[Macpartners] Dual simultaneous OSes?

[Albert Willis]

On May 22, 2007, at 11:51 AM, Scott Ehrlich wrote:

> I have been the green light to purchase a few machines, one of  
> which will
> be a Mac.   I'm looking at likely getting a high-end desktop, and am
> wondering what would then be involved in getting MacOS and Windows  
> running
> simultaneously, and how updated/reliable bootcamp is for drivers?    
> How
> stable is Windows under bootcamp?
>
> Will I be able to run both OSes simultaneously, as opposed to  
> utilizing
> Parallels, which, from what I've seen, is the Mac equivalent of  
> VMWare.
>
> Please educate me.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Scott

To run another operating system simultaneously with Mac OS X (such as  
Windows or Linux) requires virtualization, meaning Parallels Desktop  
at this time--VMWare Fusion is in beta and won't be 1.0 until  
sometime this summer. You can get a 15-day free trial from Parallels:  
http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/. Parallels Desktop can  
be bought from GovConnection at an educational discount.

Boot Camp (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/) allows you to non- 
destructively partition a Mac's hard drive and install Windows XP or  
Vista and allows you to burn a CD of Windows drivers for the Mac's  
hardware. Once Windows is installed, you have to reboot your machine  
to use it. The latest drivers are quite good, allowing you to use the  
Mac's hardware features. Keep in mind that Boot Camp is also beta  
software; we likely won't see the final version until Mac OS X 10.5  
"Leopard" ships this fall. It's also important to remember that when  
booted into Windows, the Mac essentially becomes another Windows PC  
and has to be administered as such.

   -- Al


______________________________
Albert Willis
Macintosh Platform Coordinator - Software Release Team
Client Support Services
Information Services and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
awillis at mit.edu