MBA rev B - Bootcamp or Parallels 5 ?

[PreetinderBajwa]

Partial Sucesses

Having installed win7 x64 for the 5th time now, I have it down. to install the bootcamp drivers, you need to get the disk in (harder than you think).

You then have to have mouse because you need to be able to right click. pull up the start menu, then accessories, then right click on command prompt. Do run as administrator. That should bring up a command prompt. Navigate to the DVD. Go to bootcamp (I think), then drivers, then apple. Under there is a bootcamp64.msi. Type bootcamp64.msi. That will run and install all the drivers for you and not error out. Reboot, and you should be good to go.

Thanks Lucifel, billgates ceo and scottsdale,

This is a bit long one....

I have now the bootcamp working, did a few shoot myself in the foot things ad was in a spot and nothing better to get you thinking and searching for ansers faster than you being in a picke !

After a sucessful Win7 install I couldn't install bootcamp where it said unsupported system and would not lauch. Then I went to OSX and tried to import/use bootcamp as VM in Parallels 5 after some crypitic errors and no solutions found it said can't be done (while in step 1 of 4 in setting up VM, all automated). Then I went the Fusion 3 route, it tried the same things and highlight comman man' language error that the disk Win 7 didn't close propoer;y so I have to go to system pref and set bootdisk to Win 7 and then in Win in control panel set bootdisk back to OSX. So far so good, and then (after reading stuf on forums) set the boot disk to Win7 and then I was stuck because the Bootcamp was not installed in Win 7and now I couldn't reset the bootdisk to OSX from Win7.

Searched the forums found that elevating priviledges, a few right clicks and enable disabling some stuff, finally got bootcamp working and set the bootdisk to OSX.

Got the Fusion 3 working (still same cryptic error for Parallels 5), atleast Fusion showed a path even if its wasn't most comprehensive, it triggered events that made me do things and be in a pickle ad those actions made bootcamp happen/work.

So far Parallels is still no go, Fusion 3 works but has its own problems ( I use iStat to monitor) :

LIST]
[*]The Memory icon and CPU icons run at full for ever
[*]The temprature goes from 52-60degrees to 74degrees the moment I launch Fusion 3
[*]The OSXperformance is jerky and the Win 7 is not smooth , lot of latency between click and event happening with blue hollow ball spinning
[*]I am partially thinking that I should just uninstall the VMs and stop taxing my CPU and RAM so much
[/LIST]

What is your experience ?

Thanks

Preetinder

 

[donrleonard]

I'm in the same boat!

What a great thread going here, Preetinder! I have exactly the same dilemma, and am very curious what the end result was.

I've got a Macbook Air (rev C) with 2gb ram. I've got the SSD, which will help a little bit, but I want to be able to run windows-only GIS software on my machine, and I'm just not sure I trust virtual machines full time. At the same time, I much prefer the convenience of working in OSX to rebooting all the time to access files on one side or the other. I've got a copy of Windows 7 Pro on the way right now, so I'm dying to know...

What came of these adventures?

1) Does bootcamp 3.0 actually allow you to access files on either side of the partition?

2) Does the 64 bit version of Windows 7 work with non 32-bit software (office 2007) and hardware (external keyboard, mouse, etc...) or would I be better off installing the 32 bit windows 7 version?

3) If I want to run a virtual machine on top of bootcamp, what is my best bet? Parallels 5 or VMWare?

Cheers,

Don

 

[PreetinderBajwa]

Did something totally different

Hi,

I just uninstalled the VMware and Parallels. Use Bootcamp 3 and accessed the drivers as a administrator. One by one I ran the drivers for 64bit. All installed, albeit slowly.

Then I got Paragon software's NTFS reading software and Mac Browser came free which reads HFS+. My problem was solved as all i needed to do was read files in Windows as I was keeping work files there. Now I can do that without rebooting and only using the Paragon software.

Yes, if i wanted to use some windows only programme, this wouldn't work. Luckily I didn't have to.

Once bootcamp was working, an believe me it does, all 32 bit applications for windows work under 64 bit OS. So no problem there. Rebooting and switching between OSX and Win 7 is not ideal, but the machine has its limitations and I am willing to live with that, as this is machine for pure office stuff i.e. "kosher". So no downloads, games, testing beta versions etc....

Bootcamp is supposed to allow you to access files on OSX to Win 7 side I think, but I couldn't figure out how to..... or does it allow Win 7 to OSX file access. I used to get error message once I reach a certain depth of OSX drive (trying to access file on OSX side via Win 7 side and vice versa). When I searched the net, I found the Paragon stuff and it worked for me, was 19 USD - not something expensive. It does the trick and I stopped searching further.


I get a feeling that Win XP in virtual machine is more handle(able) than Win 7, through VM in MBA. I think specially given the design of the MBA (heat) , the limited RAM and small hard disk.

Trust this helps you.

Preetinder

 

[MacModMachine]

people think im crazy, but i just bought a mac mini 2.26 threw in a 80gb intel ssd and a 500gb drive in place of the optical drive and run my virtual machines on it remotely,

works great

i do all my programming now when im away remotely

 

[dugbug]

Just a note: I wanted 64 bit windows 7 pro and the snow leopard boot camp installer barfs with an unsupported model popup on the rev b air (maybe most macs right now)

found this and it works:

http://www.techulous.com/hardware/h...64-bit-for-windows-7-on-unsupported-macs.html


All is good now: I can even see both file systems from either os

partition size is 60gb for win7 and office. That gives plenty of room.

 

[steagle]

I know I'm late in responding, but wanted to jump in the thread. First of all, Windows will always run better in Boot Camp versus any virtualization platform. Obviously, there is no way to dedicate all system memory and processing speed to Windows while it is virtualized. The biggest roadblock to Boot Camp is getting the drivers to play nicely with your hardware - Apple still does not have official support for Windows 7, and while there are ways to get it running nicely, YMMV and it could cause a lot of headache.

That said, I am also a fan of VMWare Fusion 3 because of its Windows 7 x64 support, which Parallels lacks. I have dedicated 6GB of memory to the VM (out of a possible 8 in my MBP) and I have to admit, it runs great. The only downside is if I want to do gaming then I need to reboot into Boot Camp, because the 9600GT card in the MBP is not recognized via Fusion - they use their own proprietary video driver with 256MB of memory and it does not handle graphics well.

 

[MythicFrost]

I know I'm late in responding, but wanted to jump in the thread. First of all, Windows will always run better in Boot Camp versus any virtualization platform. Obviously, there is no way to dedicate all system memory and processing speed to Windows while it is virtualized. The biggest roadblock to Boot Camp is getting the drivers to play nicely with your hardware - Apple still does not have official support for Windows 7, and while there are ways to get it running nicely, YMMV and it could cause a lot of headache.

That said, I am also a fan of VMWare Fusion 3 because of its Windows 7 x64 support, which Parallels lacks. I have dedicated 6GB of memory to the VM (out of a possible 8 in my MBP) and I have to admit, it runs great. The only downside is if I want to do gaming then I need to reboot into Boot Camp, because the 9600GT card in the MBP is not recognized via Fusion - they use their own proprietary video driver with 256MB of memory and it does not handle graphics well.

I believe Parallels does not lack this feature, at least Parallels 5. I can dedicate up to 8GB of RAM to it (it's a VM created from a Boot Camp Partition), it's 64-bit too.

Rebooting is the best way to go IMO, I can run Battlefield 2142 on Windows 7 in Parallels 5, but I choose to use Boot Camp because it's just better and it also has the correct mouse speed etc...