The Boot Camp

[teknikal90]

Hey,
I have a Macbook Pro Penryn with 200GB HDD.
I play the following games:
Counter Strike Source
Battlefield 2
Battlefield Heroes (when that come out)
And perhaps 1 or 2 more...so only a handful.
I will also be installing Office 2007..
I'm leaning towards XP Pro SP2 over Vista...can anyone suggest otherwise?
And finally, as I said, I have a 200GB HDD...What do you think I should give to the Windows Partition?I was thinking 32 GB since then I can use the FAT32 system, read/writable to both PC and Mac, but I was afraid it'd compromise too much performance?Suggestions?

THANKS FOR YOU HELP

- p

 

[The Flashing Fi]

In terms of OS, I get the same performance in XP and Vista in Counter Strike Source (within 1 FPS) on max settings on my MBP. I don't play BF2, since I'm fed up with EA's crap, but that's a different subject, but I would imagine that the performance would be also very similar.

I personally find that Vista better uses your system resources when compared to XP. Face it, XP is coming up to 7 years. If you had an older computer, I'd push in the direction of XP, but there is no reason why Vista won't run well on your computer. I've been running Vista for about 1 and a half years (since RC1) and was an early adopter. SP1 really makes Vista better, and it should be rolling out to the general public soon, but you can find sites to snatch it off of.

Another thing you need to keep in mind is that Vista WILL become adopted. MS is going to stop all sales of XP to OEM manufacturers (Dell, HP, IBM, ect) and retail stores on June 30th. After June 30th, all that will be available is existing copies from before that date. So whether you or anyone else likes it or not, it's irrelevant. Vista will become mainstream. Also, Windows 7 won't be a radical departure from Vista according to MS. Windows 7 is expected to be what Windows XP is to Windows 2000 (Windows XP is added eye candy and other crap added ontop of Windows 2000, as well as other stuff under the surface). What this means is that when Windows 7 is released, you probably won't need to upgrade to it. Also, if you want to play a DX10 only game, you would need to get Vista.

I personally went Vista. Many people who will shortly post "Vista sucks, go XP" have never used Vista.

 

[teknikal90]

thanks for your knowledgable reply.appreciated.
one more thing though, how much space did you use for your boot camp partition?and how much space does vista, in its raw state, actually take up?

 

[teknikal90]

by the way i have the base model low end penryn macbook pro.
2.4ghz....stupid 3mb l2 cache instead of 6...wtf did intel make it that way???...256mb 8600gt...200gb HDD

 

[Neil321]

In terms of OS, I get the same performance in XP and Vista in Counter Strike Source (within 1 FPS) on max settings on my MBP. I don't play BF2, since I'm fed up with EA's crap, but that's a different subject, but I would imagine that the performance would be also very similar.

I personally find that Vista better uses your system resources when compared to XP. Face it, XP is coming up to 7 years. If you had an older computer, I'd push in the direction of XP, but there is no reason why Vista won't run well on your computer. I've been running Vista for about 1 and a half years (since RC1) and was an early adopter. SP1 really makes Vista better, and it should be rolling out to the general public soon, but you can find sites to snatch it off of.

Another thing you need to keep in mind is that Vista WILL become adopted. MS is going to stop all sales of XP to OEM manufacturers (Dell, HP, IBM, ect) and retail stores on June 30th. After June 30th, all that will be available is existing copies from before that date. So whether you or anyone else likes it or not, it's irrelevant. Vista will become mainstream. Also, Windows 7 won't be a radical departure from Vista according to MS. Windows 7 is expected to be what Windows XP is to Windows 2000 (Windows XP is added eye candy and other crap added ontop of Windows 2000, as well as other stuff under the surface). What this means is that when Windows 7 is released, you probably won't need to upgrade to it. Also, if you want to play a DX10 only game, you would need to get Vista.

I personally went Vista. Many people who will shortly post "Vista sucks, go XP" have never used Vista.

I have and use it at work and im one of those who still think it sucks

 

[The Flashing Fi]

I have and use it at work and im one of those who still think it sucks

I'm assuming you're using it on a pre-built computer? 1 Gig of RAM possibly? Manufacturers generally do a crappy job of configuring their computers for an OS. The same went for XP. You also never specifically stated why you think it sucks, so really, your opinion has no merit. It's also generally called trolling when you go around bashing things without even taking the time to state why.

If you think Vista is slow, then you don't have the computer to run it, and you should be running XP on those computers. Then again, my grandfather's HP had 1 gig of RAM and was running Vista Home Premium, and it seemed fine for what he needed it for. My dad's IBM laptop also has Vista Home Premium, but before he put in an extra gig, the laptop was extremely slow due to all the crap IBM puts on their computers.

teknikal90, I only have the 120 gig HDD on my MBP, so I split it half and half. I personally would avoid Fat32, except in the case of external hard drives where you need cross platform compatability.

Anyway, I have CSS, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Portal, and TF2 installed and various other little programs, and I have around 22 gigs free.All that takes up 16 gigs though. I personally wouldn't go Fat32 either. It's so old with a lot of limitations, and you can still copy files from Vista/XP onto Mac OS, just not the other way around from within Mac OS.

 

[macrlz9]

I'm assuming you're using it on a pre-built computer? 1 Gig of RAM possibly? Manufacturers generally do a crappy job of configuring their computers for an OS. The same went for XP. You also never specifically stated why you think it sucks, so really, your opinion has no merit. It's also generally called trolling when you go around bashing things without even taking the time to state why.

If you think Vista is slow, then you don't have the computer to run it, and you should be running XP on those computers. Then again, my grandfather's HP had 1 gig of RAM and was running Vista Home Premium, and it seemed fine for what he needed it for. My dad's IBM laptop also has Vista Home Premium, but before he put in an extra gig, the laptop was extremely slow due to all the crap IBM puts on their computers.

teknikal90, I only have the 120 gig HDD on my MBP, so I split it half and half. I personally would avoid Fat32, except in the case of external hard drives where you need cross platform compatability.

Anyway, I have CSS, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Portal, and TF2 installed and various other little programs, and I have around 22 gigs free.All that takes up 16 gigs though. I personally wouldn't go Fat32 either. It's so old with a lot of limitations, and you can still copy files from Vista/XP onto Mac OS, just not the other way around from within Mac OS.

Let it go... Vista is crap. No explanation needed.

 

[Neil321]

Let it go... Vista is crap. No explanation needed.

yep true,but here are a few on a personal level

It was is a pointless rush by ms
Years overdue
Its UAC is crap
Lack of drivers
Stability
Software compatibility
Transfer speeds are crap
And to top it all of there's 6 versions of crap

Dont want a flame war flashingfi,you have your opinions i have mine lets leave it a that

 

[The Flashing Fi]

yep true,but here are a few on a personal level

It was is a pointless rush by ms
Years overdue
Its UAC is crap
Lack of drivers
Stability
Software compatibility
Transfer speeds are crap
And to top it all of there's 6 versions of crap

Dont want a flame war flashingfi,you have your opinions i have mine lets leave it a that

I have no problem with your opinion. But the OP is asking for help. Simply telling him "vista sucks" helps nobody. If you want to avoid flame wars, try and back up your statements. That's a lot more helpful.

I do agree that Vista was way overdue. UAC can be disabled if it bothers you (although at work, you probably don't have the rights to disable it). The lack of drivers is no longer an issue. If you find it an issue with you, then you're probably using some off brand POS peripheral. Heck, Vista came with drivers for my Canon i470D printer, which is nice. I have personally run into software compatability with Solidworks (which is the reason why I had XP on my MBP, but oddly enough, Solidworks ran like crap on XP on my MBP as well). For games, I haven't had any issues personally.

Transfer speeds are indeed crap with Pre-SP1 Vista. SP1 fixes the transfer speeds, and there are hotfixes available for Pre-SP1 Vista. SP1 should be out to the general public this month or next month at the latest.

And on Stability, I have found that Vista is a hell of a lot more stable than XP. In the year and a half of using Vista, I have yet to get a BSOD. Well, that's not true. I got a BSOD while OCing my processor, but the BSOD was my fault, and is something you wouldn't get on your MBP (you can't OC the MBP's CPU). I also got a BSOD while using early beta-software, but that's what you get when you use stuff that's full of bugs. I haven't had any BSODs that was caused by Vista. Also, Vista's driver model allows for a driver that becomes unstable to be less likely to NOT crash the OS, like it would in XP. Instead, the driver is unloaded from the OS and an error message pops up telling you that "such and such has stopped working", and the most that may happen is it will crash the program. I find that a large improvement over XP.

Onto the versions. I don't see how this makes an OS "crap," but it's your opinion.

Vista Basic is basically for older computers. It needs less RAM compared to other versions. Vista Home Premium is directed at home users. In all honesty, Home Premium is everything that the average consumer needs/wants in an OS. It has the Media Center functionality, Aero, and other small stuff. Vista Business is aimed at, well... Businesses. The home user has really no need for it. That's the version I'm using, since it didn't cost me a dime. Vista Enterprise isn't available to consumers, only to Volume License customers. Vista Ulimate has everything. I honestly think it's a huge waste of money. The average user has no need for the business/Enterprise functionality, and the Vista Ultimate extras are a joke.

I respect your opinion on Vista, and I only refuted your claims to help the OP get another perspective, not to try and argue with you.

 

[Neil321]

I have no problem with your opinion. But the OP is asking for help. Simply telling him "vista sucks" helps nobody. If you want to avoid flame wars, try and back up your statements. That's a lot more helpful.

I do agree that Vista was way overdue. UAC can be disabled if it bothers you (although at work, you probably don't have the rights to disable it). The lack of drivers is no longer an issue. If you find it an issue with you, then you're probably using some off brand POS peripheral. Heck, Vista came with drivers for my Canon i470D printer, which is nice. I have personally run into software compatability with Solidworks (which is the reason why I had XP on my MBP, but oddly enough, Solidworks ran like crap on XP on my MBP as well). For games, I haven't had any issues personally.

Transfer speeds are indeed crap with Pre-SP1 Vista. SP1 fixes the transfer speeds, and there are hotfixes available for Pre-SP1 Vista. SP1 should be out to the general public this month or next month at the latest.

And on Stability, I have found that Vista is a hell of a lot more stable than XP. In the year and a half of using Vista, I have yet to get a BSOD. Well, that's not true. I got a BSOD while OCing my processor, but the BSOD was my fault, and is something you wouldn't get on your MBP (you can't OC the MBP's CPU). I also got a BSOD while using early beta-software, but that's what you get when you use stuff that's full of bugs. I haven't had any BSODs that was caused by Vista. Also, Vista's driver model allows for a driver that becomes unstable to be less likely to NOT crash the OS, like it would in XP. Instead, the driver is unloaded from the OS and an error message pops up telling you that "such and such has stopped working", and the most that may happen is it will crash the program. I find that a large improvement over XP.

Onto the versions. I don't see how this makes an OS "crap," but it's your opinion.

Vista Basic is basically for older computers. It needs less RAM compared to other versions. Vista Home Premium is directed at home users. In all honesty, Home Premium is everything that the average consumer needs/wants in an OS. It has the Media Center functionality, Aero, and other small stuff. Vista Business is aimed at, well... Businesses. The home user has really no need for it. That's the version I'm using, since it didn't cost me a dime. Vista Enterprise isn't available to consumers, only to Volume License customers. Vista Ulimate has everything. I honestly think it's a huge waste of money. The average user has no need for the business/Enterprise functionality, and the Vista Ultimate extras are a joke.

I respect your opinion on Vista, and I only refuted your claims to help the OP get another perspective, not to try and argue with you.

I also respect your opinion and ok maybe i was wrong just to butt in and
say it was crap and for that im sorry,lets just leave it at ay

 

[teknikal90]

ok. thanks for your help guys.
one more thing...you mentioned that i cant access fat32 files from mac os X?

i thought you were able to read?but not write...
im not keen to get a third party ware to do this, but this is sort of critical as i need to be able work files from mac os x that were done in windows...(stupid mac office wont do macros)...
so more about fat32...can someone please list me the dumbass friendly version of the cons of the file system?

thanks heaps

 

[Neil321]

ok. thanks for your help guys.
one more thing...you mentioned that i cant access fat32 files from mac os X?

i thought you were able to read?but not write...
im not keen to get a third party ware to do this, but this is sort of critical as i need to be able work files from mac os x that were done in windows...(stupid mac office wont do macros)...
so more about fat32...can someone please list me the dumbass friendly version of the cons of the file system?

thanks heaps

Mac OS X can both read/write to FAT32 partitions,the only downsides are you
limited to a 4GB file transfer size,and i think a 32GB partition limit ( bootcamp )

FAT32 is a old file system

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

>32GB FAT32 volumes

i think a 32GB partition limit

Yes... and no.

Windows 2000/XP can only format a maximum 32GB FAT32 partition, but Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista all support partitions up to 2TB... Windows ME can even be hacked to support 8TB FAT32 partitions! But, you either need to create the partition using a third-party format/partition tool or do it using Windows 98/ME.

 

[Neil321]

Yes... and no.

Windows 2000/XP can only format a maximum 32GB FAT32 partition, but Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista all support partitions up to 2TB... Windows ME can even be hacked to support 8TB FAT32 partitions! But, you either need to create the partition using a third-party format/partition tool or do it using Windows 98/ME.

Thank you for the clarification on this matter

 

[teknikal90]

yeah thanks for that, does that mean that i can make a say....60GB fat32 partition?the red windows files on macosx thing is sort of critical

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

yeah thanks for that, does that mean that i can make a say....60GB fat32 partition?the red windows files on macosx thing is sort of critical

If it must be a FAT32 volume, you can make it as big as you want (>32GB) as long as you can find a way to boot into Windows 98/ME to make the volume, or try third-party partitioning/formatting tool like Rannish Partition Manager, MaxBlast, fat32format or patch Windows XP partitioning/formatting tools. While you'll have a >32GB FAT32 drive, this will not remove the single file limitation of FAT32 of no files allowed that are 4GB or larger... as the largest FAT32 file allowed is 4GB minus 1 byte.

I would not recommend a large FAT32 volume for heavy day-to-day use, unless you really had a reason, such as sharing the drive with Windows 95 (OSR2)/98/ME users. I'd instead suggest:

Add NTFS drivers to Mac OS X so it can read/write Windows NTFS volumes: Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X ($40) or NTFS-3G for Mac (free, open source). Mac OS X out-of-the-box can only read NTFS.

Add Mac OS drivers to Windows so it can read/write Mac volumes: MacDrive for Windows ($50)

There's also HFSExplorer for Windows (free, open source) which can extract files from HFS+ volumes (Mac OS Extended/Mac iPod), .dmg disk images, or raw files, but it cannot write to an HFS+ volume.

P.S. Microsoft has not fully killed FAT, as it now lives on in exFAT (extended FAT), which you can think of as "FAT64". It's supported in Windows Embedded CE 6.0, and some support for it is in Windows Vista SP1. It's not supported in Windows XP, but you can even force install the Vista SP1 exFAT driver into Windows XP! All of this trivia is not really helpful to the topic though, as I don't know of an exFAT driver for Mac OS X.

 

[Neil321]

if you install NTFS-3G you need to download MacFuse also ( this is a requirement of NTFS-3G )

http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

 

[teknikal90]

wait...mac os can READ NTFS???
thats all i need it to do....i want office 2007 on the win vista side for the macros capabilities...then after im done with it, i want to copy the excel file and open it with office 2008 on the mac o x side....can that b done?

thanks all for your tremendous help.

ps: once i partition a drive, can i delete partition?or alter it?(ie make bigger/smaller?)


THANKS!

 

[teknikal90]

Mac OS X out-of-the-box can only read NTFS.

^^^

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

wait...mac os can READ NTFS???

Mac OS X can mount and read NTFS volumes since Panther, version 10.3.

thats all i need it to do....i want office 2007 on the win vista side for the macros capabilities...then after im done with it, i want to copy the excel file and open it with office 2008 on the mac o x side....can that b done?

Sure. Or better yet, run it in VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac under OS X (without having to reboot) and save it directly to a Mac volume to begin with. Skip the whole business of having a real NTFS drive to begin with if it's just for Office 2007!

once i partition a drive, can i delete partition?or alter it?(ie make bigger/smaller?)

Delete, yes.
Change size, no. Or, at least not easily from Disk Utility. OS X Tiger 10.4 and higher have started to add some hooks behind-the-scenes to allow some dynamic repartitioning. That's how Boot Camp installation utility does its magic.

 

[teknikal90]

thanks you guys very much.
yeah i was thinking to get a VM software
but too poor.
ha

 

[teknikal90]

LAST QUESTION

if i instrall windows using bootcamp...and later on install Fusion, can i virtualize the existing Windows install?
like, would i need to reinstall windows under Fusion as well?cause thatd really sucks...itd be cool if you can use the same install of Windows for both Fusion AND boot camp...possible?

 

[IEatApples]

LAST QUESTION

if i instrall windows using bootcamp...and later on install Fusion, can i virtualize the existing Windows install?
like, would i need to reinstall windows under Fusion as well?cause thatd really sucks...itd be cool if you can use the same install of Windows for both Fusion AND boot camp...possible?

Yes, you can use the BootCamp partition with both Fusion & Parallels (I've used it with both at the "same" time).

 

[teknikal90]

DONE!

ive just installed Vista Business onto my MBP.
i gave it a 50gb partition, which leaves me approx 136 gb for the mac side...im still thinking i gave too much space to the windows side...but oh well.
VISTA RUNS HOT!!! i cant work on vista on my lap without feeling pain.on OS X it works comfortably...
All in all,
I Macbook Pro

 

[The Flashing Fi]

DONE!

ive just installed Vista Business onto my MBP.
i gave it a 50gb partition, which leaves me approx 136 gb for the mac side...im still thinking i gave too much space to the windows side...but oh well.
VISTA RUNS HOT!!! i cant work on vista on my lap without feeling pain.on OS X it works comfortably...
All in all,
I Macbook Pro

In Mac OS X, it throttles the processor. In Windows, you can customize it to run the processor at the full speed all the time, which can cause it to get hot.

Let me boot into Windows and I'll tell you how to "fix" it.

EDIT: OK, I booted into Windows.

Here is how to "fix" it.

Click on the little battery icon on the taskbar to the left of it.

You can probably hit "Power Saver" and it will lower the temps, or balanced setting, I have changed mine around a lot.

Anyway, if you want to edit it, click "More Power Options."

Hit "Change Power Setting under what you have selected. Then hit "Change Advanced Power Settings."

Hit PCI Express and under Link State Power Management, have "plugged in" set to off.

Hit Processor Power Management. Under minimum power state, I have both "On Battery" and "Plugged in" set to 5%. Under Maximum Power state I have them both set to 100%.

This helps cut temps by about 5-10 C, or more.