Bare minimum Windows XP Partition

[mpb2000]

I see so many different answers to this question, so I hope I can get a general consensus. I have to install XP with boot camp, but all I need to use is Internet Explorer so I can access something at work (no mac support). So, all I have to install is the OS and that's it. I'm never going to install anything else on that partition. How many GB should I give to the Windows partition? I want to keep as much space as possible on the Mac side.

 

[balamw]

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Why not a VM?

IE should work fine.

B

 

[mpb2000]

Tried. What I need to do won't work on a virtual machine.

 

[balamw]

Tried. What I need to do won't work on a virtual machine.

You can definitely get away with 15 GB, I had it on my iMac, but I've seen reports of as small as 5 GB with nLite.

I ran into problems upgrading to SP3 and ended up giving it more space.

B

 

[vistadude]

I think 10 GB is do-able... But get a windows disc with the service pack integrated so you don't have to unpack it. Turn off hibernation, system restore, and make the pagefile small.

I wonder if you could use windows 2000 instead?

 

[Simmity]

5 Gigabytes for windows xp sp3 is sufficient, the absolute minimum is 1,5 GB for windows xp but the service packs require more space. For windows vista and 7 you will need atleast 15 GB of hdd space. Note that the page file might be as large as your RAM. So if you have 4 GB of ram you wil need to have atleast 8-9 GB of hdd space for windows xp ( or disable the page file).