I am probably getting a MBA in the next few days, but will need to occasionally run windows on it (probably XP). I would not need to be switching back and forth between OSs, but just occasionally boot to windows and use it. What is the best program to use to do this, bootcamp? Also, is the MBA fast enough to run Xp or Vista at a decent speed? Thanks much.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
running XP/Vista
- Thread starter impact
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Vista runs ok on the macbook air, however, it do not recommend running it on a virtual machine.
Mine uses XP. I dont recommend using Vista. It is draining. May heat up the MBA kinda quickly and POOF! Core shut down again. Haha
I'm using XP via VMWare Fusion, and performance is good. It can be used with a bootcamp partition so I recommend trying it.
I would STrongly reccomend VM Ware Fusion if you would like to run both. Bootcamp comes with the MBA but you can only run one OS at a time. With VM you can both run both at the same time. I have to admit it is the coolest thing I have ever seen. I normally run 6 spaces, and I run XP in one of them. The best part about it is that you can just minimize the XP window and then drag files from one OS to the other. When I set mine up I partitioned off 9GB and it seems to run really well. Actually much faster than my old XP laptop
can the MBA handle VMFusion? i'm considering getting the MBA, but wanted to use the word/excel processing in Windows for school needs, but didn't wanna have to boot up into bootcamp each time so am leaning towards a macbook, but wish i had the portability of the air.
using spaces sounds amazing! 1 space OSX and 1 space XP/Vista.
There's no reason why the air couldn't handle either VMFusion or Parallels, though it's a shame to waste so much of the precious disk space on two seperate operating systems on a machine that has rather very limited diskspace to start off with =P
nidserz if the only reason you are running a windows emulator is so that you can run word, or excel, I would just recommend getting the student version of office for the mac. All of the office programs made for the mac work really well. Molopo running both OS's defiantly makes the laptop run hotter, but I think it is nothing that It cannot handle. If running many programs, I would recommend using a free widget called IStatspro from http://www.islayer.com. This program allows you to monitor all of the temps along with many other cool features. If MBA gets way too hot you can tell because the programs will run sluggish.