Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OnceYouGoMac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 14, 2012
423
0
In front of my Mac
So I'm thinking of installing Windows 7 on my 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard. Reason I'm using Windows 7 is because XP is too old, Vista is a pile of crap and is banned in my house and Windows 8 looks as though it has been designed by Playskool and I don't have the Boot Camp drivers for it. My local Apple reseller has a copy of W7 in stock which I might reserve and pick up this week.

I'm mostly going to be using W7 for playing a few Windows-only games and if I need it for any Windows-only program I might need. I probably won't be going on the internet on the dark side. The Mac side will still be my main OS. The big question is, would I be better off dual booting using Boot Camp or using a VM like Parallels? Which is better for games?
 
I'm running a 15" Mid 2010 maxed out BTO MBP. My main OS is 10.6.8 with VirtualBox running Win 7 Pro. It's been setup this way for 3 yrs. The amount of work I've done without a single issue is outstanding.

Fast fun & highly useful, it's a keeper, even though I've purchased a 15" MBPr a short time ago.


https://www.virtualbox.org/
 
It's worth thinking about. At the moment I'm leaning towards running W7 natively using Bootcamp as performance will probably be better for games. The version my local reseller sells is W7 Home Premium 32-bit. I looked it up and you need Boot Camp 4 for both the 32 and 64-bit versions on a 2010 MBP. Is there a difference between 32 and 64-bit versions? I haven't used Windows since XP :eek::apple:
 
It depends on the type of gaming you'll be doing. Solitaire, Minesweeper, etc. would likely play fine in a VM, but I wouldn't expect anything made in the last few years to run well outside of a native-boot Windows environment.
 
I'll be playing a range of games that I've bought/downloaded. I'm planning to sign up for GOG.com and download some of my old favourites from there, but a lot of them are Windows-only. I've also got a few old favourites I used to play on XP and want to play again. I only hope they run on W7.
 
In that case, go with Boot Camp. While it's not as convenient as running a VM, you'll get much better performance.
 
If you're going to be running it for playing games you're gonna want to bootcamp unless unless your machine is like super modded or something. I have the exact same system and it doesn't run anything modern very well, got borderlands 2 a while back and the frame rate was just generally too choppy to even bother playing. Should be able to run lighter/older games without much problems though.
 
Thanks all. I asked my dad (who's a PC user) and he said the 32 bit version of W7 isn't as good as it only supports up to 3GB RAM and I've got 8GB in that Mac. So now I need to find a retail copy of the 64 bit version. Fun times ahead, huh? :p
 
So now I need to find a retail copy of the 64 bit version. Fun times ahead, huh? :p

You don't need a retail copy. An OEM/system builder version will work. The only difference is in the licensing. A retail one (way more expensive) allows for its transfer to a new machine. OEM is tied to the first system you install it on.

Up to you if you want the retail edition, but most of the time, you can get away with OEM.

Link to purchase - It's $91 for OEM vs $175 for retail.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.