Windows on a Mac

[the_ripper]

I'm looking at getting a Mac and I was wondering which is better...Boot Camp or Parallels? What's the difference?

[KenB]

I'm looking at getting a Mac and I was wondering which is better...Boot Camp or Parallels? What's the difference?

The answer to the first question is another question: How are you going to use it? The reason relates to your second question.

Boot Camp does pretty much what it sounds like: It allows you the choice of booting into either Mac OS or Windows. With Boot Camp, it's one or the other. Your mac becomes a dual-boot machine.

Parallels actually runs Windows OS in an application window on your Mac desktop. The upcoming version actually takes that one step further and will load your Windows software with no need to worry about whether it's for Windows or not. It will load up in its own window just like any Mac application.

Because Boot Camp runs essentially runs Windows or Mac OS alone on your machine, either one can take full advantage of the memory and processor speed of your system. This is great for system intensive applications like games and multimedia programs, but it means you have to log out and back in each time you need to use a program from either OS.

Parallels is more convenient, but you have to have enough memory to run both Mac OS and Windows at the same time as any applications you have open. You should have at least a couple of gigabytes of RAM in your machine to do this well. With enough memory on a newer Mac, it will run fine for most tasks.

To sum up, if you want to run newer 3D Windows games on your Mac, go with Boot Camp. However, if you only want to run the Windows versions or normal desktop applications, go with Parallels.

In either case, you'll need a copy of Windows to install. Neither program comes with Windows.

[the_ripper]

Thanks for the quick repsonse - I'm not a gamer so I think parallels is the way to go. Will it work with Windows XP?

[KenB]

Thanks for the quick repsonse - I'm not a gamer so I think parallels is the way to go. Will it work with Windows XP?

LOL - it won't always be that quick. Things are pretty quiet around here since the board only recently started up, so it's easier to respond more quickly.

At any rate, Parallels will work fine with Windows XP.

[the_ripper]

Cool, thanks!