now the joy begins...
Aug. 30th, 2007 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chhotiiI am in the throes of indecision about how to put Windows on my MacBook Pro. The questions: 1) Boot Camp, Parallels, or both? 2) If Boot Camp, how will I share files between Windows and OS X? 3) XP or Vista?
Allegedly Parallels does support DirectX in the latest version, but I don't know how well. Just well enough for the most popular games to limp along, or a first-rate implementation? I write and support programs that make heavy use of DirectX, so I need to test them on something that's as close to a standard PC as possible. If there are weird issues with DirectX in a virtualized environment, I don't want to spend a microsecond dealing with them. Besides, using Windows inside Parallels in OS X is very demanding of RAM. When memory runs low, things get very, very slow. I have 2GB; I'm not sure this is enough for a happy Parallels system. Definitely not a happy Parallels system with Vista.
OK, so I probably need to use Boot Camp. Boot Camp does not address the issue of how one can share any files between Windows and OS X. I know it would annoy the crap out of me to not be able to access any files I created when I was in OS X when I'm in Windows or vice versa. I believe that if I'm installing XP, I can format the Windows partition as FAT32, and that from OS X I can read and write to a FAT32 partition. Vista, unfortunately, does not work on a FAT32 partition, and will automatically format the partition as NTFS, which OS X won't deal with at all. (They say that NTFS is better than FAT32 for "security and stability", but if I'm not doing anything on the Internet from Windows, what do I care about security? And if all important files are backed up elsewhere, what do I care about stability?)
If one doesn't have a FAT32 partition, there are other options for sharing files:
1) One can use Parallels in addition to Boot Camp. I would still do real Windows work while booted directly into Windows through Boot Camp, and just start up Parallels to read/write files in the Windows partition. Parallels now has the feature that it will set itself up to use your Boot Camp installation of Windows, rather than making an additional virtual disk. (But can I share one XP activation between Parallels and Boot Camp?) If I'm just using Parallels to move files around, so what if it's slow? This solution would dictate using XP, though. Microsoft's EULA for Vista Home forbids using it in any kind of virtualized environment such as Parallels. To use Vista, I would have to pay for Vista Ultimate. Screw that, I do not want to pay a few hundred dollars for Vista Ultimate. So, if I'm limited to using XP, might as well go with the FAT32 partition solution.
2) One can buy a product called MacDrive for about fifty bucks, which enables access to the OS X partition from Windows.
3) One can install a second hard drive, format it as FAT32, I think, and then both OS's can read and write it. Vista can use a FAT32 drive, I believe; it just can't boot from one, I guess. But, this is a laptop computer. It's pretty thin. I doubt there is room inside for another hard drive.
4) This seems a bit silly, but why not... Get a USB memory stick, leave it in FAT format; any files I want to share, save onto the memory stick. Thing is, I have had (an my cow orkers have had) a lot of problems with using USB memory sticks with OS X that haven't been re-formatted into a Mac OS format. Corrupted files, the system complaining that the device wasn't put away even after trying to eject it, the dreaded spinning color cursor in Finder, etc. This is not just one bad stick or one boneheaded user with these problems; I've seen many users having these problems with many different sticks. (So why can't I find any mention of these kinds of problems on the Apple forums?)
It sounds like I should use Boot Camp plus XP on a FAT32 partition. There are a bunch of reasons to use XP, not Vista: It takes less RAM; it takes less hard drive space; it can boot from FAT32, solving (I think) my file-sharing problems; since I can use the FAT32 partitions from OS X, I don't need to use Parallels; but if I do choose to use Parallels at some point, I can still use the less expensive Home edition.
Except that, oops, I already bought Vista! Worse, I bought Vista Home, which doesn't work with Parallels! And, doh, I lost the receipt! And, uh-oh, it probably has been too long for me to return it (because I bought this before we went to Spain, thinking that I would have time to deal with this before then, but didn't.) So using XP would require spending more money on another Microsoft product.
Now why did I do a dumb thing like that? Well, my cow orker has been working on trying to use Windows on his MacBook Pro. He found that with Apple's drivers installed, the computer would not sync with an external monitor. We ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO use an external CRT monitor to run subjects with certain visual tasks; on an LED, an image consisting of little 1-pixel-wide white lines on a black background is too faint if you show it for only 1/60th of a second... yuck. He had the external monitor syncing problem with both XP and Vista, I think; but with Vista, he was able to install another driver and get things working (sort of) but with XP, it was "a nightmare" and he couldn't make any progress at all. But does this affect me? I don't actually run subjects. I can overlook the LED warmup time issues when I'm testing the software. So I'm very unlikely to ever bother trying to hook up an external monitor to my MacBook Pro. If I'm going to bother working with an external monitor, I can find a PC too... The MacBook Pro is so I can carry all my work around and do it in bed, on the train, etc., places I'm not going to try to use an external monitor anyway. As far as I know, as long as you're not running afoul of the external monitor issue, XP works fine with Boot Camp.
*sigh* Maybe I can get work to pay for buy a copy of XP. Does anyone want this copy of Vista Home, not activated, not even opened? I don't want to have paid Microsoft for something nobody will ever make any use of.
Allegedly Parallels does support DirectX in the latest version, but I don't know how well. Just well enough for the most popular games to limp along, or a first-rate implementation? I write and support programs that make heavy use of DirectX, so I need to test them on something that's as close to a standard PC as possible. If there are weird issues with DirectX in a virtualized environment, I don't want to spend a microsecond dealing with them. Besides, using Windows inside Parallels in OS X is very demanding of RAM. When memory runs low, things get very, very slow. I have 2GB; I'm not sure this is enough for a happy Parallels system. Definitely not a happy Parallels system with Vista.
OK, so I probably need to use Boot Camp. Boot Camp does not address the issue of how one can share any files between Windows and OS X. I know it would annoy the crap out of me to not be able to access any files I created when I was in OS X when I'm in Windows or vice versa. I believe that if I'm installing XP, I can format the Windows partition as FAT32, and that from OS X I can read and write to a FAT32 partition. Vista, unfortunately, does not work on a FAT32 partition, and will automatically format the partition as NTFS, which OS X won't deal with at all. (They say that NTFS is better than FAT32 for "security and stability", but if I'm not doing anything on the Internet from Windows, what do I care about security? And if all important files are backed up elsewhere, what do I care about stability?)
If one doesn't have a FAT32 partition, there are other options for sharing files:
1) One can use Parallels in addition to Boot Camp. I would still do real Windows work while booted directly into Windows through Boot Camp, and just start up Parallels to read/write files in the Windows partition. Parallels now has the feature that it will set itself up to use your Boot Camp installation of Windows, rather than making an additional virtual disk. (But can I share one XP activation between Parallels and Boot Camp?) If I'm just using Parallels to move files around, so what if it's slow? This solution would dictate using XP, though. Microsoft's EULA for Vista Home forbids using it in any kind of virtualized environment such as Parallels. To use Vista, I would have to pay for Vista Ultimate. Screw that, I do not want to pay a few hundred dollars for Vista Ultimate. So, if I'm limited to using XP, might as well go with the FAT32 partition solution.
2) One can buy a product called MacDrive for about fifty bucks, which enables access to the OS X partition from Windows.
3) One can install a second hard drive, format it as FAT32, I think, and then both OS's can read and write it. Vista can use a FAT32 drive, I believe; it just can't boot from one, I guess. But, this is a laptop computer. It's pretty thin. I doubt there is room inside for another hard drive.
4) This seems a bit silly, but why not... Get a USB memory stick, leave it in FAT format; any files I want to share, save onto the memory stick. Thing is, I have had (an my cow orkers have had) a lot of problems with using USB memory sticks with OS X that haven't been re-formatted into a Mac OS format. Corrupted files, the system complaining that the device wasn't put away even after trying to eject it, the dreaded spinning color cursor in Finder, etc. This is not just one bad stick or one boneheaded user with these problems; I've seen many users having these problems with many different sticks. (So why can't I find any mention of these kinds of problems on the Apple forums?)
It sounds like I should use Boot Camp plus XP on a FAT32 partition. There are a bunch of reasons to use XP, not Vista: It takes less RAM; it takes less hard drive space; it can boot from FAT32, solving (I think) my file-sharing problems; since I can use the FAT32 partitions from OS X, I don't need to use Parallels; but if I do choose to use Parallels at some point, I can still use the less expensive Home edition.
Except that, oops, I already bought Vista! Worse, I bought Vista Home, which doesn't work with Parallels! And, doh, I lost the receipt! And, uh-oh, it probably has been too long for me to return it (because I bought this before we went to Spain, thinking that I would have time to deal with this before then, but didn't.) So using XP would require spending more money on another Microsoft product.
Now why did I do a dumb thing like that? Well, my cow orker has been working on trying to use Windows on his MacBook Pro. He found that with Apple's drivers installed, the computer would not sync with an external monitor. We ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO use an external CRT monitor to run subjects with certain visual tasks; on an LED, an image consisting of little 1-pixel-wide white lines on a black background is too faint if you show it for only 1/60th of a second... yuck. He had the external monitor syncing problem with both XP and Vista, I think; but with Vista, he was able to install another driver and get things working (sort of) but with XP, it was "a nightmare" and he couldn't make any progress at all. But does this affect me? I don't actually run subjects. I can overlook the LED warmup time issues when I'm testing the software. So I'm very unlikely to ever bother trying to hook up an external monitor to my MacBook Pro. If I'm going to bother working with an external monitor, I can find a PC too... The MacBook Pro is so I can carry all my work around and do it in bed, on the train, etc., places I'm not going to try to use an external monitor anyway. As far as I know, as long as you're not running afoul of the external monitor issue, XP works fine with Boot Camp.
*sigh* Maybe I can get work to pay for buy a copy of XP. Does anyone want this copy of Vista Home, not activated, not even opened? I don't want to have paid Microsoft for something nobody will ever make any use of.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 06:25 am (UTC)If your MacBook Pro is one of the more recent ones, say a month to maybe two months prior, then it can support 4GB of RAM, otherwise 3GB. A 2GB RAM module for it is currently running in the $115 range. You're right where 2GB is a bit tight, but 3GB is quite roomy, most especially if you're not running a Rosetta (PowerPC native OS X code) application such as, oh, Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac.
The issue with NTSF and Mac OS X is that while it can read NTSF volumes it can't write to them. Parallels allows the Windows side of things to access a shared folder on the Mac side of things. From Boot Camp, a solution might be to partition your hard drive into three segments, one NTFS, one FAT32, and one HFS+. Then both OSes can read and write to the FAT32 partition. You're right in that there's no room inside the MacBook Pro for a second hard drive. You could use a small USB/FireWire travel hard drive as a third drive, however. (As you're averse to using USB flash drives, although I've not had any problems with a wide range of FAT32 formatted flash drives on Mac OS X systems. (I work in a computer lab on a campus and commonly have to use various drives on various machines.)
I don't know about the shared activation code. I think you can, but I haven't booted directly into Windows on the one machine I have access to with Parallels running off a Boot Camp partition since I initially set it up.
I'd really use XP over Vista if you can at all do so. Vista doesn't really get you anything extra or better. Your only concern would be ensuring your software works under Vista at some point, when your user base has been forced to move to it. That said, Vista does seem to work fine inside of a straight Parallels installation. (Haven't tried it in Boot Camp.) I'd stay away from the Home version of either operating system, though. They don't seem to have as much configurability as the Pro/Ultimate versions do, and overly-coddle the user as well. I know if I'm trying to make something work right with Windows, I'd rather push a few buttons rather than have a conversation about the advisability of my desires. the Home version is overly chatty.
There's been an update to Boot Camp recently, which includes newer hardware drivers. I believe that it specifically addressed multiple monitor support. (Haven't actually looked at the Boot Camp page to see, but that's something my memory says was mentioned.)
I'd suggest making your work buy XP Pro for you. They're why you need it, after all.
I think that covers most of what you were thinking about. Good luck. :)
flash drives
Date: 2007-08-31 04:08 pm (UTC)flash drives, again
Date: 2007-08-31 04:16 pm (UTC)Re: flash drives, again
Date: 2007-08-31 04:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, the U3 crap is the worst crap to ever be crapped out of a crappy company. It's irritating and most people don't know what the thing does or why it's wasting space. And on Mac OS X, you do have to remove both the flash drive volume and the U3 volume.
If you want to remove the U3 junk from it (apparently, it's so crappy that formatting the drive doesn't quite remove it all), you can use U3's uninstall program (http://www.u3.com/uninstall/). Use the "Remove Launchpad" link down at the very bottom. And the uninstaller is a Windows .exe file, even if you click the "I use Mac OS X" survey checkbox on the survey form.
Be warned that in order to get to where you can download it, you have to go through a few pages of "are you sure you want to get rid of our crappy software? Really, I mean, it's got lots of useful features" crap. You can, at least not fill out the survey form of why you want to get rid of it.
(I hope my language doesn't offend. But, gads, I really hate junk like this thing. And it's on most drives now. Sheesh.)
Re: flash drives, again
Date: 2007-08-31 04:58 pm (UTC)Re: flash drives, again
Date: 2007-08-31 05:09 pm (UTC)