Is bootcamp ready for more than occasional use?

[mjpg]

I'm a Windows XP user, considering buying a new laptop. I need Windows XP to run properly for basic computing (Office, web, email, light PhotoShop) - no games, no 3D, no peripherals. So it might be used 50/50 Mac/Win.

Can I expect Bootcamp to provide pretty much the same experience as a PC laptop? (Speed is not really an issue.) And how much tweaking is required to achive this?

If Bootcamp is not the best solution, is Parallels a better option?

Also, does anyone know what the cost of Bootcamp will be for OS10.4 users when the beta is finished? (I gather it will be included in 10.5 - but will it be a free download for 10.4?)

Thanks

[LDH]

I can't speak to the reliability of Bootcamp on the iMac, MacBook, MacPro, but for the MacBook Pro, I won't hesitate to recommend using it for general computing.

Bootcamp is an Apple product, so it's extremely simple to install and comes with well-detailed instructions. It does the drive partitioning and everything for you. Just provide a Windows CD and you're ready to go. Bootcamp isn't really a program, it's a collection of Windows drivers for Mac hardware and some software that allows Windows to boot on an Intel Mac. Once you're in Windows, you're in Windows. Not a beta, just plain Windows. And it's fast too; in many cases, faster than OS X.

All the drivers work great (video, CD/DVD, mouse, trackpad, etc) because they're just adaptations (or exact copies) of existing vendor drivers for nearly identical PC hardware. So far, you do need to fix a few things after installation to get the system to behave properly (see 'My 4 week old MacBook Pro slept through the night' sticky and notes on remapping the keyboard), but once done, your MacBook Pro will behave almost exactly like it's a Windows notebook. There are two caveats in my experience:

1. The Apple keyboard isn't exactly compatible with Windows. Not that things don't work, but you have to accept that some keys are going to be located in unusual places. On my machine, the delete key becomes the backspace key and the right Apple key becomes the delete key.

2. Windows and OS X can't seem to cooperate when it comes to system time. If you are booting back and forth between the two operating systems frequently, having to reset the system time on each bootup might get irritating. I modified a registration key in Windows that prevents it from screwing up the time in OS X, but I still have to reset the time every time I boot into Windows or wake Windows from sleep.

If you can deal with these two things, I'd say go for it. The MacBook Pro has been a great machine for me so far. Even if I only wanted to use Windows, I'd still have bought a MacBook Pro because it's so much nicer than any of the junky PC notebooks out there (in reality, I use OS X 80% of the time).

You probably still shouldn't use Bootcamp for corporate accounting or anything that could cost you a lot of money if something went wrong, but in reality, a Mac with Bootcamp shouldn't be any less reliable than a regular Windows PC.

Bootcamp will never cost anything. It won't cease being a beta until 10.5 is released, at which point you'll either want to upgrade or just stick with 10.4 and the Bootcamp beta.

All this said, for what you want to do, I'd question whether Bootcamp is necessary. Office, Photoshop, and email programs all exist for OS X. If you need to run Windows-only programs (like Outlook) Parallels is probably a better and more efficient option. But although Parallels is pretty cool, it's also still buggy, missing features, and pretty dodgy when it comes to USB support. You will be disappointed if you buy Parallels expecting it everything to work just as if you were running Windows natively. If you want a solution that will just work right out of the box, it's hard to beat Bootcamp as long as you don't mind rebooting your machine all the time. It's also free as opposed to Parallels, who are basically charging you for Beta software.

[other]

I'd say bootcamp is definitely usable without any major problems :)

Bootcamp will always be released as a free download.
If you have enough RAM (More than 1GB) for light tasks I'd say parallels is a better option. I've tried photoshop in parallels and it ran as fast as if it were running in a native environment.

[felexion]

LDH, excellent respond. thanks for the info.

[mjpg]

Thanks for the very helpful replies - especially LDH. Much appreciated.

[deadelvis]

I use bootcamp+XP professionally (graphic design and multimedia) on my MacBook Pro everyday and haven't had any problems yet. Just make sure you install InputRemapper and you're ready to go.

[tech.junkie]

hi guys. im a windows XP user & on d lookout 4 a new laptop. d macbook is a strong option bec.:

-i want 2 try mac OS
-competitively priced
-good specs
-nice form

but ill b using windows 75-80% (maybe initially, maybe not). i have a few questions:

-is it possible 2 load winXP as my default OS using bootcamp?
-aside from LDH's 2 caveats, what others should i b aware of?
-can d macbook core2duo totally replace a winXP laptop/desktop if i wont use it 4 games (id rather play on my PSP)?

tnx in advance 4 any reply.

[bdj21ya]

The leet (sp?) speak made it a little tough to get through :) , but let me see if I can answer your questions:

1. Yes, it's quite easy to make XP the default boot with Boot Camp. Just go to the Startup Disk Utility and make your XP partition the default boot device.

2. iSight camera quality is better in OS X, I'm not sure why. Right click must either be mapped to a key, or else you can click the trackpad button while holding two fingers on the trackpad. The current trackpad driver (still Beta) put out by Apple is pretty dodgy, you'll want an external mouse until they fix it.

3. Of course! It's got a great processor and you can get as much RAM as you need for what you're using it for (RAM is easily user replaceable later if you need more). The HDD obviously isn't quite as large or fast as you could get into a desktop machine, but I assume you've looked at those specs. Also, with a desktop you can always add expansion cards. The MacBook has no expansion slots. If you anticipate needing an expansion slot, you'll probably be better off with the MacBook Pro, which has an Expresscard slot.

All in all, they're both great machines, I have a MBP, and my wife has a MB. The MBP is definitely worth the extra money if you have it, or you may even consider going with a refurbished MBP from Apple (refurbished really only means that someone owned it for a few days, then Apple tested every component to make sure it was working and that the unit was free from cosmetic damage).

[tech.junkie]

tnx 4 d very informative reply bdj21ya. pardon d leet speak :D

thats the prob w/ using an external mouse. the macbook has only 2 USB ports wherein i use 8 ports on my winXP desktop. i would need approx. 4 USB ports on the macbook. :confused:

last 3 questions (i hope) before i finally decide. im thinking if i can JUST use mac OS & not XP:
-is it possible to connect the mac OS macbook on a LAN via a router to a winXP PC & share folders & see each other's contents?
-is there a way to sync a WindowsMobile PDA to the mac OS macbook?
-is there an outlook-like software / MS outlook replacement for the mac?

would again appreciate any reply. :)

[bdj21ya]

It is actually easier to network a Mac and a PC than it is to network 2 PC's in my experience. When both sides are Windows machines, I frequently have a hard time getting them to see each other (and I'm talking over an hour of work ever since SP2 came out, and I'm someone with quite a bit of experience setting up networks). In OS X, you just go to the System Preferences, Sharing panel and turn on Windows File Sharing.

As to the second question, I have no idea. I know it is fairly easy to do with Palms, but you could check out macupdate.com or even try googling it to see if anyone has written such a program.

The analog of Outlook in OS X is called MS Entourage. I've never really used it, since I've been pleased with webmail ever since Google's gmail came to town. Which Outlook features were you hoping for? Maybe I could find out if it supports them. I think I left it out of my MS Office install, but maybe I'd install it just to see what it's like if you tell me what you're looking for.

[tech.junkie]

what i needed outlook for was the PIM: calendar, contacts, notes & tasks. im hoping i could also use POP3 to download email off my yahoo or gmail account. & most importantly to sync my WindowsMobile PDA. ill research up on d sync-ing part.

tnx again bdj21ya, you've been a great help. im now 75% decided on getting a macbook. :)

[tech.junkie]

OK i found d WM PDA to mac OSX sync solution:
http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_windowsmobile.php

hmmm...im now 90% decided. :D

[zarmanto]

what i needed outlook for was the PIM: calendar, contacts, notes & tasks. im hoping i could also use POP3 to download email off my yahoo or gmail account.

I don't use MS Entourage myself; I much prefer Apple's iCal, Contacts and Mail program for those functions. (Oddly enough, I actually use the My Yahoo! webpage for random notes, instead of a local PIM.) Apple's Mail program supports POP3 and IMAP, and in my opinion, it has a much slicker overall interface as well.

That said... I'm pretty sure that Entourage also supports both POP3 and IMAP. What it doesn't support is legacy Microsoft Exchange servers. If you work for an employer who happens to still be running a version of Exchange prior to 2000, then the only Mac solution for connectivity is to convince the server administrator to enable IMAP on the server. Just FYI.

[bdj21ya]

I like Apple's version of these programs, but a lot of times it's much more convenient to have them written into a single program/user interface. For example, to me it makes a lot more sense to have a tight integration between one's address book and email client.

[zarmanto]

I totally agree that tight integration between related tools is important -- and in my opinion, Apple delivers on that front quite nicely. While Address Book.app is technically a separate application from Mail.app, the database repository which Address Book.app populates is seamlessly used by both the Mail.app application (for storing e-mail addresses) and the iChat AV.app application (for storing AIM account names and profile images). Additionally, Apple's UI design is usually pretty consistent between different applications (with a few glaring exceptions here and there, such as iTunes and QuickTime).

Personally, I don't see how putting two or more of these functions inside of a single binary could give you any significant advantage over Apple's implementation.

[bdj21ya]

I was referring to tight integration of having a single graphical user interface, not just a similar looking interface. Having the applications in separate windows is disorienting and time wasting, IMHO.

[flashzoom]

just wanted to add my experiences with the MacBook
Got one with Core Duo in Sep, 06.
Had XP pro installed on it the 1st day.
Been running XP pro about 95% of the time. Only use OS X for some movie and multimedia stuff.
it's been running so far so good. But I would still recommand doing regular backup if you have important documents on ur XP side. I would say at least once every 2 to 3 months with a full backup. I do get bugs or glitchs once in a while, cus the system to shut down, or terminate the program. But than again that happens with Microsoft all the time on PC. so can't really blame on the Mac side of things. So just do your regular backups, like you should. Since Microsoft Windows wasn't perfect to begin with, dont expect it to be perfect on a Mac. When something goes wrong don't blame it all on MAC, for all you know it's the Windows' problem.

[iPaz]

I use bootcamp+XP professionally (graphic design and multimedia) on my MacBook Pro everyday and haven't had any problems yet. Just make sure you install InputRemapper and you're ready to go.

Hi everybody

I have to dosagree. I would use BC mainly for two or three games that were not ported to the mac. Unfortunately my MacBookPro of the newest kind (I got it from dealer on the last days of Dicember), that is the one with Intel Core 2 Duo processor, freezes cursor movement as well as sounds for at least 10-20 seconds, at least two or thre times in a minute.

Does someone has the same problem? I think it is due to the newest machines. can someone help?

Cheers, iPaz

[bdj21ya]

Apple's trackpad driver sucks. Disable the trackpad device in the Device Manager and use an external mouse.

[ProgramASPnet]

Just adding my experience thus far with BootCamp.

I've been running Windows XP on my MacBookPro (Core Duo 1) for 4 months now and have not had any major issues beyond some quirks of getting my keyboard and external monitor (dual monitor setup) going. My "PC" side is joined to an Active Directory domain and successfully obtains group policy. I use the Mac side on "my" time so its nice to have a dual purpose laptop. Not to mention this was way better than any Dell or HP solution offered by my company.

As for Exchange support on the Mac. I actually still use Outlook 2001 which allows full access to all calendar, group folders, etc. It's running through Classic but I have no issues doing so.