Installing software via Bootcamp or Parallels?

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. This is my first time to post because usually I can find any question that I have either on MacRumors or through Google. This time, unfortunately, is not the case.

Here's my situation:

I just bought a new iMac and made a Bootcamp partition to put Windows 7 on it. I also have installed Parallels 7 to run the partition within the Mac. (The only reason I made the bootcamp is to play high demand games like Battle Field 3, etc.). The problem is I am wondering if I can install applications through either of the two mediums? I would assume that I could, but I ran into a problem after installing Windows Office through Parallels. The download went fine, but after I shut Windows down, and then OSX down to start up Bootcamp, the Windows boot did not open properly and gave all sorts of error messages.

Long story short I had to recover my windows to an earlier point and I lost my office download. I just got done reinstalling Office via Bootcamp this time and everything went fine. Parallels loads fine, bootcamp loads fine.

Does anyone have any input/experience on this situation? Surely I don't have to load up Bootcamp every time I want to install new software to Windows.

Thanks!!
Hank

 

Sounds good to me. I'll update if I keep having an issue. Thanks