Saw Bootcamp today

L

Larry__Rymal

Member
Folks, at work, we had a presenter today who demonstrated video-conferencing and some A/V stuff. What caused me to perk up was that he was in Windows XP and was on a black MacBook.

His material was the first that I have seen in which BootCamp was used. It was fast... Apparently and obviously so. Second, I was so amazed at how the video chatting was working via a free program named Skype, which apparently is swarming the world at the moment. The conference involved the keynote speaker being in Boston, with our presenter guy here in Huntsville, TX, which is north of Houston.

Impressive conference, demonstrating what can be done with free, cheap, open source software.

Although Skype is available for the Mac, the video conferencing / chat part is not. For Windows, it is, hence the use of Windows on the Mac for Skype.

Well, of course y'all know what I was wishing. I wish we had the ability in Parallels for this type of A/V access. If I didn't require a shared interface between the Mac and PC, I could see my using BootCamp, just for the A/V.

Now, I'm not let down with Parallels by any means. But, I certainly have A/V envy....:)
 
I've been running both, trying to decide which to registry my XP key on. It's a tough choice. Parallels can do 99% of the things that Boot Camp can do, and almost as fast. If I can figure out a way to use the Windows XP Upgrade edition on Parallels without having to have a full XP install on it in the first place, I may end up going for it...Here's a link to my article on using the Upgrade edition with Boot Camp (costs about 50% less than the full edition!):

http://upgrade.wiredby.com/
 
Excellent article that you wrote. I purchased the upgrade version of XP for Parallels. I had a Windows 98 installer so was able to do it.
 
Hmm, what problem were you having? I used the upgrade version of XP for my Parallels guest, no problem. I ended up ripping the XP disc onto my Mac desktop, and using that image to boot Parallels and do the install, but I don't even think that is necessary.
 
Larry__Rymal & others,
Do you know if the Macbook uses a different webcam? Last i looked bootcamp doesn't include drivers for the webcam hence why parallels can't use the device. It's just a USB webcam...but without any windows drivers. Did the presenter have another webcam hooked up externally?

Thanks,
-Levi
 
mcg said:
Hmm, what problem were you having? I used the upgrade version of XP for my Parallels guest, no problem. I ended up ripping the XP disc onto my Mac desktop, and using that image to boot Parallels and do the install, but I don't even think that is necessary.
Click to expand...

When you use the upgrade version of XP, it requires that you either (1) insert an older Windows disc for verficiation or (2) have a previous version of XP installed on the hard drive (or virtual hard drive in this case). How did you get around that with Parallels? I'd love to know :D
 
kaidomac said:
When you use the upgrade version of XP, it requires that you either (1) insert an older Windows disc for verficiation or (2) have a previous version of XP installed on the hard drive (or virtual hard drive in this case). How did you get around that with Parallels? I'd love to know :D
Click to expand...

Okay, I figured out the trick:

1. Create a new VM in Parallels
2. Begin installation with the WinXP Upgrade disc
3. When it prompts you for a previous-version disc, exit the VM window by pressing CTRL+ALT and right-click on the CD icon on the bottom right of the Parallels window. Choose "Disconnect" from there.
4. The XP CD will now appear on the OS X desktop; eject it by dragging it to the trash. OS X will whine at you and say that it's in use by another program; hit OK and then eject it again and it will come out without further complaints.
5. Insert your previous-version disc (Windows 2000 in my case)
6. The new disc will appear on the OS X desktop; go back to the Parallels window, right-click the CD icon, and select "Connect"
7. Click inside the VM window and hit Enter to verify the disc
8. Eject the previous-version disc like you did in steps 3 & 4
9. Insert the XP Upgrade disc like you did in steps 5 & 6
10. Complete installation

The XP Upgrade disc only costs $80 online (for the Academic version, at least), which is a lot better than $299 at Staples or even $140 for the OEM version online. mcg, if you did it a different way I'd be open to hearing it! Also, did you find that it installed pretty fast off the hard drive rather than from a CD?

btw Larry__Rymal, sorry to threadjack, didn't mean to :D
 
Yep, that procedure sounds about right.

I wouldn't have bothered creating an image of my XP disc, except: 1) the one I had was borderline defective, so by ripping it reliably I got a good copy of the data, and 2) it took me awhile to actually figure out the steps you've pointed out.
 
> btw Larry__Rymal, sorry to threadjack, didn't mean to

That's ok, I'm learning!!!!

> Did the presenter have another webcam hooked up externally?

Yes.... SKYPE, which was used for the A / V demo, had to use Windows' version of SKYPE for the video conferencing part. But, so far, the built-in video camera isn't availabe, even via BootCamp. He had to use a USB camera.
 
Larry__Rymal said:
Yes.... SKYPE, which was used for the A / V demo, had to use Windows' version of SKYPE for the video conferencing part. But, so far, the built-in video camera isn't availabe, even via BootCamp. He had to use a USB camera.
Click to expand...

So there's no actual advantage of using bootcamp. Many people have had good luck with usb webcams in Parallels. Your milage may vary because of the way PD handles usb.

-Levi
 
ivel said:
So there's no actual advantage of using bootcamp. Many people have had good luck with usb webcams in Parallels. Your milage may vary because of the way PD handles usb.

-Levi
Click to expand...
Many people have webcams runing in parallels , name me the web cams that work so i can run out and buy it , i have not heard of one that works. but I have been away for couple weeks and may have missed it??? Please tell me one that works in parallels. ty
 
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