Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Going to install Windows 7 via Bootcamp. 32 or 64 bit?

C

CardboardGiant

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2011
131
0
Which one is better for my 2011 Macbook Air, 4GB ram, i5?

32-bit or 64-bit?

Which one supports the most software?

Which one would be compatible with VMware Fusion?

Also I plan on using Windows 7 mostly for music (around 30GB as of now) and movies (around 70GB). I will be using Lion OS X for school via Microsoft Office 2011 Student ediiton. My total SSD size is 256GB.

Do you think it's a good idea to have 50GB for Lion OS X and 200GB for Windows 7?

My apologies if this has been asked before.
 
simsaladimbamba

simsaladimbamba

Guest
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
31
located
Both will be compatible with VMWare Fusion.
I would go with the 64-bit version, as Windows is now advanced enough to do this.

____________________________________________________________

Maybe have a look at Advanced Search to find similar threads:
​
____________________________________________________________
​
 
R

Robyr

macrumors regular
Feb 21, 2010
226
0
Why in the world would you use Windows if you are only going to use it for movies and music? Mac OS does as well, if not excels, at this task compared to Windows.
 
C

CardboardGiant

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2011
131
0
Robyr said:
Why in the world would you use Windows if you are only going to use it for movies and music? Mac OS does as well, if not excels, at this task compared to Windows.
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention gaming as well. There's a couple of games that can only be played on Windows and not Mac. Mostly visual novels and SHMUPs.
 
R

Robyr

macrumors regular
Feb 21, 2010
226
0
CardboardGiant said:
I forgot to mention gaming as well. There's a couple of games that can only be played on Windows and not Mac. Mostly visual novels and SHMUPs.
Click to expand...

Even then, I question the plan to allocate nearly the entire SSD to Windows. Why not go to something a bit more conservative...
 
S

shadowjeff

macrumors regular
Aug 3, 2010
217
0
well maybe the op prefers using windows as his main operating system? Even if i were to prefer windows over mac os, i would also pick up the macbook air cuz it looks so sexy.
 
C

CardboardGiant

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 15, 2011
131
0
shadowjeff said:
well maybe the op prefers using windows as his main operating system? Even if i were to prefer windows over mac os, i would also pick up the macbook air cuz it looks so sexy.
Click to expand...

Also the Macbook Air is just well built and should my machine break down, I am always protected by AppleCare (unless, of course it's my fault).

Was thinking about buying a new ultraportable via Asus Zenbook, but it looks ugly (too shiny) and there are reports of the keyboard not functioning properly at times.

Then I thought about the Samsung Series 9... It looks awesome. Specs exceed the MBA (8 GB RAM, i7, 256GB SSD) but MBA is just smoother overall. Why spend another $1000+ when I could just install Windows 7 AND have my MBA protected by AppleCare for 3 years?
 
K

KPOM

macrumors P6
Oct 23, 2010
18,031
7,872
This is probably better suited for the Windows on Mac forum.

In any case, I'd stick with Boot Camp if you plan to do any gaming. VMWare Fusion can handle a Boot Camp partition just fine. I use Windows 7 64-bit since it gives me the full 4GB (OK 3.625GB) RAM in Boot Camp, but in the VM it doesn't make much difference. When running in a VM, I'd give Windows no more than 2GB so that OS X doesn't slow down too much.

When partitioning the SSD, note that Boot Camp still uses the old base 1024 method of computing partition size (like Windows), while OS X uses the base 1000 method. That means that the 251GB SSD looks like it is only 234GB. Keep that in mind when setting the partition size.

While you can have only one Boot Camp partition, you can have multiple OS X partitions. One option is to have 3 partitions. You can have Windows on one, OS X on another, and format the third partition as ExFAT so that both OS X and Windows can read and write to it. You could store your iTunes library there, for instance, so you could access your library from either OS. I think to do that, you need to create the 2nd OS X partition first (using Disk Utility), then run Boot Camp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom