Boot camp or parallels

imranpanji said:
He was talking about installing windows xp earlier, this won't work as the VM specs and the native specs will differ and so likely will get a wonderful blue screen on VM boot up. With windows 7 it might work, but will have to detect hardware on bootup every time?
Click to expand...

I think Windows XP might be a challenge - especially when it comes to support of Boot Camp drivers for XP. I think if OP needs Windows XP, then the best choice is to just run VMWare Fusion and install Windows XP in it (Win XP will then use a generic VMWare driver). If he needs a native boot, that Windows 7 is the best bet for native Boot Camp driver support.
 
imranpanji said:
He was talking about installing windows xp earlier, this won't work as the VM specs and the native specs will differ and so likely will get a wonderful blue screen on VM boot up. With windows 7 it might work, but will have to detect hardware on bootup every time?
Click to expand...

Bottom line is that I mainly need to run lotus notes which works well on xp.
Also I have a licensed copy of XP.

Now what about virtual box. Will that run with XP. Any limitations over the paid options of parallels and vmfusion?
 
tRoN said:
Bottom line is that I mainly need to run lotus notes which works well on xp.
Also I have a licensed copy of XP.

Now what about virtual box. Will that run with XP. Any limitations over the paid options of parallels and vmfusion?
Click to expand...

Have used VMware for years (on PC) , and switched to virtual box a year or so after it came out as I found it just as good. For an xp VM, all the drivers are detected and installed without requiring to download anything, which is great.

Have never used VMware fusion or vbox on mac, so cannot entirely judge the difference between the two. I would suggest you try virtual box first, and if it cannot do anything you need to, then look elsewhere....purely because it is free, open source ( is actually owned by oracle) and a good place to start.

Please read up on the networking side of whatever VM software you use, as of all things that is likely to come and bite you in the arse if you select the wrong option when setting up your virtual machine
 
imranpanji said:
Have used VMware for years (on PC) , and switched to virtual box a year or so after it came out as I found it just as good. For an xp VM, all the drivers are detected and installed without requiring to download anything, which is great.

Have never used VMware fusion or vbox on mac, so cannot entirely judge the difference between the two. I would suggest you try virtual box first, and if it cannot do anything you need to, then look elsewhere....purely because it is free, open source ( is actually owned by oracle) and a good place to start.

Please read up on the networking side of whatever VM software you use, as of all things that is likely to come and bite you in the arse if you select the wrong option when setting up your virtual machine
Click to expand...

I am not looking forward to an arse biting lol!

The lotus app I use has a database that "replicates" or syncs with a server in Jozi via tcpip.

Remember the software supplier says they don't support Mac in any way.

You think this will work still?
 
tRoN said:
I am not looking forward to an arse biting lol!

The lotus app I use has a database that "replicates" or syncs with a server in Jozi via tcpip.

Remember the software supplier says they don't support Mac in any way.

You think this will work still?
Click to expand...

Yeah, shouldn't be a problem

There are usually a few networking options available, which can be used in different situations. So your network card can be a dhcp client of your main OS network card, or a separate network card (so it gets a dhcp address from the network that you are connected to) and there is a third option dont remember that one.

But I am more pleased that mybb doesn't block arse as a word, as that is a word I can use more often here because:

Your arse is grass and I am a lawnmower
Put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye
Arsewipe
I couldn't be arsed
:thumbup:

EDIT:
I forgot to add about vitualbox : the f arse is strong with that one
 
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imranpanji said:
Yeah, shouldn't be a problem

There are usually a few networking options available, which can be used in different situations. So your network card can be a dhcp client of your main OS network card, or a separate network card (so it gets a dhcp address from the network that you are connected to) and there is a third option dont remember that one.

But I am more pleased that mybb doesn't block arse as a word, as that is a word I can use more often here because:

Your arse is grass and I am a lawnmower
Put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye
Arsewipe
I couldn't be arsed
:thumbup:

EDIT:
I forgot to add about vitualbox : the f arse is strong with that one
Click to expand...

If arse is allowed then **** will hit the fan.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
Yes - go with VB first and if it does not work either VMWare or Parallel.
Click to expand...

Last question. Can u do bootcamp after one has done the VM thing and used the mbp after a while.
Does the partition need to be created when u first get the machine ?
 
No u can create the partition when you decide to go the bootcamp route...

You can try vm for free for 30 days I think
 
imranpanji said:
He was talking about installing windows xp earlier, this won't work as the VM specs and the native specs will differ and so likely will get a wonderful blue screen on VM boot up. With windows 7 it might work, but will have to detect hardware on bootup every time?
Click to expand...

It used to work back when I was using parallels and according to parallels it still works (http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v9/ga/docs/en_US/Parallels Desktop User's Guide/32733.htm)

I also don't see why the VM and native specs will differ. According to wiki Parallels "works by mapping the host computer’s hardware resources directly to the virtual machine’s resources"
 
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tRoN said:
Last question. Can u do bootcamp after one has done the VM thing and used the mbp after a while.
Does the partition need to be created when u first get the machine ?
Click to expand...

You can enable Boot Camp at any point in time. Beauty about OS X - you resize your partitions on the fly without having do reinstall anything. You can also remove Boot Camp later if you feel it does not work for you. My guess is that if you go with VirtualBox/Vmware/Parallels you will be fine. At least it allows you to still work on Mac while you have Windows running.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
You can enable Boot Camp at any point in time. Beauty about OS X - you resize your partitions on the fly without having do reinstall anything. You can also remove Boot Camp later if you feel it does not work for you. My guess is that if you go with VirtualBox/Vmware/Parallels you will be fine. At least it allows you to still work on Mac while you have Windows running.
Click to expand...

On Windows, PowerQuest PartitionMagic (now Symantec) and Acronis Disk Director also resize partitions without data loss. I've used PM in my pre-Mac days in the early 2000s without problems with XP. This is not a feature unique to OSX.
 
bwana said:
It used to work back when I was using parallels and according to parallels it still works (http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v9/ga/docs/en_US/Parallels Desktop User's Guide/32733.htm)

I also don't see why the VM and native specs will differ. According to wiki Parallels "works by mapping the host computer’s hardware resources directly to the virtual machine’s resources"
Click to expand...

The VM specs and native specs will always differ. Try installing windows xp on a modern computer, and you will have loads of issues with drivers, that is if you are lucky enough to get the SATA controller detected.

The mapping is not a 1:1 mapping, the VM will always virtualise the hardware as the most compatible hardware available. So don't be surprised if your soundcard within the VM is a creative sound blaster compatible even if the native one is something else. The same goes with the network cards and other hardware that is mapped
 
I bought Parallels 8 a while back and when Ubuntu 13.10 was released, Parallels did not release an update to make Parallels 8 compatible with Ubuntu 13.10. Instead, they released Parallels 9. That put me off Parallels for life. I'll either move to VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox.
 
imranpanji said:
The VM specs and native specs will always differ. Try installing windows xp on a modern computer, and you will have loads of issues with drivers, that is if you are lucky enough to get the SATA controller detected.

The mapping is not a 1:1 mapping, the VM will always virtualise the hardware as the most compatible hardware available. So don't be surprised if your soundcard within the VM is a creative sound blaster compatible even if the native one is something else. The same goes with the network cards and other hardware that is mapped
Click to expand...

Are you forgetting that a) Apple hardware is fairly limited in the diversity of it's components and b) Apple is supplying all of the necessary drivers via bootcamp? I would be surprised if network cards etc are mapped as anything other than what they are.
 
Parallels supports the importing of a BootCamp partition into a Parallels VM. No mention in the help file about blue screens etc.
 
vinodh said:
Parallels supports the importing of a BootCamp partition into a Parallels VM. No mention in the help file about blue screens etc.
Click to expand...

Is is dependant on the OS. Some OS deal with drastic change of hardware changes well, windows XP is not one of them.
 
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