Installing software via Bootcamp or Parallels?

[Sassinater]

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

 

[Darth.Titan]

I've always been able to install software to my bootcamp partition both natively and booted as a VM. I believe the issue you had was just "one of those things".

 

[takeshi74]

^ This

Don't try to extrapolate any trend from any single data point. Parallels wouldn't be of much use if you couldn't install Windows applications. Not every Parallels (or VMware, etc) user also uses Bootcamp.

 

[Sassinater]

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