3 operating systems, 1 macbook pro

[lisharts]

Ok so I have a Macbook Pro which I bought almost exactly a year ago. It was a replacement for an old dying Mac Pro. I love it, can't believe I used to be restricted to a desktop. Brilliant machine.

However over the past few OS updates (I'm running SL still) my old copy of Adobe Design CS3 is just throwing up error after error. The truth is I not only don't feel a need to update but my circumstances have changed dramatically since I bought it and I just can't afford to shell out short of £1000 for an upgrade.

However my problem is aside from CS3 I really don't run any older applications that would prevent me upgrading to Lion. I like the Apple OS very much and would love to stay up-to-date with it. Especially given how cheap it is to do so.

So last night I was considering upgrading to Lion and perhaps installing an old copy of Tiger from my Mac Pro. Tiger ran CS3 pretty smoothly and it's likely the only time I would boot into it.

However just to add to all of this work have ordered me a copy of Windows 7 to bootcamp. At work I would use this for very minor jobs however with it installed I wouldn't mind putting a few games on there (the only thing I miss from owning a windows PC).

Would it be possible to run 3 OS from my macbook pro (specs below).

How much space should I give each install and would I notice a performance decrease?

Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Memory: 4 GB
HD Capacity: 500.11 GB

(if I'm missing anything just ask)

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[ahbdesign]

I think you can in Parallels Desktop 7!

have a look here

As far I can see, there are 3 operating systems running! However, if 4gig of ram is enough for this? I'm not too sure about that!

 

[S.B.G]

I think you can in Parallels Desktop 7!

have a look here

As far I can see, there are 3 operating systems running! However, if 4gig of ram is enough for this? I'm not too sure about that!

3 OS's and 4GB is not enough. I had my 24" C2D 3.06GHz with 4GB RAM running, obviously OS X, VMWare Fusion with WinXP, Linux, and the beta to Win7. It worked, but the computer was on virtual memory and took forever to close out the first OS.

 

[lisharts]

Would it not be possible using bootcamp?

 

[S.B.G]

With Bootcamp, you can only run one OS at a time, unless you use virtualization like Parallels or VMWare.

So you can virtualize from OS X any other OS as long as your hardware can support it.

Likewise, you can BootCamp into Windows and run virtualization for other OS's, but you still are limited to the capability of the physical hardware of your system.

 

[lisharts]

Oh I'm so sorry I've just read my post again and it's confusing! What I meant was is it possible to have 3 operating systems installed with bootcamp, but able to boot seperately. Also how much space should I give each installation if it's possible to do so? Sorry again for the confusion. Also the link to Parallels was quite interesting and would be a fantastic solution but it would be adding some extra cost (particuarly if I'd need more memory too). But perhaps something for me to consider for the future.

 

[S.B.G]

Yes. Check out this article:

Create a three-partition Boot Camp setup

But you cannot run more than one BootCamp partition at a time.

 

[lisharts]

Perfect, thank you so much for the link!