Bootcamp or VMWare Fusion?

I was wondering if I should install Vista on a Bootcamp partition or a VMWare virtual machine. Which would be better and let me get the best of both systems? Also, how should I split my drive? I have a 120GB HD with about 80GB remaining. I might be able to free up a few gigabytes once I delete my XP virtual machine.
Please answer.

It really depends on what you want to do.
The greatest issue in your case is graphics. If you are interested in gaming and Vista Aero, you want to be able to boot into Boot Camp. Otherwise, a VMWare virtual machine is more efficient and flexible.
You can also create a Boot Camp partition, install Vista, and also have VMware run from that partition while you are running OS X - this is the best of both worlds.
Due to disk size restrictions, I ended up running just under VMware on my Air with SSD. However, on the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, I have Boot Camp partitions to run standalone. But I also access the same partitions using VMware.
For Windows XP, a minimum partition size is 16GB, but I would not use less than 32GB for Vista.
If you plan on gaming, use Boot Camp with as much space as you can spare.

Similar Messages

Bootcamp and VMWare Fusion, possible problem with Bootcamp, cant see USB.

Hey,
Would really appreciate your help. So I have MBP mid 2010 with the latest version of OSX Mountain Lion and decided to install Windows 7 on it. I gave it to the professional IT guy, who installed Windows 7 through the latest version of VMWare Fusion. It is not bad overall, but at times incredible slow (which might be because of my slow processor).
So I decided to install Windows 7 through the BootCamp Assistant - USB way. And did the following steps:
1)Format USB, put Windows 7 .iso image on it
2) Installed the latest Windows software through the Bootcamp (step2 tick). However, it said that the latest version would be installed only after Windows 7 is installed (in step3 tick). I clicked OK and moved to Step 3
3) I started Installing Windows and had a few errors (which were solved by repairing the HDD after rebooting in recovery mode), but all went fine until almost the end. Before the bar almost moved to the end my macbook went to reboot and I though it was all done and ready. I clicked the alt at *ding* sound and no USB was detected.
I checked disk utility and the thing was portioned.
I was thinking that MBP doesn't recognize the second Windows installed, and VMWare Fusion needs to be deleted in order to run Bootcamp. I haven't deleted anything, wanted to ask for advice first.
Any one could think of what's wrong? Thank you.

You can only install Windows from a USB in one of these computers:
- MacBook Pro with Retina display.
- MacBook Air.
- Mac mini (Mid 2010 and newer).
- iMac (Late 2012).
Your Mac doesn't support the Windows installation through a USB drive. However, you have installed Windows through a USB drive. What did you do?
You did an EFI installation (or a native installation). Apple doesn't support this option because of the huge number of problems it gives, and you have probably erased OS X (or you erased the Windows partition that Boot Camp created, both possibilities). The error you mentioned in 3) was probably that the Windows installer detected that you have a MBR disk instead of a GPT one, and you erased everything.
First of all, to make sure that you erased everything, hold the Option (Alt) key while your Mac is starting. If you see the OS X partition, start up from it, and make a complete backup of your files with Time Machine.
Then, what I recommend you is to erase the whole drive by starting in Internet Recovery (hold Command, Option and R keys while your Mac is starting), and use the Time Machine option to restore your files

Windows XP OEM - Bootcamp and VMWare Fusion?

Hi everyone,
I need to run Windows on my MBP and just purchased an OEM version of Windows XP with SP2 from ebay (I didn't even know what OEM was at the time - my fault for not doing some more research). I had wanted to install this in Boot Camp and then run my Boot Camp partition through VMWare Fusion when I needed to run both OS's at the same time - will I be able to do this? Or will I be able to only install it in either Boot Camp or VMWare Fusion (if either)?
If I can only install it in one, which would you recommend? I currently own a copy of MS Office for Windows and was going to run that because I need Excel desperately for the business program I am in and need it to run fast (I've heard MS Office '04 for Mac is sluggish for running intense tasks in Excel because of Rosetta on the Intel Macs).
Thanks in advance for any advice!

If you don't activate Windows natively, you can use and run it with VMware without having to change activation.
Rosetta is slow on startup and needs more memory. If you only have 1GB, might want more. Whether to run VMware or Office, 2GB is more comfortable. Your MacBook Pro should be able to run Office Mac or OpenOffice/NeoOffice.
See if VMware works without partitioning your drive which can be messy (read threads on "partitioning first also").
Using OEM copy is fine and can save quite a bit, as long as it is SP2 and - of course - works - though I would never buy it on ebay given you can get it from Newegg, Amazon etc. I am a paranoid skeptic of what and where software I install came from today.
Numbers doesn't seem to be a full replacement for Excel, but have you looked at NeoOffice?

Bootcamp or VMWare Fusion 3

From a MAC newbie running an iMac I7, 8GB, 1TB
Can some of the experts out they give me a suggestion on using Bootcamp vs. VMWare to run Windows games and applications. I like the idea of running the Windows applications while SL is also running (VMWare solution?) but not sure if this would have problems that bootcamp would not. Games would be few but would include things such as L4D2 and others. Windows could be any version suggested.

FlaParrotHead wrote:
From a MAC newbie running an iMac I7, 8GB, 1TB
Can some of the experts out they give me a suggestion on using Bootcamp vs. VMWare to run Windows games and applications. I like the idea of running the Windows applications while SL is also running (VMWare solution?) but not sure if this would have problems that bootcamp would not. Games would be few but would include things such as L4D2 and others. Windows could be any version suggested.
It really depends on what you want to achieve.
Bootcamp is a full Windows environment running natively. Which means you cannot access your OSX programs. If you have to use both set of programs, you'll be switching a lot. However, since it's running native instead of emulated it will perform a lot better when you're doing CPU/GPU-heavy tasks.
VMWare is emulated into your OSX environment. You'll be running two operating systems at the same time. This means you can access that one Windows program you'll need during your usual OSX usertime, but heavy programs like games will run poorly due to having massive overhead on everything the Windows environment has to calculate.
So basically, you really need to decide how you will be using your Windows environment!
As a side note: I don't know about VMWare, but there's also Parallels Desktop, which can run your bootcamp-Windows partition emulated into OSX. You could access all your programs through Parallels (it's the same concept as VMWare) and when you want to play a game, or do heavy calculating, you can reboot into the same environment but through Bootcamp (thus native) and do what you want to do.
--Edit
According to this url: [http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/migrate.html#c169967]
You can make VMWare create an image of your Bootcamp partition. I don't think vmware can actually run the Bootcamp partition emulated.
According to this url: [http://www.askdavetaylor.com/usewinxp_boot_camp_partition_inparallels.html]
You can make Parallels emulate your bootcamp partition, do your things, and reboot to Windows and still have it working.
So if you intend to combine both Bootcamp and emulation, my bet would be on Parallels.
However this is purely on what I can find online, I may as well be wrong on either VMWare or Parallels.
Hope this was helpful, eventhough it's not a clear answer
Message was edited by: Roald Hoolwerf

Bootcamp and VMWare Fusion

I am confused about Bootcamp and Fusion. I installed XP to Bootcamp. Then I installed Fusion and installed XP there (it has been a while and I have forgotten the details). I always run XP from Fusion. It works fine. Recently I decided to boot into XP directly. When XP came up it told me it wasn't activated. So I went back to OS X and then Fusion.
1) Do I have two separate XP installations? Or just two different entry points to the same installation?
2) If I have two installations can I just delete the Bootcamp partition?
3) How would I go about activating the Bootcamp XP installation?
Thank you

If you want, there is Fusion VMware forum. But, you didn't tell Fusion to use the Boot Camp copy/version so while you could have shared one activation key for both, you can't have two separate the way you do now.
If you are happy with Fusion and don't really need the other (better for gaming and more hardware intensive programs) then use Boot Camp Assistant and regain back the partition, don't remove the partition with Disk Utility.

PC Gaming: Bootcamp vs. Parallels vs. VMWare Fusion

Hey guys,
First time Mac owner in just 5 days. Excited!
I'm currently on a Windows 7 laptop, but with my MBP coming, I'd like to move 100% to the MBP. I'm still a PC gamer though, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience running older games on Bootcamp/Parallels/VMWare Fusion.
Generally, I still play old stuff like Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, MVP Baseball 2005, NBA Live 06, Madden 07, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Need for Speed, Red Faction, Max Payne 2, etc.
My specs are as follows: 2.0GHz quad-core, Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM @ 1333MHz, 500GB hard drive @ 5400-rpm, Intel HD Graphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB GDDR5.
I'd like to try and avoid Bootcamp if possible, just because I'm not big on having to reboot to jump from OSX to a game. Would Parallels/Fusion be able to run these smoothly? After reading some of the forum posts, some people are struggling a bit running both operating systems, but 8 GB of RAM should be enough to handle both, no? Is it possible for the RAM to die/burn out from being overused by multitasking like this?
Thanks,
Marc

Bootcamp is the easiest and best performing way to play windows games. When Running Parrallels or VMware... you are using virtulization software and cannot utilize the true performance of the machine. BOOTCAMP will be your best method of running demanding games that are made for WINDOWS.
However, as an alternative you could try using wineskins or steam. Wineskin will allow you to run windows games on your mac. Anyway, booting into windows is not all that bad it takes maybe 1 minute. You won't burn out your ram, but I don't think virtulization should be used to play games because you just won't get the performance you need to run graphically intensive games.
SO JUST INSTALL WINDOWS USING BOOTCAMP and your machine will operate like a PC and have better performance than the virtulization software.

VMware Fusion Performance: Bootcamp Partition or Virtual Machine?

I'd like to run ArcGIS 9.3 in Windows XP using VMware Fusion. Can anyone comment on the virtues/drawbacks of using a bootcamp partition versus creating a VMware "Virtual Machine"?
With bootcamp partition I can gradually increase the size of the partition as the partition becomes full using Drive Genius, correct?
What about performance?
Thanks!

Visit MacTech.com and read their two benchmark reviews of Parallels, VM Fusion, and Boot Camp.
You cannot "gradually increase the size" of a Boot Camp partition. To change the size you must first delete the existing partition then create a new, larger partition. Doing so will delete the entire Windows system, so be sure to back it up beforehand.

Using Pro/E on a Mac using VMWare Fusion or BootCamp

Hi
I have a MacBook Pro:
Processor:2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3
And recently for uni I have had to find a way to get Pro Engineer, a CAD program, running on my Mac. My solution was to buy VMWare Fusion and instal Windows 7 on my Mac so I could then run the CAD program. Once I got that done windows was running well however once I got Pro Engineer installed it was incredibly slow and pretty much unusable.
My question is has anyone got any experience with running this program on a similar machine and can help me solve this problem so I can run the program? Should I use bootcamp instead of VMWare? Would it make a difference?
Thanks

Yes, I would definitely recommend setting up BootCamp for this - it's relatively painless. (It can create a new partition in the unused space on your OS X disk without erasing the disk.) The BootCamp Assistant has detailed instructions on how to go about setting up a partition and installing Windows on it, but the gist of it is that you have the BootCamp Assistant create a partition for you, then you boot from your Windows install disc and install Windows on that partition. When you've booted into Windows for the first time, pop in your OS 10.6 install disc, and it will install Apple's hardware drivers and utilities for Windows. If you got 10.6 shortly after it came out, the drivers will be version 3.0 for Windows Vista - you'll need to download version BootCamp 3.1 from the Apple support site to ensure full support for Windows 7. (If you have a newer copy of 10.6, it might have the new drivers already - I don't know, as I have an older one.)
I would, however, also recommend keeping VMWare Fusion (assuming you've already paid for it). Once Windows is set up in BootCamp, you can go into Fusion and create a virtual machine that's mapped to it (so you can also use your BootCamp installation as a virtual machine in your Mac if you don't need the full performance of booting into it natively). It should be fairly obvious how to do that - it will probably prompt you automatically. The virtualization also allows for as many different machines with as many OS's as you want - I'm running every version of Windows I've ever had in Parallels, plus a number of free OS's I'm trying out (BSD, Linux, Solaris). In short, it's a good thing to have.

HT201456 Mac Mini OS X 10.10.1 VMware Fusion Bootcamp 5.1 driver

I have a mac mini 5.2 with OS X 10.10.1 and VMWare Fusion 7.01 (no BootCamp Mac OS / Windows dual boot, the Mac Mini boot only OS X !!) and run multiple virtual windows machines on it.
If I want to mount a CD into a virtual Windows 8.1machine, I get the message that I need to install the Bootcamp dirver in this virtual machine.
I created a USB Stick with Bootcamp 5.1 drivers and want to install these drivers in Windows 8.1 virtual machine, I get the message that this Version of BootCamp can't run on this computer modell.
Has any one experience with bootcamp drivers for Windows 8.1 in VMware Fusion environments ??

Hello Loner T,
thanks for yor reply, install only AppleODDInstaller64.exe solved the problem. I had just to remove before any parts of older bootcamp driver. Interestingly, if I try to install the complete bootcamp driver packet with setup.exe BootCamp directory, I get the same message, that this Version of BootCamp can't run on this computer modell.
But anyway, the AppleODDInstaller64driver solves my CD/DVD mount problem.
regards Uwe

New user account - cann´t open bootcamp partition through vmware fusion

Hi all!
I installed on my new Imac Bootcamp first, than VMware using the bootcamp partition under my admin account ( all working fine ).
After a few days I opened a new standard user account for my wife.
I hoped that VMware Fusion will work under these new user too. I opened the VMware and the bootcamp partition was displayed. I klicked the execute button for using these partition under VMware but the rotating sun icon rotated and rotated and rotated .... nearly 30 minutes later I stopped the VMware.
When I try it now to open VMware a message is displayed - translated from German - or words to that effect :
" Package "users/nameofwife/Library/ApplicationSupport/VMWareFusion/VirtualMachines/BootC amp/%2Fdev%2Fdisc0/BootCamp partition.vmwarevm" is corrupted and cann´t open "
My question : Is it possible that my wife gets access to VMware too ?
Please help - thx
Gregor

Okay solution found found a solution finally... i followed the steps outlined in this article: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4144252?start=0&tstart=0 . After i did this my windows bootcamp partition showed up again, but my osx and osx recovery disks became unbootable. Luckily I have an extra enternal harddrive with osx installed on, so ran disk utility and repaired the affected disk where osx had become unavailable. Then rebooted and all disks now shows up and work perfectly again.

Has anyone had success in running Bootcamp along side vmware Fusion?

The only program I need windows for is Autodesk REVIT (A 3D CAD House modeling program) I use my mac for everything else.
REVIT takes up alot of memory and needs a decent video card to run well. When I tried using bootcamp, the program (REVIT) ran smoother than any windows platform we had, but I had no access to any of my mac programs without shutting down and rebooting.
I tried running vmware fusion and starting my bootcamp partition but everytime I switched from bootcamp to fusion, my windows said I had some major hardware changes and I needed to re-register my windows license. the license issue was also occuring with REVIT.
I'm wondering if anyone else has had these problems. I am willing to reinstall my windows partition to make it so I can switch from FUSION to BOOTCAMP smoothly. I use BOOTCAMP when I am in crunch mode and FUSION when I want to use my mac applications the same time as REVIT.
Any help would be appreciated. THANKS

I haven't had any trouble with Fusion and Boot Camp. I think activation does need to occur once on each side (once in Fusion and once in Boot Camp). Windows use the MAC address of your NIC to determine the hardware, and Fusion generates a MAC for the the virtual NIC that is obviously different from the MAC of your actual NIC in your Mac.
I bought MacDrive so that I could have access to my HFS partition of my hard drive when booted into Windows. The product works great, but also complains about activation when run in Fusion. MacDrive doesn't seem to want to stay activated in both Fusion and Boot Camp at the same time, so I leave it activated via Boot Camp and not activated for Fusion, since I can use Shared Folders instead. (that and it still seems to work anyway).
What did you mean by "crunch mode"? On a deadline? Is that because your software is too slow when running XP with Fusion? It seems like running XP through Fusion is the way to go for you 97% of the time, so I would worry about getting your CAD software going in Fusion and not worry so much about Boot Camp.
Best of luck.

Bootcamp partition restriction with vmware fusion

I have a 2 TB hard drive on my iMac that I was going to use to install windows. Using bootcamp, all went well. I put Vmware Fusion on and it worked well. Later I thought it might be nice to have 2 partitions on this hard drive so I re-partitioned the hard drive (not using bootcamp) and then installed windows, again no problem. The problem occurs when I then put on Vmware Fusion. Seems that program is very sensitive to the bootcamp created partition and to use any other program causes Vmware Fusion to fail. Doing some research, I thought I read that bootcamp will ONLY create one partition, no option for two partitions. My question is: Am I reading this correctly? Can bootcamp only make one partition? Is there a hack around this? I hate having a 2 TB hard drive with only one partition.

Hi again,
Boot Camp is a (very limited) utility for creating a non-mac partition on a Mac volume (by Apple). That's why it'll allow to create only 1 partition on a Mac OS hard drive.
This has to be on the HD where there is Mac OS X already - so you can't use BootCamp on your 2nd HD.
If you install 2nd macOS on the 2TB HD, start from there & then partition it with BC, then you should be able to start a bootcamped windows from there.
VMware doesn't have to be used with the help of BootCamp - I have both Parallels & VMware installed without the BootCamp.
As a matter of fact you can install Parallels & VMware from an .iso image (which you can't use with BC) - but Windows has to be installed the same way as with BS = it will take ± 1hour to install.
Also - you can store the resulting 'file' (which in my case I'm storing on my external 'My Book' 2TB hard drive) on any HD which is connected to your iMac.
The 'file' is stored as 'Windows 7.vmwarevm' - my is 13Gb actual size but with-in the win7 I have on it the size is = 40Gb {Local Disc (C:)}.
All these 'Virtual Machines' are automatically compressed by the VMware application.

I have installed VMware Fusion but having trouble with Calyx Point software and was told Bootcamp needed to be installed. Will I not have to uninstall Calyx, VMWare and Windows 7 prior to installing Bootcamp?

I have just bought a new MacBook Pro and I really like it. However, for my job I have to use Calyx Point software which has to be ran on the Windows side, so they sold me VMware Fusion software. It works fine until I try to save a PDF or email docs. I have called Calyx and they have advised me that bootcamp works. I am wondering if this is going to help and since I have already installed VMware am I not going to have to uninstall that program, Windows and Point and then install bootcamp and reinstall Windows and Point? If I'm beating my head against the wall, and just need to return the laptop, then that's what I will do, but I sure hate to as I really like my Mac.

Checked VMware Fusion Community Forum?
Most install Windows (natively) and then 'attach' the (Boot Camp) partition to Fusion.
that way you can dual boot and run Windows natively when needed, and run Windows as a Guest OS VM under Mac OS.
But.... and I don't know about Calyx, doing things like save pdf and email should work fine same as usual.
Maybe there is something you didn't or need to do to Fusion (Tools or install Acrobat) or in configuring.
I used Fusion but found I prefered running Windows natively at the time.
If you do need to use one install in both manners, then you need to do through and partition your drive and reinstall Windows that way, and only then attach Fusion to it.
If you need to run Windows for work, I'd exchange it - especially if you have only had it a couple days, and get another. There are a lot of new laptops coming out in the next months that look nice, fast and won't have some of the issues you run into with Windows on a Mac.

Bootcamp and/or VMware Fusion

I want to install vmware fusion but I don't know if its better to install XP on bootcamp first, and then use that patition to run from fusion. Please advice

I installed both windows xp pro and vista ultimate using only vmware fusion. I made the Mac OS read only so the VM can see, but cannot touch the Mac OS. Moreover I installed norton antivirus and microsoft defender on both xp and vista. The XP is blazing fast when in full screen mode. Vista is a little sluggish than XP, probably because I stripped XP of all its window effects but left Vista to maintain its aero features. I allocated 1GB and 2 processors to both VMs. I did not use Boot Camp, I didn't feel the need to. Its good to know I have 3 OS's on my little WhiteBook just in case friends/family call me with their computer issues and I need a visual to walk them through. Thanks guys.

Bootcamp with win7 and vmware fusion...togheter

Is it possible?
I need a partition with bootcamp installed and also a virtual win7 in order to not reboot everytime i need to use windows.
Sorry for my english.
Thank U.

Of course. Also, VMware Fusion allows you to virtualize your Boot Camp partition, so you don't have to install Windows 7 twice.
Your computer only supports 64-bit Windows 7 and 8 versions, so install Windows 7 by following Apple's steps > http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/boot_camp_install-setup_10.8.pdf You should download the Windows support software from Boot Camp Assistant or from the Apple site, so you can install it after finishing the Windows installation.
Then, start up in OS X (hold the Alt key while your computer is starting, and choose Macintosh HD), open VMware Fusion and the Boot Camp partition will appear. Start it up and you will be able to use OS X and Windows at the same time

Bootcamp or VMWare Fusion?

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