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Parallels & Bootcamp Question

patrick0brien

patrick0brien

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 24, 2002
3,246
9
The West Loop
-All, any et al.

Proud new owner of a brand new C2D MPB15. And I have Windows on the way.

Question:

Can both Bootcamp and Parallels exist and be useable on the machine? (I know, not at the same time, but sometimes instead of virtualizing WXP in OSX I might wish to boot)

If so, how do you recommend I go about the installation sequence? Parallels first? Bootcamp first? Anything I need to be careful of? What kind of behaviours can I expect? Will booting in bootcamp enter a different version (e.g. user schema) than the Parallels Virtualized version?

Ok, that was more than one question, but any would be great.
 
Boot Camp and Parallels installations are isolated from one another. When you install Parallels, the program creates a Virtual Machine Image File that it uses as a virtual hard drive. When you install Windows, it installs onto that file. When installing Boot Camp, you physically partition your drive to have a seperate partition dedicated to Windows. There is no correlation between the two.

I use this setup myself. I have Parallels setup with Windows XP on my MBP C2D on a 8GB virtual drive and use Parallel's Shared Folders to access my Mac files. This is great for just quickly doing some non-graphic intensive work.

I also have Boot Camp installed on a seperate physical 20GB partition running Windows XP for when I need the full speed and power of the CPU and graphics subsystem (ie: gaming!!). I use Mac Drive (a windows program that lets Windows users access Mac formatted volumes) to access all my Mac info on the HFS+ Partition.

The worst part is not having the same user environment when switching from Parallels to Boot Camp. As far as installing, it makes no difference which you install first. I hope that helps.
 
While order doesn't matter, Boot Camp's partitioning tool works best with a less full drive.

So you should try to create the Boot Camp partition as soon as you can, just to avoid having any unmovable files created in OS X that will stop you from doing so easily.

B
 
If you're going to use both boot camp and Parallels, you'll need two licenses (copies) for Windows. I am pretty sure that WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) will see the two different copies as being installed on two different pieces of hardware, which requires two licenses.
 
thicke said:
If you're going to use both boot camp and Parallels, you'll need two licenses (copies) for Windows. I am pretty sure that WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) will see the two different copies as being installed on two different pieces of hardware, which requires two licenses.
Click to expand...

FWIW Various folks have said that they called microsoft for a new activation code using the same license and told them exactly what they were trying to do, install natively and in a VM on the same machine, and were able to use the same license for both BC and Parallels.

Personally I avoid this by running 2KSP4 and VistaRC2 in Parallels and XPSP2 Home in Boot Camp.

B
 
Wow guys, thanks.

If I install Bootcamp, I understand that a partitioning is required. It's been a while since I've done this: Repartitioning will still blow away my drive's data right? So a backup is required?

This is very helpful - perhaps one of the mods can make this sticky.
 
activation

I have that exact same setup and activated my Windows XP successfully yesterday. All it takes is a phone call to MS and explaining the situation to them. Relatively painless. Good luck.
 
patrick0brien said:
Repartitioning will still blow away my drive's data right? So a backup is required?
Click to expand...
No. That's the beauty of the Boot Camp tool. It allows to add and remove the Windows partition without losing your OS X data, and this is why it's best to at least create the partition early before your HDD gets too full.

B
 
balamw said:
FWIW Various folks have said that they called microsoft for a new activation code using the same license and told them exactly what they were trying to do, install natively and in a VM on the same machine, and were able to use the same license for both BC and Parallels.
B
Click to expand...

I wonder if Microsoft is feeling OK....It's surprisingly cool of them to do that.
:cool:
 
thicke said:
I wonder if Microsoft is feeling OK....It's surprisingly cool of them to do that.
:cool:
Click to expand...

They want to keep people happy. We are inf act buying a retail copy of windows. What do they care if people run windows on a dell or a mac?
 
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