can one havew windows installed with both bootcamp & virtulization software?

[Sossity]

I like the idea of bootcamp because it does not use as much of a macs resources, but I also like being able to run both OSes windows & mac at the same time, & from looking online, it seems that parallels is a bit simpler to set up than bootcamp with windows.

say I install with parallels, but find later on that I want to dedicate all the macs power to windows, can I then have windows installed through boot camp as well as parallels? or can windows be only on the mac one way or the other?

 

[Keleko]

If you install Windows using Bootcamp, you can also access the partition using Parallels or VMWare Fusion. So you can choose to boot Windows natively with a reboot or as a VM with one of those two products. They both recognize a Bootcamp partition and enable it for VM use. There is one difference from a pure VM install. You can't suspend a Bootcamp partition as a VM like you can a pure VM.

 

[balamw]

Raw performance is also slightly less in using a Boot Camp partition as a VM instead of a dedicated VM.

You may also run into activation issues, but these can usually be remedied by calling the phone number Microsoft provides when your online activation is rejected.

B

 

[elpmas]

If you install Windows using Bootcamp, you can also access the partition using Parallels or VMWare Fusion. So you can choose to boot Windows natively with a reboot or as a VM with one of those two products. They both recognize a Bootcamp partition and enable it for VM use. There is one difference from a pure VM install. You can't suspend a Bootcamp partition as a VM like you can a pure VM.

+1. This basically answers your question. Try Parallels/VMware's trial. If not, try Virtualbox, it's free.