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Is Bootcamp the best option for Windows?

If you don't need a native partition, use VMWare Fusion or equivalent and run Windows in a VM when you need to.
 
Kadarin said:
If you don't need a native partition, use VMWare Fusion or equivalent and run Windows in a VM when you need to.
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Indeed. It all depends on what exactly you want to do. Bootcamp is native Windows, but it means you have to get out of Mac OS X to use it.
 
I like VMWare Fusion, or just RDP to a dedicated windows box. I havent tried parallels but fusion integrates nicelybetween MacOSX and many other OS's.
 
Have both a boot camp and VM using VMWare Fusion. Useful for the times when you don't need to do anything GPU intensive but need specific Windows software and then switch to bootcamp for CAD and anything else GPU or CPU heavy, although I tend to run the VM with 4 Threads.
 
As mentioned, as long as you're not looking for access to the GPU, then a virtual machine is almost always the way to go. If you need the GPU power, then Bootcamp is the best choice.
 
Depends on what you need it for. That rare Windows-only app? Virtualize Windows. Going to be using Visual Studio to write a Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 app? Boot Camp. Playing a game? Boot Camp. Running OneNote? Virtualize.

There is no universal answer. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
 
Depends on what you actually want to do with it.

IMO Fusion is a bigger faff than Parallels but it's probably the most stable Windows implementation you'll get on a Mac, and is perfectly adequate for dev testing, etc.

Parallels is not terrible in terms of stability, and gives you arguably the best-integrated experience on the Mac for running Windows.

Boot Camp is supposed to give you the native Windows experience, and it does for the most part, but is notably less stable / maintainable than an actual Windows machine along with some 'is this just sloppiness or did they put this in deliberately' performance / etc quirks that you just don't get on genuine quality gear, not Apple's form-over-function interpretation of it.

To actually getting work done in Windows as opposed to Mac-grade cafe-based blogging or light dev work, I'd have to say 'none of the above'.
 
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I agree with most of the Parallels vs Fusion comments. Parallels seems to be on a very fast dev cycle and they've been known to throw features and stuff out there before they were really ready for prime time. Though I suspect thats harder to do now that's matured.

Fusion seems slower to increment and add features, but always seems to be the most rock solid, generally speaking.

But hell, there's a 30-day trial for each right? Might as well give both of them a shot if you're not currently using one.
 
I have had good success with VMWare Fusion for light to moderate Windows 7 use on a 13" MBA. Haven't had the need for Bootcamp or tried Parallels.

I'm using VirtualBox on a Windows 7 host and it is fine as well.

Snapshot
 
MrColin said:
IME Virtualbox is much much slower and has a lot more fail. The price is right though.
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Hmm, I generally run WXP VMs and VirtualBox seems at least as fast as VMware Fusion, if not faster. VBox's UI looks like it was designed by a Unix vendor, and I believe copy & paste is still missing.

Feature sets can vary; every time I read an Ars review, it seems like Parallels still has the only truly usable 3D acceleration but Fusion gets a little better with each release. But I've used VMware since their original 1.0 release and stability has never once been an issue.

Not yet mentioned is CrossOver/Wine. While I don't use it myself, it could be a great solution for select business-type apps that are well-supported by Codeweavers (like Quicken for Windows). No Windows license required and no guest OS to boot up and waste at least 512 MB of RAM.
 
I just bought a Windows box instead. You can't reliably do stuff like run Windows-specific firmware updaters for external peripherals via Parallels/VMware. Plus I kinda disliked stealing GBs of memory for a virtual machine. And running Boot Camp was just a PITA, because you had to shut down OS X.

It's easier just to have a second machine.
 
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