Lawrence and Christine Family Blog

One of the lesser-publicized features of our favorite Windows-on-Mac virtualization software, Parallels 3.0, is its Boot Camp support. Boot Camp is Apple's free software that can boot Windows on your Mac natively. Parallels lets you run Windows within OS X virtually. Now that the two packages can share a single Windows installation, you can choose EITHER to boot fully into Windows OR to just hop into Windows while you're still logged into OS X.

Why would I want to do this? you ask. Well, the problem with dual-booting Windows is the inconvenience of having to restart your Mac entirely. The problem with virtualizing Windows is that it can be unreasonably slow for a prolonged session. Now that Boot Camp and Parallels work together, you can choose between virtualizing or booting into your Windows installation depending on what you have to do. Here's how to get it set up.

Install Boot Camp

First thing you should know: setting up Boot Camp is not a trivial task, since it requires repartitioning your Mac's hard drive and installing another operating system and drivers. Block out a couple of hours for this project.

What you'll need

• An Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.4 with all software updates installed and at least 10GB of free space and a writable CD/DVD drive
• A blank CD or DVD for burning the Mac driver disk
• A genuine Windows XP (no Vista support yet!) installation disk which includes Service Pack 2. You cannot install XP using a disk that does not include SP2 and expect to download it after the fact. Here's how to slipstream SP2 onto an older WinXP installation CD.

Set up Boot Camp

Before you get started, free up as much space on your Mac's hard drive as possible. Here's a handy tool for visualizing and cleaning up all your disk space hogs. Then:

1. Back up all your important data. Do not skip this step. If you're extra super-paranoid and you've got a free external disk, consider cloning your Mac's hard drive entirely. Here are some free Mac backup tools and methods.
2. Download and install the Boot Camp Assistant. Out of the gate, the assistant will prompt you to print out the 28 page user guide. Yes, I groaned and balked at the waste of paper and ink that this would be too. But it turns out the manual was a big, comforting help later on, so do it.

Read more [here]

Posted in: Technology on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at