Installing Programs into Bootcamp vs Parallels - Dragon Naturally Speaking

C

courier

Bit poster
I'm a newbie and just installed Bootcamp 1.3, Windows XP Home, and Parallels 3.0 (using my Bootcamp Windows install) on my 2.2ghz MacBook Pro. I bought Windows and Parallels so I can use Dragon Naturally Speaking.

My question is: can I install the programs I want to use -- Naturally Speaking, Word (windows version), Final Draft -- into my Bootcamp version of Windows XP and then access them in Parallels OR do I install the programs in my virtual XP using Parallels? And if I do install them on the virtual side, can I use them on the Bootcamp side?

Many thanks in advance for your help with this.
 
I can't speak to the Quick Draft program, but both Dragon and Word will work fine in either a Parallels Window virtual machine or via BootCamp. What you need to know, though, is that if you install these under Bootcamp, they will be available only when you boot your machine up in the Windows partition. This is separate from Parallels running on the Mac OS. The beauty of Parallels is that you can transition from the Mac OS to any of the Windows virtual machines seamlessly. Bootcamp, on the other hand, is a "one or the other" program - you can't transition from the Windows partition to Mac Partition without restarting the computer.

Hope this is helpful.

Jon
 
JonW said:
What you need to know, though, is that if you install these under Bootcamp, they will be available only when you boot your machine up in the Windows partition.
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That's not true. I have installed programs in BootCamp and other programs in Parallels. All programs are available to me regardless of how I get to them.
 
soxford47 said:
That's not true. I have installed programs in BootCamp and other programs in Parallels. All programs are available to me regardless of how I get to them.
Click to expand...

Sorry if I mis-stated something. I'm curious, though - if you boot up as a Windows machine using Bootcamp and want to access something in either the Mac Partition or specifically something in the Windows portion of the Parallels virtual machine, how do you reach it?

Jon
 
I think what courier was really asking was how to install programs once he has parallels up and running and seeing the bootcamp partitions. Since I could not get my configuration to work properly, I am prob not the best to reply, but I would assume that you can install programs either running the bootcamp partition natively or from the bootcamp partition running under parallels. I suspect however that you will have less trouble if you install the programs running the bootcamp partition natively then accessing and using them through parallels at your convenience
 
You can't access the Mac partition when running Windows via BootCamp, because windows doesn't know how to read Mac OS Extended disk format. When you install Parallels using the BootCamp partition, it uses files from that partition to run windows, so you can access the same files from either Parallels or BootCamp.

You can install any program in either BootCamp or Parallels and access it in BOTH of them regardless of which way you installed it. Certain administrative things like Parallels tools will only run in one case, of course.
 
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