I'm about to get a new Mac Pro. I have an older Dell running Windows XP along with my Powerbook and I use it for maybe 20% of my overall computing time. I currently use a Belkin flip switch so I can switch back and forth between Mac and Windoze on the same monitor/keyboard, which is pretty convenient. Can you think of any good reasons for me to run Windows on my Mac Pro instead of just keeping my POS Dell and using it the way I have been?
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Windows on my Mac or just keep my PC?
- Thread starter rbro
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Windows on a Mac Pro would scream, as would OS X. That's a point in favor.
What will you be doing with it?
What will you be doing with it?
If you run virtualization (Parallels, VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox) you can
Otherwise you will have to boot natively
Woof, Woof - Dawg
The simple fact that my MacBook Pro runs Microsoft Vista better then my friends brand new PC tells me you should go with the Mac Pro running Bootcamp. It would work amazing.
Ditch the Dell, install Windows via Boot Camp (dual booting) and get VMware Fusion (or Parallels). You can access the same Windows installation through Boot Camp or within OS X with Fusion. That will give you fast switching - actually they are both running at the same time so switching to Windows is just clicking in a window or running an application shortcut. For example you could have a shortcut in the dock for your SEO Windows-based application which will start the virtual machine and launch the application. Makes sense?
I personally have to recommend not ditching your old PC. I have had nothing but trouble with Bootcamp on the new 15" Unibody MacBook Pro.
If you can find a previous model, then go with that to run Windows. The drivers suck less than they do for the new Unibodies. The trackpad actually functions and Vista and Windows 7 won't freeze on you.
Not sure on the drivers for the new Mac Pros though...
If you can find a previous model, then go with that to run Windows. The drivers suck less than they do for the new Unibodies. The trackpad actually functions and Vista and Windows 7 won't freeze on you.
Not sure on the drivers for the new Mac Pros though...
windows is notoriously unreliable on mac, unfortunately.
Speaking from experience with a brand new Mac Pro and a brand new unibody macbook pro, running windows and os x on both.
Apple should stop advertising windows as running seamlessly on macs. I'm an advanced user and it just doesn't run reliably. Various apple drivers randomly crash or stop at startup.... etc. It is usually problems with Apple's windows drivers.
Keep your PC. It is the only full-proof reliable way to run windows.
Speaking from experience with a brand new Mac Pro and a brand new unibody macbook pro, running windows and os x on both.
Apple should stop advertising windows as running seamlessly on macs. I'm an advanced user and it just doesn't run reliably. Various apple drivers randomly crash or stop at startup.... etc. It is usually problems with Apple's windows drivers.
Keep your PC. It is the only full-proof reliable way to run windows.
I use my MBP running Windows as my primary business machine and I never have any of the issues you mention here.
Edit: I see you guys are both talking about the new MBPs - I have the previous (early 08) model.
Word... Apple will have to make up their minds on whether they're gonna support Windows or not. I can see why they would want to make Windows look as bad as possible, but with BootCamp 2.0 on newer Macs it's more like a parody on Windows and that's not gonna fool anyone. Windows certainly has its flaws, but it does not fry machines, drain a laptop battery in 2 hours or produce weird video artifacts on a normal PC. Only on a Mac.
How does Windows fry macs? I just installed XP on a new Macbook with bootcamp. You're making me paranoid. Everything is running fine though. Also, is Windows taxing the computer on a mac more than on a PC?
Windows on Macs runs quite a bit hotter than OS X. It's normally only noticed running games etc.
I was minutes from buying a unibody MBP 17" to use with Windows 7 and OS X (in that order), when I started reading reports all over the web about Windows turning unibody MB's and MBP's into furnaces. Apparently, BootCamp doesn't handle fan control under Windows, and when there's no fan control driver, Windows defaults to 1000 RPM, no matter if you're just surfing casually or playing some insanely CPU and GPU intensive 3D game. As a result, Vista bleeds the battery on an MBP dry in 2 hours tops, the machine gets smoking hot, and some people have even reported weird video artifacts resulting from the GPU getting so hot it starts, um, 'hallucinating'. If Apple wants to avoid repairing half the unibody machine park within a year, they better get their sh** together and release a BootCamp 3.0 with proper fan control, or stop advertising Windows compatibility altogether.
If you google fan control + boot camp, you'll find that this has been a problem forever, some of those posts date back to 2006. As for XP, well, unless you're playing heavy duty games it really shouldn't generate any heat at all. XP is 8 years old, it was written when a Pentium III 500 MHz was a decent computer so it wouldn't know what to do with a Core2Duo powerhouse. It makes zero use of video hardware, other than to render basic desktop graphics using an ancient method that predates OpenGL, DirectX and all that stuff.
Well, games are supposed to generate a lot of heat really. If you crank up CPU and GPU usage to an average of 80-90%, whereas during normal usage it's chugging along in the 10-20% ballpark, it doesn't matter if it's Windows, OS X or Sony Playstation, the device will get h-o-t. But these heat problems people are talking about seem to occur by merely booting up Vista and doing some lightweight surfing, which is ridiculous. I don't get any fan noise (or noticable heat) on my Vista notebook until I make it do something a little heavier, like playing a HD video.
I second that. I can't run Windows XP on my 2007 MBP because it gets so hot, and the battery only lasts 2 hours. Windows 7 without bootcamp drivers is actually the best running Microsoft OS I've ever put on this computer, that's just wrong
It would be borderline hysterical if Microsoft came to the rescue and included drivers for running Win7 on a Mac. Both Vista and 7 ship with tens of thousands of drivers, why not throw in a few for the Mac as well. It would be a cool gesture. "Well, Apple couldn't make it work (or couldn't be arsed), so we took care of it for them".I second that. I can't run Windows XP on my 2007 MBP because it gets so hot, and the battery only lasts 2 hours. Windows 7 without bootcamp drivers is actually the best running Microsoft OS I've ever put on this computer, that's just wrong
If all you're doing is running SEO software you should be fine just slapping it inside a virtual machine on OSX. A Mac Pro should have plenty of memory and the CPU horsepower to do that without even breaking a sweat.
Bootcamp is overkill for a SEO and keeping the Dell around when a virtual machine could handle the job is extraneous.
If you were doing something more graphics intensive or hardware intensive, I wouldn't be recommending a virtual machine. But for your uses it should be perfectly fine. Mac Pro + VMWare should be a great combo for you.
Bootcamp is overkill for a SEO and keeping the Dell around when a virtual machine could handle the job is extraneous.
If you were doing something more graphics intensive or hardware intensive, I wouldn't be recommending a virtual machine. But for your uses it should be perfectly fine. Mac Pro + VMWare should be a great combo for you.
Fry machines? Support your lies with evidence. Oh wait, you can't because lies don't have any evidence. I ran my MacBook with XP/Vista before and it took around 3.5 hrs for the battery to drain. Normal internet usage. I did get about 1/100th of a second worth of artifacts before the Windows logo screen but after it booted, there were no artifacts. I played games, did some PS work, web browsing, etc. Maybe the install didn't go properly for you, but for me, it was seamless as advertised. Except the Windows logo, everything was perfect and the way it should have been.
Sure, I'm just making it up.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1837836&tstart=0
"if you seriously run Windows for more than half an hour you'll have a mini-stove for frying eggs or boiling water instead of a notebook."
"In every single game under Windows XP the system crashes after 15-20 minutes. Computer body gets extremely hot."
"It really ***** that bootcamp is totally unusable. Fans just don't spin up under any conditions, and things get hot until everything crashes."
http://www.macwindows.com/keep_vista_cool_bootcamp.html
"Vista in Boot Camp is hot, hot, hot"
"We've had several reports of Windows Vista and XP running very hot on MacBook Pros"
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1929588&tstart=0
"We really need something that will fix this since Vista is just going to fry these systems because there is no fan control. Personally, I have the 3 year apple care, but I would think it was in Apple's own best interest to release proper fan controller drivers so that they won't have to replace all these laptops due to over heating issues. There are already signs out there of this issue affecting people with graphic artifacts and issues with the GPU which may very well be heat related especially given Nvidia's recent problems with the packaging of their mobile GPUs having issues with overheating and the solder points suffering heat related stress failures."
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/276729/
"I have heard horror stories of people cooking their MBs playing games in XP"
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1936280&tstart=0
"I'll be honest, I got this MBP 17" Uni for work and the one thing that sold me was that I could run Windows. I heard about the graphics issues before I even got mine, and last night I experienced my first instance of the artifacts many people are seeing."
"This is driving me crazy too. My first Mac experience and the **** thing gets massive graphical artifacting in Windows because the machine is practically burning up."
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/657831/
"I'm just wondering why the fans on my unibody mbp do not spin up at all in bootcamp, even when the temps hit 80+ degrees C"...
These and the thousands of other posts about MBPs burning up under Boot Camp were all written by me, of course. It was quite the chore to register hundreds of different accounts and spend 24/7 impersonating a whole army of different MBP users, just to pull off this elaborate Kaufmanesque joke.
Or... not.
As for the install "not going properly for me", pay some attention - I don't own an MBP, and put off buying one after reading hundreds of horror stories about BootCamp and Unibodies that were too numerous to be anomalies.
Sure, I'm just making it up.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1837836&tstart=0
"if you seriously run Windows for more than half an hour you'll have a mini-stove for frying eggs or boiling water instead of a notebook."
"In every single game under Windows XP the system crashes after 15-20 minutes. Computer body gets extremely hot."
"It really ***** that bootcamp is totally unusable. Fans just don't spin up under any conditions, and things get hot until everything crashes."
http://www.macwindows.com/keep_vista_cool_bootcamp.html
"Vista in Boot Camp is hot, hot, hot"
"We've had several reports of Windows Vista and XP running very hot on MacBook Pros"
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1929588&tstart=0
"We really need something that will fix this since Vista is just going to fry these systems because there is no fan control. Personally, I have the 3 year apple care, but I would think it was in Apple's own best interest to release proper fan controller drivers so that they won't have to replace all these laptops due to over heating issues. There are already signs out there of this issue affecting people with graphic artifacts and issues with the GPU which may very well be heat related especially given Nvidia's recent problems with the packaging of their mobile GPUs having issues with overheating and the solder points suffering heat related stress failures."
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/276729/
"I have heard horror stories of people cooking their MBs playing games in XP"
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1936280&tstart=0
"I'll be honest, I got this MBP 17" Uni for work and the one thing that sold me was that I could run Windows. I heard about the graphics issues before I even got mine, and last night I experienced my first instance of the artifacts many people are seeing."
"This is driving me crazy too. My first Mac experience and the **** thing gets massive graphical artifacting in Windows because the machine is practically burning up."
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/657831/
"I'm just wondering why the fans on my unibody mbp do not spin up at all in bootcamp, even when the temps hit 80+ degrees C"...
These and the thousands of other posts about MBPs burning up under Boot Camp were all written by me, of course. It was quite the chore to register hundreds of different accounts and spend 24/7 impersonating a whole army of different MBP users, just to pull off this elaborate Kaufmanesque joke.
Or... not.
As for the install "not going properly for me", pay some attention - I don't own an MBP, and put off buying one after reading hundreds of horror stories about BootCamp and Unibodies that were too numerous to be anomalies.
For real. Bootcamp is a joke to say the least.
I cannot run Vista or Windows 7 at all. It will (not may) hard freeze on me every 30 minutes or so. This is with the drivers directly off the disk.
I've tried installing new broadcom drivers, new nvidia drivers, new realtek drivers... Nothing works.
And don't even get me started on the trackpad 'update.' The only thing it upped was my frustration with bootcamp. Touching the trackpad... just touching it, would cause audio and video glitches forcing me to restart the program... and would also cause blue screens (applemtp.sys or something like that).
Seriously, Apple needs to fix this. This does not make a good company image of them for me. It's like a slap in the balls for me. They make me feel good about purchasing this $3000 machine, then slap me in the balls telling me that it's Window's fault. Really now... Vista is probably the most stable operating system I have used (no kidding). I have seen less Vista BSOD than I have seen with XP in just the past 3 months. Blaming Microsoft for the applemtp.sys driver is not doing much good for me either. I mean... come on... it has APPLE in the driver name... and Apple doesn't support it? WTF!?!?
The heat is the least of my worries while running Windows. XP is the only other OS I can reliably run on this high end MacBook Pro.
I love OSX to death, but it doesn't play nice with Steam at all... or any games... Plus some college programs like MATLAB just run better in Windows. I bought this PC for college because Apple advertised that it can run Windows natively. What they didn't advertise is all the drawbacks you have while running Windows on a Mac.
I really miss my old MacBook Pro. I could at least run Vista on it without any major issues.
FIRE THE DANG PERSON WHO WRITES WINDOWS DRIVERS FOR BOOTCAMP NOW!!! THEY ARE STUPID!
I also get around 1.5 hours of battery life running in XP at most doing any sort of work. About two hours just sitting on a desk looking pretty. It's ridiculous... How much evidence do I need? A screen shot? Why don't you just take our word for it... Battery life sucks in Windows, and I know Windows has a lot of potential to run great on laptops, but some company cannot let that happen...
Wow, some interesting posts. I have a 2007 MBP and I run Vista 32-bit on Bootcamp and it works great, never had a problem that can be attributed to Apple or bootcamp. Sorry to hear about some of the issues you guys are having...
One man's opinion
It really depends on the apps you plan to run under windows.
IF you plan to do a lot of gaming, then a Mac running BootCamp is your best bet for overall performance and compatibility.
If you have some select Microsoft Apps that don't run on a Mac, Like Visio or MS Project, or AutoCad, then running a virtual windows environment like VMware Fusion or Parallels will fit you needs.
I run VMWare Fusion and have 3 virtual Windows environments depending on what my clients require: XP, Vista and the Beta of Window 7. BTW, the Beta of Windows 7 is the BEST of the 3 windows environments, hands down. MS is finally doing something right.
A little known fact (not really) is that what ever Mac you are running, make sure you have AT LEAST 4Gb of RAM. This holds especially true if you plan to run Parallels of Fusion.:
And with regards to VirtualBox, well, I just don't think you want to Fu** with it when you have Fusion or Parallels. (This board and others seem to favor, Fusion....and so do I).
It really depends on the apps you plan to run under windows.
IF you plan to do a lot of gaming, then a Mac running BootCamp is your best bet for overall performance and compatibility.
If you have some select Microsoft Apps that don't run on a Mac, Like Visio or MS Project, or AutoCad, then running a virtual windows environment like VMware Fusion or Parallels will fit you needs.
I run VMWare Fusion and have 3 virtual Windows environments depending on what my clients require: XP, Vista and the Beta of Window 7. BTW, the Beta of Windows 7 is the BEST of the 3 windows environments, hands down. MS is finally doing something right.
A little known fact (not really) is that what ever Mac you are running, make sure you have AT LEAST 4Gb of RAM. This holds especially true if you plan to run Parallels of Fusion.
:And with regards to VirtualBox, well, I just don't think you want to Fu** with it when you have Fusion or Parallels. (This board and others seem to favor, Fusion....and so do I).
Man that's hilarious. I feel your pain even though that rant had me laughing pretty hard. On my 13" unibody it isn't quite so bad, but I get to use the cooler running 9400M chip in bootcamp. On the MBP unibody you guys got the short end of the stick. Apple disabled the 9400M in bootcamp so you have to use the hotter running, less stable 9600GT for everything. You know they did that just to piss off Windows users.
Your screenshot looks a lot like mine did though. I was running Windows 7 in bootcamp but got the same miserable 2 hour battery life. Had issues with the trackpad update too, it was garbage. Problem is if you call up Applecare and tell them about it they politely tell you to bugger off because they don't support anything on Windows, even their own buggy bootcamp drivers.
Sounds to me as if it's not merely the fan control, but that the Intel chipset is incommunicado, which means that speedstepping doesn't work either. So the CPU is going full blast.
In power saver mode, I used to get 5 hours of battery time on my 15" Dell Precision notebook w/ Vista Ultimate 32-bit when the battery was fresh, and that battery is crap compared to the bigass one they put in MBP 17". With the Balanced setting I would get 3½-4 hours. To bring it down to 2 hours I had to set it to High Performance mode, which means speedstepping is off and all bells & whistles are enabled, and set the screen to full brightness or thereabouts. It shouldn't be physically possible to drain a battery in 2 hours with XP and low screen brightness, unless the machine runs off the battery from a frickin' wristwatch.
They sound bitter, almost as if BootCamp backfired on them somehow. Like the plan was to lure more skeptical switchers into the fold, but instead they got a bunch of Mac users buying Windows and discovering that, while it may not be their cup of tea, it wasn't half as bad as they'd expected.