Windows on my Macbook Pro

[gazfocus]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes...

I have been thinking for a while about buying a Dell XPS M1530 as I need a Windows Laptop in addition to my MBP, and I have been emailed a 10% off coupon from Dell, which could save me £80 off the configuration I was looking at (2.4GHz C2D, 4GB Ram, 320GB Hard Drive, 1440 x 900).

However, during the summer, I hope to be buying a Mac Pro to replace my Windows desktop, and wondering whether it's worth buying the Dell or not.

What would the performance be like running Windows XP on my Macbook Pro? (It's a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB Ram, and 320GB Hard Drive).

Would the performance be as good as a dedicated windows PC?

 

[JNB]

In Boot Camp, it would be the fastest Windows laptop around. In VMWare/Parallels, it would be perfectly fine as to be not noticeable as a virtualized environment for the vast majority of work. Just remember it's a laptop, and not to expect desktop-level performance in games & the like (which would be the case for a Dell laptop, as well).

 

[tersono]

The MBP will run Windows under boot camp every bit as well as an equivalent laptop from another manufacturer - in fact at one point last year, PCWorld magazine were recommending the 17" MBP as the fastest Windows laptop on the planet!

It would be pointless to buy two machines when you can do both jobs on the same hardware.

 

[gazfocus]

Thanks.
Yeah, I wouldn't look at playing games...It's mainly for my uni work to be honest.

I have tried it in Parallels, and it's ok, but you don't get the full use of the graphics (such as dual display, etc. Do you get this using bootcamp? Also, if I boot the MBP into Windows, can I access the files on the Mac partition in the same way as in Parallels (in parallels, the mac partition shows up as a network drive).

Ta

 

[Tallest Skil]

In Boot Camp, Windows can only see Windows without third-party software. However, with Boot Camp you can download MacFUSE that lets you read and write to NTFS partitions from OS X, so you can drag and drop files to and from your partitions from within OS X.

 

[tersono]

Thanks.
Yeah, I wouldn't look at playing games...It's mainly for my uni work to be honest.

I have tried it in Parallels, and it's ok, but you don't get the full use of the graphics (such as dual display, etc. Do you get this using bootcamp? Also, if I boot the MBP into Windows, can I access the files on the Mac partition in the same way as in Parallels (in parallels, the mac partition shows up as a network drive).

Ta

The latest beta version of VMWare Fusion supports dual displays - it's what I use at work to access a handful of Windows-specific applications. Under Boot Camp, Windows behaves exactly as it does on a separate PC (dual displays etc), but this also includes an inability to read Mac file systems. There's a piece of shareware called MacDrive, however, which overcomes this limitation.

 

[sash]

Also, if I boot the MBP into Windows, can I access the files on the Mac partition

Hi,

At this point, MacDrive lets you access the Mac drive from all recent Windows versions, except x64 editions. Really good thing, I only hope they’ll make the x64 version as soon as possible.

sash

 

[gazfocus]

Hi,

At this point, MacDrive lets you access the Mac drive from all recent Windows versions, except x64 editions. Really good thing, I only hope they’ll make the x64 version as soon as possible.

sash

Thanks I'll have a look into it

 

[katorga]

Mac all the way

Bootcamp works really well and Mac's make a great windows laptop. I run XP for games in bootcamp with no issues.

For daily stuff I use Vmware. It works really well. I run a "work" windows XP virtual machine for Office, Visio, various windows penetration testing tools, and Avaya softphone. I also run various linux virtual machines for this and that.

I also use Crossover Mac to run Outlook 2003 and a few games natively ontop of OS X. It is not as fast or solid as VMware, but works when I need it.

 

[aviationalyours]

Yah

Install windows. Like PCworld said the MBP is the FASTEST computer to run Windows. So go ahead.