Hey, I just converted to Mac, and I'm still getting used to it. I'm getting Parallels to run the stuff I cant on a Mac, like .exes. What I want to know is whether I should get Windows Vista or Windows XP. I don't want to deal with a lot of problems, so if XP would be less problematic in Parallels than Vista, please let me know.
Depends on how you want to run it. Parallels currently does not support Vista through Bootcamp (but I imagine they will at some point -- hopefully soon.) but Vista through Parallels (no Bootcamp) works just fine. The single install of Windows is what I'm waiting for. So, for me it's XP until Vista is supported. If you don't care about that, then go with Vista.
I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what you are talking about. I don't suppose you could re-word for the Mac Newb?
Oh ok, so your saying that if I want to run Windows both as a parallel workstation and as an option to boot up straight into windows (such as for using 3Ds max) I should get XP because bootcamp can't handle Vista?
To each his own, but unless you have a reason (ie an application) that requires Vista, I'd stick with XP simply because XP requires less resources (ie. less RAM) to run the same set of apps than does Vista. This means that overall your Mac will be happier because you'll have more RAM available for your OSX and less allocated to Windows.
I installed vista and its rubbish in my opinion. Its XP with a face lift. Vista Ultimate installs to ~7.3Gb which is a bit mad for me so im going back to XP.
^Bang on! My first words when booting vista in VM for the first time was - "it's just a shiny looking XP!" I'm currently trying to cut away all the BS and bulk that comes with vista (which is a LOT) then i'll be happy!
I actually like using Vista, go into the advanced settings for Performance and select the option for best performance. that turns off a huge amount of the fancy stuff. The look is boring, but its much faster which is all i care about. oh, but i do leave smooth font edges on though. that one i can't stand to have it off!
I ended up getting XP. The one reason I might want to get Vista down the road (when it doesnt cause problems with boot camp) is that I was told XP doesn't take advantage of multiple cores (and having a new Mac Pro with 2 2.7 GHz Xeons, I have four) while Vista does.
yeah but your Mac will use all those cores and leave xp with one core so should not be a problem and frankly afetr using a Mac for a year now and running parallels you'll no doubt end up likle most people only running an odd Windows app if at all. Hinestly in the last month alls I;ve used XP for is to get a greating card that would not open on anything but IE !
XP Pro will work with multiple cores just fine. We've got oodles of Dell's with dual cores (same thing in my MBP) running XP here. Perhaps there is a limit to the number of cores XP Pro will support - that I don't know, but it definitely work with 2. Plus if you're running virtualized, as of today Parallels only support 1 core so right now, it's kind of academic.
FWIW, I, for one, will not be "upgrading" to Vista. First of all it's going to be an expensive OS and I simply do not need all of the "fluff" to run the few windoze apps I can't get in Mac versions. Secondly, you gotta know that Vista is going to be "buggy" as all getout for at least the first several months of public availability. I only recently upgraded from W2K to expee because I need to test some web stuff in the latest version of IE which will not install on W2K. I am happy to have this VM because I have a couple of programs that are essential to my business but that will not run on the Mac. If not for this I would not even bother with windoze and I am very grateful to no longer have to worry about maintaining a separate peecee just to run a couple of apps once in a while. The less money I have to spend on windoze, IMMHO, the better..... DD
