How to install Windows on a mac 4 dummies??

[Knowname]

Hi! I'm going to my brother's house and he just bought a new macbook (sometime in September, just missing the refresh apparently... grrr....), I have NO clue what kind, a black thing is my only clue (also he spent nearly 2k on it so I'm thinking 15"??), I tried getting out of him what osx version he has but he asked me 'how?' and I'm stumped... I'm a windows guy *bows*. Anyway he bought this thing, though he has a bunch of Windows games he wants to play, he thought, in all of his wisdom, that a macbook would be cool to get for school!
Yeah, well, don't automatically say to me 'bad noob!' now, cuz I did look up the answer... I'm just a little confused. this is what I got,
"First, download and install BootCamp
Run BootCamp to partition the drive and burn off a driver disk
Put your Windows XP SP2 or Vista disk into the drive and restart the computer
Install Windows normally onto the partition that you specified (whatever you do, do not delete or format the 250MB partition on your drive)
Once Windows is installed, install the drivers, update Windows, download and install AV and all that jazz.
When you restart, hold down Alt to get the Boot Menu and choose your OS X partition.

Install VMWare or Parallels (honestly you can have both on there if you want to see which works better, but just don't have them actively running at the same time)

Both of them have fairly straightforward processes to use the bootcamp partition, just keep pressing next when setting up the VM."

so, what confuses me is... what exactly will I need to get (on either tiger or leopard), are these the right instructions, why do I need to partition RAM?? If so, can I just have Windows on this? I don't want to sacrifice the osx performance that just seems moronic! Anyway, will using bootcamp require me to reformat the HDD? Will my XP UPGRADE CD (with my W95 disc as verification of coarse...) work? Can I make an Nlite CD with it? (the upgrade cd) Where will I find the drivers again? (I think leopard comes with them, but I just want to make sure I know just in case he's still pimpin' Tigger ;p)

 

[aphex]

Ok, there are basically two different ways to get Windows working on a Mac computer, I think your confusing the two methods into one. You only "need" to use one of the two, but you can use both if you want to (or even use Parallels/VMWare with the Bootcamp partition like you noted)

1. Bootcamp - Bootcamp partitions your drive to allow for a Windows Partition and a OSX Partition. It will not reformat your HDD and you will likely not lose any information in the process (anything is possible though, so I would back up the impt stuff first). With bootcamp, you reboot your computer holding down Option and it asks which OS to boot into. And yes, you can use a slipstreamed/nlite CD instead of the normal install cd. Keep in mind though, unless he has the new Leopard, Apple has discontinued the beta of Bootcamp so you need Leopard in order to use it.

2. Parallels/VMWare - Both excellent programs, but I prefer Parallels. Parallels creates a virtual HDD in which an OS (like Windows XP or others) can be installed within.

Honestly, I prefer the Parallels approach. You also can run it just fine on Tiger while Bootcamp won't work anymore.

 

[TheStu]

If he is going to be gaming, then BootCamp is really the only option. Also, in order to see what OS he is running (if he just bought it then it is 10.5 Leopard) is to click on the Apple in hte upper left corner of the screen and then click "About this Mac".