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Mac vs. PC software question

L

Lambros

macrumors regular
Original poster
Hey, just a question to everyone out there with a MBP, do you think windows needs to be installed to run windows programs, or are there emulators (please dont mention virtual operating systems) that you use, which run every .exe you have ever attempted running?

This question I need answering because I want to get a MBP and am tossing up between 128GB and 256GB SSD. I would like to avoid the 128GB SSD if there is a good way to run everything (incl windows programs) on SL.

Thanks!
 
It depends what programs you're running. With virtualization there's always some sort of performance hit as opposed to running Windows independently from OS X via BootCamp, but it may or may not be noticeable.
 
Lambros said:
Hey, just a question to everyone out there with a MBP, do you think windows needs to be installed to run windows programs, or are there emulators (please dont mention virtual operating systems) that you use, which run every .exe you have ever attempted running?
Click to expand...

I don't understand how this is a topic that needs debating. No, there are no emulators that run everything. A quick perusal of Wine's support database will make this pretty quickly evident. Bootcamp is the most complete Windows solution on a Mac; virtualization is the best tradeoff for most people....
 
Ok thanks a lot. Guess Ill have to get the 256 and dual boot with bootcamp. What do you guys think?
 
mainly lower end programs, so nothing like photoshop as i can get them for mac. crossover looks awesome, used it a bit before, just wondering the extent to which it works, and if it runs all (or most programs). have you had any experience with it?
 
Lambros said:
Ok thanks a lot. Guess Ill have to get the 256 and dual boot with bootcamp. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
If I was running on a 256GB SSD, things would be tight for me.

Boot Camp would require that I guess how big my Windows machine would ever be. I'd have to create a partition on the SSD drive to that size, so I'd immediately lose a bunch of disk space that I may never use.

With a VM, my Windows machine disk usage would be contained in a single file that started at 0GB, and would grows as needed (to the maximum value I specify). I don't lose any disk unnecessary disk space via this method.

If I didn't want to pay for VM software, I'd see if Sun's free VirtualBox met my needs.
 
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