Boot camp vs Parallels?

Y

yampi

Junior Member
Hi all,
I have installed XP using it with Parallels on my MacBook Core2 Duo, 2GHz, @2GB RAM and doing fine... however I am wondering if I go with Boot camp (and I don't mind rebooting due to my limited XP use) will the laptop performance be better in general?

Is Boot Camp using both cores of the Intel processor?

if the answer is yes can I have both boot camp & Parallels ?

Again if yes, can you guide me thru directions how to install boot camp/ XP.

Thank you all in advance,:cool:
SA
 
Yes, you can install both.
BootCamp runs much better than Parallels as it is using the full system AS a Windows box.

Parallels is just a whole lot more convenient, and it runs decently fast.

Just set-up BootCamp (documented nicely on Apple's download page).
Then, set-up a VM using BootCamp by selecting advanced and then BootCamp HD.
 
Thanks a lot, after installing boot camp do I still need to install XP again (since I already have XP under Parallels),
I apologize in advance if this is stupid question!
:(
SA
 
No problem... It's not that stupid... I wondered the same thing at first!

As far as I can tell, unless you use something like Acronis Back-up to 'hand off' your install you are going to have to start over...
 
thanks again, so one more question, the two Xps (one in Boot Camp, one in Parallels) are they sharing data, or they are essentially two differentindependent working programs?
much thanks again,
 
yampi said:
thanks again, so one more question, the two Xps (one in Boot Camp, one in Parallels) are they sharing data, or they are essentially two differentindependent working programs?
much thanks again,
Click to expand...
It depends upon how you set it up.

If you tell Parallels to USE the BootCamp partition as a Hard Drive under the advanced set-up for a new virtual machine, then they will share data. But there will be no .hdd file with all your information as it will all be stored in the BootCamp partition... The way I entailed with Acronis would create a VM that does not 'leech' off of BootCamp. ;)
 
....But there will be no .hdd file with all your information as it will all be stored in the BootCamp partition... The way I entailed with Acronis would create a VM that does not 'leech' off of BootCamp....

can you explain a little more, as I mentioned I am a beginner,
thanks again:o ,
SA
 
Sure. Here is what you do:
Download a trial of Acronis to your VM.
Back-up your machine, and then save it to an external or something you will be able to access from BootCamp.
Install BootCamp per Apple's instructions on the BootCamp page. (Which includes installing Windows)
Install the BootCamp Drivers.
'Restore' the Acronis image you made of your VM to your BootCamp windows.
Set-up Parallels with a 'New Virtual Machine' and do this by going: Advanced -> Use BootCamp Hard Drive
Now, install Parallels tools.
You should be set.

Hope that helps!
 
OK I'll give it a try, good thing is that right now I have no valuable data stored on XP
many regards,
SA
 
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