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Running windows on a Mac?

post #1 of 8
10/22/07 at 7:44pm
Thread Starter 
I honestly have no idea where to post this so feel free to move it wherever it needs to go.

I need to get a laptop soon for work. I will be using a laser templating system for measuring countertops that uses a HP PDA with built in CAD software to encode all the information it gets when on the jobsite. Technically, I could complete the whole job on the PDA and send the DXF file to the CNC machine by email. However, I know using a tiny PDA screen all day long will drive me nuts and make me go blind before I'm 40.

So, I want to get a laptop. I have an iMac at home and love it. All but one computer at work are Macs and the one that's a PC no one wants to use. In other words, I would like to stick with a Mac. I've heard you can run Windows on a Mac. The PDA can send the info via bluetooth to a laptop so it can be managed on a larger screen. I'm assuming the HP PDA will not work with OSX, so I would need windows on the laptop. Is this something that seems like it will work for my situation? Also, should I run XP rather than Vista? I don't want to make my laptop unstable by running two seperate operating systems, but REALLY don't want a Dell! Also, will windows work on both MB and MB Pro's?

Any info you can give me will be great. I need to make this decision soon and would like to make it well informed.
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post #2 of 8
10/22/07 at 9:23pm
Boot Camp and Parallels and VMWare all work on any intel based mac, which is every Mac made for the last two years or so.

I'd go with XP for now, as Vista is largely unsupported by developers as of yet.

With Boot Camp, expect seamless operation with your HP PDA. With parallels and VMWare, I'd still expect it to work, but you never know. I've never used Bluetooth for anything.

MacBooks are the best bang for buck.
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post #3 of 8
10/23/07 at 11:59pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R View Post

Boot Camp and Parallels and VMWare all work on any intel based mac, which is every Mac made for the last two years or so.

I'd go with XP for now, as Vista is largely unsupported by developers as of yet.

With Boot Camp, expect seamless operation with your HP PDA. With parallels and VMWare, I'd still expect it to work, but you never know. I've never used Bluetooth for anything.

MacBooks are the best bang for buck.


Cool. Thanks for the info. I'm a newbie to all this. Is there a quick run down somewhere of how Windows works on a Mac through each(Boot Camp, Parallels, VMWare). Meaning, if I have OSX running on the laptop, do I then shut down OSX and boot up Windows, etc. I'm looking to see if switching between the two 3 or 4 times a day is going to be crazy or not.
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post #4 of 8
10/24/07 at 12:07am
VMware and Parallels are both virtualization apps, meaning you can run both Windows and Mac OS X at the same time with each of them. With Boot Camp, you have to reboot, but Windows is given full access to system resources, unlike the others which share resources with Mac OS X.
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post #5 of 8
10/24/07 at 1:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by teedoff087 View Post

VMware and Parallels are both virtualization apps, meaning you can run both Windows and Mac OS X at the same time with each of them. With Boot Camp, you have to reboot, but Windows is given full access to system resources, unlike the others which share resources with Mac OS X.

i have xp on boot camp and it is nice for when i need to run internet explorer..pain in the rear that you cant run osx at the same time and even though rebooting doesnt take that long its a hassle. i just bought vmware fusion so i dont have to deal with it. after going through many reviews it seems like a better solution than parallels and it will already give me access to my xp partition so i dont have to reinstall windows. schwing!
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post #6 of 8
10/25/07 at 7:52pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks guys. I think I'll go the VMWare route. Seems like a good setup for what I'll be doing. Now all I need to do is actually buy the laptop. Who has $2K they can loan me?
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post #7 of 8
11/5/07 at 1:24pm
Does anyone use Vista home premium with Parallels? I heard after I purchased vista Home Premium (Walt Mossberg I believe) that MS did not allow Home Premium to run under VM. Since mine worked ok, I didn't worry too much. Now it appears that Windows update will not function. Does anyone else have this issue and could it be that MS detects it is running in VM and refuses to update it as it some violation of their EULA?

m

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Life is too short to drink bad coffee.

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post #8 of 8
11/13/07 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I bought the MBpro and I love it. I also bought VM Ware Fusion off of recommendations of many. I'm getting ready to purchase a copy of Windows XP OEM version and wondered if anyone knew the difference between the SP2B and SP2C that Newegg has listed. Same price for both. Is the "c" a more recent version than the "b"?

Thanks
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