New Mac - trying to decide

[Catoneinutica]

Picked up a 2.53 GHz 15" MacBook Pro about 10 days ago and am very happy with it. I'm very impressed with the LED backlit display, which I have calibrated and used for some serious CS3 photo editing destined for offset printed output with remarkably little stress. Very snappy. Very smooth. And now that the 24" LED backlit Cinema Display is available for only about 98,000 yen, the combination would be a viable replacement for a desktop system. In fact, the MacBook Pro is noticeably faster than my admittedly aging 2005 dual 2 GHz G5 PowerMac (as it should be, but I mean it's significantly faster).

And of course I love the cool backlit keyboard .

Sounds like we gots the same unit. I'm just getting around to setting ours up, and I have an absurdly noob-isch question:

We need to use Windows, so we'll partition the hard drive. We apparently need to buy "Boot Camp." Do we also need to buy WindowsXP <wince>?

-catone
-tries not to think about Windows

[Mike Oxlong]

Heard some folk like this solution, but haven't used it myself...

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

[FG Lurker]

We need to use Windows, so we'll partition the hard drive. We apparently need to buy "Boot Camp." Do we also need to buy WindowsXP <wince>?

You have a couple of choices, and the best solution will depend on how much you need to use Windows as well as how you are going to use Windows.

1) Apple's Bootcamp. This allows you to choose between OS X and Windows when you turn on the computer. The two are mutually exclusive and you can't run both OS X and Windows at the same time. On the plus side you will get somewhat better performance this way so if you have quite heavy apps that you need to use Windows for then this is probably going to be the best solution.

2) Parallels or VMware (I think Parallels is better at this point but VMware may have improved, I'm not sure). Either way they allow you to run Windows on top of OS X. This means you can run your Windows applications at the same time as your Mac applications and you can switch back and forth between them. The penalty is that Windows won't run quite as fast and of course there is extra overhead (memory usage etc) from running two OSes at the same time.

Bootcamp is included with Leopard I think.

Parallels is $80.

Either way you need to buy WinXP to be legit. I don't think it is easy to buy the retail versions any more as MS has "officially" discontinued it. Shops like PC 1's still sell the OEM version however. You need to buy some sort of cheap hardware (memory is fine) with the OS to allow them to sell it though as it is only supposed to be sold with a new computer. It looks like PC 1's has the English and Japanese versions available. (I'm not associated with PC 1's but I have spent a massive amount of money there over the years, they are a real shop in Osaka's electronics district and are the best parts shop I have come across.)

Hope all this helps!

[Greji]

2) Parallels or VMware (I think Parallels is better at this point but VMware may have improved, I'm not sure).

PM me if you want Parallels. I have an unused edition. Bootcamp is great. You must use Windoz XP with service pack 2.

When you fire up Bootcamp, you need your XP installer disk in Place. Bootcamp than partitions per your request on the spot. On my MacBook Pro I am using 32gigs for XP. After you do the install you restart on Windows and put in your leopard disk and install the mac drivers and you're good to go. Bootcamp also has a step by step tutorial that you can print out and follow for the installation.

[Yokohammer]

Personally I hate the idea of cluttering up my lovely little MacBook Pro with anything (*shudder*) winblows related, so I have a separate windoze laptop that I use when the need to run a winfroze application is unavoidable.

But as others have mentioned, it seems that Boot Camp runs that other OS very smoothly, and as FG says it's included with Leopard so you should have it somewhere. All you need is a copy of XP SP2 (should be able to dig one up somewhere) and you're set to go.

Best of luck, and may the fearsome Blue Screen of Death never rear it's ugly countenance on your MacBook Pro screen.

[Catoneinutica]

Many, many thanks for the excellent info guys! I'll be Doing the Dead over the next evening or two; exposing my pretty new MBP to Windows feels akin to pouring Roppongi Special Sauce (tm) over it, but I guess it has to be done.

My sister sent this pic from an Apple store in NYC - everyone's using it for the internet connection (I like the American Beauty in the back there). Wonder how long before they give you the boot.

[james]

(I like the American Beauty in the back there).

shouldn't this be over in the whaling thread?

[gkanai]

PM me if you want Parallels. I have an unused edition. Bootcamp is great. You must use Windoz XP with service pack 2.

Note Bootcamp also works with Vista Ultimate.

Also both VMware and Parallels allow you to use the Windows OS virtually even if it is installed as a Bootcamp partition. So that's the best of both worlds. If you want native speed, you restart and use Windows in Bootcamp. If you just want to use an app quickly, launch it in Parallels or VMWare.