Boot Camp and VM

[TangoJuliet]

I had a quick question about boot camp and using VM software such as Parallels and Fusion.

If I go ahead and run the boot camp assistant and partition the drive for windows can I then go ahead and install the VM software to run off that partition?

I had boot camp all setup on my older iMac but found it to be a little tedious to keep booting into Windows just to use a program. I would like to go the Parallels/Fusion route so I can run something quickly and still have the option of booting into Windows for something like playing games.

What would be the best way about going about it? First do the boot camp and then install the VM software or vice versa - or does it even matter?

 

[TheStu]

Both Parallels and Fusion can access the BootCamp partition and use it as a VM.

First partition the drive using BootCamp Assistant
Restart with Windows disc in drive
Format the partition
Install Windows
Update Windows
Restart into OS X
Run Parallels/Fusion
Tell it to use your BootCamp partition.

All changes made on either side are carried over and accessible.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Both Parallels and Fusion can access the BootCamp partition and use it as a VM.

First partition the drive using BootCamp Assistant
Restart with Windows disc in drive
Format the partition
Install Windows
Update Windows
Restart into OS X
Run Parallels/Fusion
Tell it to use your BootCamp partition.

All changes made on either side are carried over and accessible.

excellent! Thanks. Now the hard part is trying to decide how big of a partition to make. I'm probably going to go with atleast 60gb. I'm not putting any music or videos on it probably just a couple games and apps.

 

[TangoJuliet]

I just did some research and it looks like the max amount of space I can use for a FAT32 partition is 32GB. I've been finding it very cumbersome to transfer and edit files under NTFS since its read only on OSX. I think I am going to go the FAT32 route with bootcamp so that I can atleast edit my files.

I just installed Parallels and its pretty sweet. I have Fusion as well but havent had a chance to install it yet. I wanted to play around with them and see which one I liked better. Also, what settings should I use in Parallels? It shows 512mb ram and 16mb of video....should I increase it since I have 2gb of system memory and a 512mb 8800 card in this iMac?

 

[Nothinman]

I just did some research and it looks like the max amount of space I can use for a FAT32 partition is 32GB

That's an artificial limitation imposed by MS on their tools, other tools can create FAT partitions up to 2TB which is the limit of a DOS partition table. If you could find a way to format a GPT volume FAT then you could probably go even larger.

 

[TangoJuliet]

what settngs should I use in parallels?

Which software is better of the two and why?

 

[TangoJuliet]

OK, I got em both installed and so far I have to say that I like Parallels much better. The interface just seems a little more snappier.

I have the settings set the same on both: 1024mb ram and 16mb video ram.

 

[Kmax82]

Yea.. I keep going back and forth between VMWare and Parallels. Parallels with their latest updates have made their solution much more efficient on my machine, but I'm keeping VMWare on here just so see how that transpires with their 2.0 update coming out sometime soon.