

WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/b/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard

 

[Buzz Bumble]

The other part of me knows that I'll miss the silly but important things about a Mac such as multi touch, stacks, a dedicated download icon etc etc etc that none of my friends would know about because they have Windows laptops.

It's easy enough to add a Downloads folder to the Windows desktop / "Start" bar, etc., but the other missing things might be more difficult.

What should I do? If boot camp will allow me to do everything I need to do for my business I'll probably sway towards getting another Mac. I also thought about getting a Macbook Pro and a Dell 10 (netbook) for 300 euro but that might be silly.

Option 1: Boot Camp will give you an (almost) 100% Windows PC running at full speed on your Mac's hardware. You then can choose to boot the computer as MacOS X or Windows, but are only able to use one at a time.

Option 2: Depending on exactly what your needs are, a better solution might be to use Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion to run Windows and Windows applications inside Mac OS X without rebooting the computer. These aren't quite as fully compatible as Boot Camp and do run a little slower due to having Windows and MacOS X both running at once, but it may be more than enough for what you need. It means you cna run the Windows applications you need, but still have instant access to the Mac stuff too. (There are also shareware / freeware Windows virualisation applications similar to these two corporate applications, but the shareware / freeware is often more fiddly to set-up.)


Either option will mean you also need you to buy a proper Windows license (XP, Vista, whatever) to install, as well as licensed copies of any software you need to run under Windows, so unfortunately it is an added expense to simply buying a Dell / HP computer, but you do get the added benefit of having MacOS X when you don't have to use Windows!!


Technically there is a third option which does not need a Windows license at all. It's called CrossOver (and other WINE-based applications), but I wouldn't recommend it for anything other than EXTREMELY light Windows needs. It's far too buggy and not particulary compatible for real use, especially in a business environment.

 

[shuffles]

Cheers,

After looking at the 2 I think I'll probably be getting the Macbook and will use boot camp with Windows 7. I have one question...If I save something on my laptop when I'm using Windows will where will it be saved? ie can I only access the data when I'm logged into Windows or can I access it when I'm in Leopard?

 

[Stridder44]

Cheers,

After looking at the 2 I think I'll probably be getting the Macbook and will use boot camp with Windows 7. I have one question...If I save something on my laptop when I'm using Windows will where will it be saved? ie can I only access the data when I'm logged into Windows or can I access it when I'm in Leopard?

It saves it on the Windows partition. Leopard/Snow Leopard can read NTFS formatted disks (which is what you Windows 7 partition is installed as). And with Boot Camp 3, Windows can now read HFS+ (which is what your Mac is partitioned as).

Short answer: Yes, you can access you Windows files in OS X, and vis-versa.