Bootcamp + Windows Vista partition

[bronxbomber92]

I read in Boot camp's documentation/user guide that Vista automatically installs onto a NTFS partition. Is it possible to install Vista onto a FAT32 partition, as I'd really like to be able access files to/from my Mac OS X partition?

Thanks!

[zarmanto]

Vista will not allow you to install it to a FAT32 volume, because FAT32 does not support certain features available to NTFS, such as file and folder level security. Microsoft has always recommended that you use NTFS with Windows XP for much the same reason, in addition to some obscure performance benefits of NTFS over FAT32. (I've seen some minor performance advantages myself... but in truth, that was a very long time ago, and on significantly slower hardware then what is now available. I can't say for sure if the performance difference would really be all that significant on today's hardware.)

Now, all of that said... there have indeed been adventurous souls who've gone to great lengths to shoehorn Vista onto a FAT32 partition in spite of Microsoft's protestations; one such soul records his efforts over on the InsanelyMac forum (http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=10184). In brief, he first installed Vista to an NTFS volume, and then he did a whole lot of data shuffling and debugging to get that installation from the NTFS volume over to a FAT32 volume. (Sounds like more work then its worth to me -- but as they say, your mileage may vary...)

[ProMacUser]

Just buy Fusion, it's 5 times faster than Parallels and has all of it's features, but it also lets you create multi-core systems. It can use Boot Camp partition, so you will be able to access your files from Mac OS X.
________
Headshop (http://headshop.net/)

[specter]

Just buy Fusion, it's 5 times faster than Parallels and has all of it's features, but it also lets you create multi-core systems. It can use Boot Camp partition, so you will be able to access your files from Mac OS X.
Well, I wouldn't agree with you. Though Parallels doesn't let you create a multi-core system, it is perfect when you don't need one. I like it very much and I use it from their early betas. While both Fusion and Parallels have their own drawbacks, I regard Parallels to be more user-friendly and reliable.
The fact I like most about Parallels is that they always work upon updates to their releases. The patch to v3.0 was quite useful, I should say.
________
NEVADA DISPENSARIES (http://nevada.dispensaries.org/)