Just got a MBP, questions about Windows

[Eric1285]

I just bought a Macbook pro since I broke my old laptop and need to send it in for repair. I've been wanting to learn how to use OSX for a while, since up to now I've never really sat down to use it for more than printing something out or browsing the web. I also need to run Windows in order to run Visual Studio and some other Windows only programs for classes. I'd also like to stay with Windows while I learn OSX.

I was wondering what I should do about actually putting Windows on my MBP. I figure that I want to use both Bootcamp and Parallels. Reason is sometimes I'll be working on code in Visual Studio for one of my classes, and I need maximum performance and stability. Sometimes though, I'll just need to make a quick edit or something, and I'd rather just run Windows from inside OSX if I'm already doing something there. What do I need to do about drive partitions? Can I have OSX on one partition, Windows XP Pro on another, and then a third partition with all my files? Would I be able to access this third partition from both operating systems? Or can I just have two partitions, one for each OS and would I be able to easily access my files on Windows from the MacOSX one, and vice versa?

Also, I have a large external hard drive. There should be no problems transferring stuff back and forth, right? I'm hoping OSX and Windows XP read the same file format (that FAT32 stuff or whatever).

 

[FlimFlam]

Why not do both? Bootcamp is free right now, and I am sure that you will upgrade to Leopard later since bootcamp should be included with it I presume. Xp runs great natively on a Macboook; I prefer this over Parallels.

When you run bootcamp - the latest is like 1.6.2 or something - you have to have one complete OSX partition to load. I tried to slice it up exactly like you tried before. I prefer data and media on its own partition (like my DT), but bootcamp wouldn't allow me to load Windows like this. So you have one intact/complete partition, and then you load OSX. then you run bootcamp, and then you partition it for XP. Too easy. Don't slice it up like me, and have to reload OSX like me. After that, slice and dice as you please.

Don't quote me on this, but I think if you format the 3rd part as FAT, you can read and write to it from OSX. If it is NTFS, you will only be able to read from OSX. However, you will lose the added features of the NTFS file system like better reliability - there are always tradeoffs.

The learning curve on osx is not steep too. You may want to star messing around with obj-c. Apple has a great reference library on it. Make sure you load xcode and x11 on osx. Go to the osx disk, and find the "aoptional installs" package for x11. You'll need it to run x11 apps.

You can get Parallels with an acad. discount, and why not use it when you need it in a windowed environment?

Visual Studio rocks by the way. What are you doing? VB, C++?

 

[synergyo1]

The third partition needs to be either FAT32 or Mac OS Journal.

FAT32 has limitations but doesn't require additional work for both OS to read the partition.

The latter you'll need software called MacDrive to be able to read and write onto the Mac OS file system while in XP.

Parallels current beta allows you to boot into Bootcamp (it wasn't an option before as you had to make a seperate "virtual partition"). So you'll only need the three partitions you suggested.

 

[koegs]

Or you install MacFuse and you will have Write-Access to NTFS-Partitions.