Booting windows on a Mac
December 4th, 2008
The first thing to understand is that there are two main ways to boot Windows on a Mac:
- The first is by running Windows while in the Mac OS. This process is is known as virtualization and the two main products that allow you to run Windows virtualized are Parallels Desktop and VM Ware Fusion.
- The second is by running Windows natively. This can be done through boot camp. Boot camp comes with all Macs running Leopard or higher.
Both of these methods will require the purchase of a FULL version of either Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista.
Both Parallels Desktop and VM Ware Fusion allow you to boot the boot camp partition of Windows into the virtualization software engine within Mac OS. This has significant advantages:
- It allows you to run Windows applications in Mac OS without having to restart the computer, but at the speed disadvantage of virtualization software – this is helpful for running basic programs like Microsoft Office 2007 or Quicken, etc., that do not require much processing power and would not see a noticeable performance difference running in the virtualized environment
- It allows you to retain the option of restarting into Windows when the performance advantage is important – this is helpful for gaming and graphics applications that require significant processing power and would be slowed down if run virtualized
In these ways this is often seen as the “best of both worlds” option and is a frequently used combination.