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Windows 7 primary OS on MBP

M

midnightttt

Guest
Original poster
Mar 29, 2011
13
0
I'm a Windows user, and have been all my life, but I recently bought a Macbook Pro because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about but mostly because I really wanted to use Garageband to make demos.

After using the mac, I realize I like Windows 7 much better, but rather than have my PC with Windows and Mac with Snow Leopard, I wanted to put Windows on the Mac, and get the best of both worlds.

I want my primary OS to be Windows 7, but still want to use Garageband.
Is BootCamp the best/only way to do this ??

If so, how much space should I allocate to Windows 7 and how much to Mac OS X 10.6.3

The capacity of my HD is 249.72 GB and the available space is 231.14 GB.

It's pretty much the way it was out of the box. I haven't installed anything.

Thanks.
 
Apple store offers some basic courses on OS x.

Maybe you don't know that Windows 7, similar to all windows, slows down over time.

I would do 1/3 Mac OS if you want to do garageband, or even half, depending on how many tracks. Yes you do do it with bootcamp.
 
alternatively, you could install Mac OS on an external HD (preferably firewire 800), then use boot camp assistant to create one giant partition on the Mac's internal drive for use with winsloth.
 
Thanks for the fast replies.

When I'm creating the partition, does the disk space that is says will be given to Windows include the amount of space I need to actually install windows.

For example, if I allocate 150GB to windows, when it's installed, will my disk space be the full 150GB on the Windows part of the HD, or will it be a bit less because of the room that Windows 7 actually takes up.

Hopefully that makes sense. haha
 
If you create a 150GB partition, you will have 150GB to install Windows. After you installed Windows (it may take up 10GB for example) you will have 140GB of free HDD capacity, but as Snow Leopard uses the base 10 to show disk and file sizes, you will actually create a 150GB partition, but Windows will show them as smaller partition, as Windows still uses the base 2 to show disk and file sizes.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Hard_Drive_Size_Discrepancy
 
it will be less

another option which is the one i use is to create virtual machines with tools such as Parallel and VMWare Fusion ( i use the latter).
 
Thanks for the info.

One other question, off topic, but since you've all been so helpful so far and I don't want to pollute this place with threads...

Something that only recently bothered me about the MBP was that it's got an aluminum casing. It makes for a pretty slick looking notebook, but does anyone know if the aluminum itself is harmful in any way??

Aluminum can be toxic in certian amounts, so it's advised to not use aluminum cookware or antiperspirants with aluminum - things like that. I was wondering if that's ever been an issue with Macbooks.

Making the transition from the PC to MBP has got me wondering all of these things like radiation, aluminum, etc. Something I never really worried about with a PC, because I guess mine's made of... plastic.

Thanks. I hope it's ok that that question was off topic.
 
midnightttt said:
Thanks for the info.

One other question, off topic, but since you've all been so helpful so far and I don't want to pollute this place with threads...

Something that only recently bothered me about the MBP was that it's got an aluminum casing. It makes for a pretty slick looking notebook, but does anyone know if the aluminum itself is harmful in any way??

Aluminum can be toxic in certian amounts, so it's advised to not use aluminum cookware or antiperspirants with aluminum - things like that. I was wondering if that's ever been an issue with Macbooks.

Making the transition from the PC to MBP has got me wondering all of these things like radiation, aluminum, etc. Something I never really worried about with a PC, because I guess mine's made of... plastic.

Thanks. I hope it's ok that that question was off topic.
Click to expand...

FFS, don't cook on the MBP or crush it up and squirt under your arms. Did you have seizure from plastic toxicity due to heat vapours and artic silver poisoning from your Peacees? I reckon using windows is dangerous enough to put anyone in a mental home fixed to a bed in a straight jacket.
 
It seems I've already hit a road block.

I set my partition to give me 130GB for Windows 7.

I agreed to the license terms, then selected a Custom (advanced) installation, then was asked where I would like to install windows.

However, it states that "Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition: BOOTCAMP"

It also says "Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. Windows must be installed to a partition formatted as NTFS."

I'm confused.

also, @drayon, what I meant was that aluminum can be absorbed through the skin and since we have our hands all over the aluminum casing, doesn't that cause a potential for toxicity. I don't know about plastic toxicity but aluminum is one of those "scare" words now like mercury. Better safe than sorry.
 
Just a heads up, the power management in Windows 7 is the pits. It'll keep the fans running all the time and is quite warm. I have x64 running under bootcamp in power savings mode.

PS you must format the Bootcamp partition first, just choose it an press format from the windows install screen.
 
Everything seems to be running smoothly except that when I drag a window or scroll through a window like IE, it's delayed for a second.

I can click and drag my finger across the touchpad, but the window or scrollbar won't move right away, so for a second, my finger if moving but the window isn't. It's kind of annoying and frustrating.

Any ideas about why this is happening?
 
Last edited:
midnightttt said:
Everything seems to be running smoothly except that when I drag a window or scroll through a window like IE, it's delayed for a second.

I can click and drag my finger across the touchpad, but the window or scrollbar won't move right away, so for a second, my finger if moving but the window isn't. It's kind of annoying and frustrating.

Any ideas about why this is happening?
Click to expand...
Did you install the Boot Camp Windows drivers?
 
Yeah, I installed the drivers from the OS disc, and that fixed the appearance of windows, because the screen was stretched out.

I then performed the Boot Camp 3.2 update, and that seemed to fix the touchpad sensitivity a little, but I was hoping it would have done something about the scrolling and dragging. When I try to drag it just feels like I didn't actually grab the window, but really I did, it just doesn't move right away.
It's weird, because I run out of touchpad room. By the time the window starts to move or the scroll bar moves, I'm near the edge of the touchpad.

That appears to be the only problem I've come across.

I read on the Apple boards that someone else faced the same problems, but installing the drivers fixed theirs.
I read that here - http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6468737

I don't know what to try next.
 
It's been a little while since I intalled Windows on my MBP, and I still seem to have this problem with the trackpad.

I just attached my wireless mouse and when I use it, the cursor and scrolling/dragging works perfectly fine. There's no delay at all.

However, using the trackpad alone slows things down. Plus it's kind of sensitive and my windows are constantly minimized from slightly dragging my finger on the trackpad.

This doesn't hapen when I'm running things on the Macintosh side of things.

Could it be I need a driver update or something? Has anyone else experienced these problems??

Thanks
 
I use Windows and OS X on my MacBook Pro, primarily OS X but Windows a few times per week - I'd say I split my time between the two 60-40.

The TrackPad issues you speak of are things that I only experience when I try to use the trackpad the same way I do on OS X. On Windows, the same gestures are slower and don't work as smoothly. I haven't noticed any lag though when it comes to windows moving. In fact, Windows feels faster than OS X for almost every basic task (once I start doing more demanding tasks though, OS X is faster).

The only issues there are that differentiate it from a regular Windows laptop are heat, fans, trackpad and keyboard key placement (though the latter is really a non-issue for most tasks).
 
dotdotdot said:
I use Windows and OS X on my MacBook Pro, primarily OS X but Windows a few times per week - I'd say I split my time between the two 60-40.

The TrackPad issues you speak of are things that I only experience when I try to use the trackpad the same way I do on OS X. On Windows, the same gestures are slower and don't work as smoothly. I haven't noticed any lag though when it comes to windows moving. In fact, Windows feels faster than OS X for almost every basic task (once I start doing more demanding tasks though, OS X is faster).

The only issues there are that differentiate it from a regular Windows laptop are heat, fans, trackpad and keyboard key placement (though the latter is really a non-issue for most tasks).
Click to expand...

What are your trackpad settings in the bootcamp control panel?

for me, under the "one finger" heading I have
tap-to-click - checked,
dragging - checked,
drag lock - unchecked,
secondary click - checked.

Under the "two fingers" heading,
secondary tap - checked.
 
midnightttt said:
What are your trackpad settings in the bootcamp control panel?

for me, under the "one finger" heading I have
tap-to-click - checked,
dragging - checked,
drag lock - unchecked,
secondary click - checked.

Under the "two fingers" heading,
secondary tap - checked.
Click to expand...

I suggest ditching the tap to click option. It just makes typing obnoxious and inadvertent clicks are pretty common. One thing I did to reduce the hyper scroll sensitivity is go into mouse settings in the windows control panel and change the lines that scrolled down with each notch in the scroll wheel to 2. This makes scrolling easier and a bit smoother. It still may have a bit of a delay though.
 
I switched the scroll wheel number to 2. Didn't really notice anything different, but I've kept it.

I could ditch tap to click - I find myself clicking & scrolling in place of dragging right now anyway because of the slow reponse time of the cursor, but I would really like to figure out how to fix the dragging issue - I've used this method for as long as I can remember.

Any other settings that could be causing this problem? I'm tempted to just reinstall windows all together, but I dont see how that would change anything.
 
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