Trying to get Windows on my Mac

You have two options - native boot, or virtual machine. Native boot will require you to restart your Mac everytime you want to switch between Windows and OS X. A virtual machine runs inside of OS X - but is treated like its own machine - and won't require you to restart to run Windows.

Boot Camp Assistant is an application preinstalled in OS X, which makes it extremely easy to set up an OS X/Windows dual boot system. If you go the VM route, you will need to get some virtualization software - Parallels, VMWare (both paid), and VirtualBox (free) are the popular ones.

Check your university's bookstore for software discounts. I picked up a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate for $30 from mine a few years ago. I think you can also get education discounts from Microsoft's online store, but I'm not sure.

If you own a copy of Windows, you have two options - you can set up a virtual machine and run windows from within OS X or you can use Bootcamp to partition the drive and have two separate operating systems. Personally, I run a copy of Windows 8 inside VMWare Fusion. If you don't want to shell out money for it, you can give VirtualBox a try -- it's free and supports Windws 8.

I think it's easier to run Windows from within OS X, but keep in mind that you'll be allocating RAM and processor usage to both OS X AND Windows so your performance on both operating systems may go down, providing the specs of your computer. If you're going to be relying on Windows or using it a lot, using Bootcamp would probably be your best option.

C-Rabbit said:

Thanks for the input you guys. It sounds like probably VM is the best way to go? Also, I'm not really that "Tech savvy" so I'm not really sure whether my Mac even meets the requirements for Windows 8... Not really sure though I would hate to buy it then not even be able to run it.

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A virtual machine would probably be your best bet. What are the specs of your computer? Chances are that it will be able to run Windows 8 -- I ran it on a 2009 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM & Intel Core 2 Duo CPU with no problems. It's pretty light weight in terms of using system resources.