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TJC747

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 15, 2011
57
0
I have a 2007 white MacBook. 4 years+ old.

for my statistics class in college, the teacher is telling us we need windows OS to access a program that mac's cannot run. he is giving us the CD for windows 7, but could partitioning my hard drive to allow windows to run be harmful to my mac? my computer is pretty slow already and i feel like if i were to add windows, it would be even worse. would XP or even Vista be a better option? thanks
 
No, it will be not harmful to your Mac, as using Windows will not affect Mac OS X, be it running Windows separately via Boot Camp or as a VM (see below, though you need RAM for this).
Booting Windows on the Mac

You should also backup your Mac OS X side before installing Windows, in case the installation goes wrong.


Also have a look here, to find out, what is making your Mac run slow:
 
Depending on what version of Windows you have to install, you might have to upgrade your RAM. The 64 bit versions of Windows 7 require 2GB; I'm currently doing the same thing to my 2009 model MacBook. My school requires me to have Windows and I really don't want to give up Mac OS X so this is the best option for everybody. I'll let you know how my installation goes when it's all completed. From the looks of the instructions on the internet it shouldn't be hard at all.
 
Windows XP is the best option for you. It will run under 1 GB ram. Vista and 7 need a lot more to run anything.
 
I have a 2007 white MacBook. 4 years+ old.

for my statistics class in college, the teacher is telling us we need windows OS to access a program that mac's cannot run. he is giving us the CD for windows 7, but could partitioning my hard drive to allow windows to run be harmful to my mac? my computer is pretty slow already and i feel like if i were to add windows, it would be even worse. would XP or even Vista be a better option? thanks

Adding Windows 7 to your mac wouldn't make your computer slower. If it is slow, you should try to add more RAM.. That usually helps with speeds.
 
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