XP vs Windows 7

[A Macbook Pro]

I'm getting a MBA for my mum who owns a business. It does stuff with Filemaker 5, she can't upgrade because it is a special version somebody made for her company and he isn't doing stuff anymore. She runs XP at work and is going to be accessing Windows on the Air via VMWare fusion. Does VMWare fully support XP with Unity and stuff? I'm wondering whether Windows 7 is worth it when XP uses less resources and would be better for a Virtual Machine plus she uses it at work. She has a 13'' with 4GB.

Vista is out of the question for obvious reasons (Read: It's ****)

 

[wordoflife]

I'm getting a MBA for my mum who owns a business. It does stuff with Filemaker 5, she can't upgrade because it is a special version somebody made for her company and he isn't doing stuff anymore. She runs XP at work and is going to be accessing Windows on the Air via VMWare fusion. Does VMWare fully support XP with Unity and stuff? I'm wondering whether Windows 7 is worth it when XP uses less resources and would be better for a Virtual Machine plus she uses it at work. She has a 13'' with 4GB.

Vista is out of the question for obvious reasons (Read: It's ****)

Windows 7 is good. More features and performs like Windows XP. That being said, Windows XP is almost 10 years old ...

 

[A Macbook Pro]

Wouldn't XP be better for a VM since it takes way less resources and would run faster?

 

[alust2013]

Wouldn't XP be better for a VM since it takes way less resources and would run faster?

Meh. The apps you run have a lot more to do with the use of resources than the OS does. The latest XP (SP3 if I'm not mistaken) and 7 are pretty comparable in their use of resources as well, so I'd just go with 7

 

[A Macbook Pro]

Meh. The apps you run have a lot more to do with the use of resources than the OS does. The latest XP (SP3 if I'm not mistaken) and 7 are pretty comparable in their use of resources as well, so I'd just go with 7

I have W7 on my MBP and my only complaint is the bit of slowness with the GUI. I guess I might go with 7, any other opinions?

 

[lee14160]

Since you here, go with 7. I use it in boot camp (over a year now), and have to say it is much better then XP.

 

[jace88]

Look at it this way, since you're on a new MBA, if you get Windows 7 it will work in both Boot Camp and in VMWare/Parallels. Windows XP however will only work in virtualisation and should you have issues with the virtualisation software, you're up **** creek. That's been my logic with Boot Camp partitions as it means I'm not dependent on a feature being implemented in the virtual interface since not everything always works 100% in those environments.

That being said, I still prefer Windows XP in general. One of the reasons I got Parallels and the new MBA was because I wanted to still be able to run MSN Messenger 7 (i.e. an old version) as I use Messenger Plus and had custom named my 800+ contacts with a comment about my relationship with them, real name, etc... and losing this information would be catastrophic. Whilst it didn't work initially in Windows 7 (much to my annoyance), using compatibility mode yielded the result I wanted and I'm a happy camper now in Windows 7.

 

[peterb69]

To those with 128SSD and bootcamp to Windows 7 (I personally have 11", 4GB, 128SSD), how much partition space did you give Win 7?

I also need Windows just for 1 work application.

 

[416049]

To those with 128SSD and bootcamp to Windows 7 (I personally have 11", 4GB, 128SSD), how much partition space did you give Win 7?

I also need Windows just for 1 work application.

For just 1 app and the operating system depending on your version of 7 around 25GB should be fine or max 35

 

[jace88]

To those with 128SSD and bootcamp to Windows 7 (I personally have 11", 4GB, 128SSD), how much partition space did you give Win 7?

I also need Windows just for 1 work application.

I gave it 34gb to give me ample space for Office 2010 plus any games or specific apps I end up using. I figured I can always repartition later if need be.

FYI I have Win 7 Home Premium installed, Office 2010, and Unreal Tournament (the original one + the GOTY addons) and I have 16.85gb free.

 

[philxor]

I've been using XP in a Parallels VM for a long time and recently tried Win7 since I know it has a lot of advancements over XP. I liked it but for what I need to do in Windows, it was way overkill. I have Office 2010 and a few other apps installed in a 10GB XP VM, Win7 needed way more space than that and offered no benefit for me since I only use it to run certain apps.

At this point I just use coherence mode in Parallels so I don't even see XP.

 

[hans1972]

Run XP

I have a Macbook Air 11" with 4Gb RAM and 128Gb SSD.
I am running VMware Fusion 3.1 and can run 3 VMware sessions with XP at the same time.

A trimmed XP installation only needs 512Mb of RAM although I usually give it around 750Mb.
XP needs a lot less disk space which is important when you only have 64Gb or 128Gb available.
A VMware image with XP takes usually less than 10Gb of disk space. Mine varies in sizes from 7 to 14Gb.
If she has XP at work she does not have to learn a new user interface.
XP is usually more network compatible with Mac OS X for disk and printer sharing