Reply to: More than one OS on a mac

[lightng]

I have an XP VM containing a clean install; if I need a new VM I just copy it, then double-click to launch a clean system. When I wanted to test something on IE6, IE7 and IE 8 yesterday, it took about a minute for each one: resume the appropriate VM, point the browser at the page, check it was OK, then suspend the VM.

Without VMs it's not even possible to reliably run different versions of IE without a lot of mucking about. Microsoft themselves recommend using VMs if you want to run multiple IE versions without risking damaging your Windows installation.

WHS.

This is exactly why I like VMs. Its the future.

[NickFitz]

That's not what your previous post made it sound like... having to set up virtual machines is not my definition of hassle-free.

I have an XP VM containing a clean install; if I need a new VM I just copy it, then double-click to launch a clean system. When I wanted to test something on IE6, IE7 and IE 8 yesterday, it took about a minute for each one: resume the appropriate VM, point the browser at the page, check it was OK, then suspend the VM.

Without VMs it's not even possible to reliably run different versions of IE without a lot of mucking about. Microsoft themselves recommend using VMs if you want to run multiple IE versions without risking damaging your Windows installation.

[d000hg]

Why would I want to run Windows when I use cross-platform apps and Mac apps? It's considerably more hassle using Windows than OS X

That's not what your previous post made it sound like... having to set up virtual machines is not my definition of hassle-free.

[d000hg]

on the right click issue - I just set my macbook up in preferences (whilst in OSX) with trackpad 'tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click'

So two fingers on trackpad and click the button and up pops right click in windows..

No, that's what it's supposed to do. For many people, it just plain doesn't work. The drivers are buggy... for me right-click worked in that way until I went in and changed a setting, after that even putting everything back to default wouldn't give be right-click again.

There's a thread about a million pages long on an Apple forum somewhere complaining about the driver quality.

[JonSmile]

on the right click issue - I just set my macbook up in preferences (whilst in OSX) with trackpad 'tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click'

So two fingers on trackpad and click the button and up pops right click in windows..

[NickFitz]

Seems it would be easier to run Apache, MySQL and Eclipse on Windows in the first place; why go to all that hassle if all you use are cross-platform apps.

Why would I want to run Windows when I use cross-platform apps and Mac apps? It's considerably more hassle using Windows than OS X

[d000hg]

Seems it would be easier to run Apache, MySQL and Eclipse on Windows in the first place; why go to all that hassle if all you use are cross-platform apps.

[NickFitz]

FWIW, I use Parallels on my own MacBook, and have used VMWare on various FormerClientCorps' MacBooks and MacBookPros. I prefer Parallels, as in my experience it leaves the system more responsive overall when one is switching back-and-forth between Windows and Mac apps - I'll probably be editing stuff in Eclipse on the Mac side, then switching over to MS Visual Web Developer Express Edition for debugging stuff on IE on the Windows side, said stuff being served by Apache and MySQL back over on the Mac side.

On occasion I'll end up with two separate Windows instances running (IE6 and IE7, both running under the MSVWDEE debugger) and can easily switch back and forth. Trying the same thing using VMWare (on more recent and more powerful machines than my 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM) remained clunky, whereas with Parallels it runs reasonably smoothly.

If you're talking about using Windows for its own sake - as in, to actually do something over and above working out which Internet Explorer bug is biting you today - I have nothing to offer. The only reason I ever run Windows is to test stuff on IE. Windows has nothing to offer me.

(I've never used BootCamp or whatever it's called. After all, if I booted into Windows, my Apache server and its associated virtual development servers wouldn't be running. Oh, and the database server would be down too.)

[DaveB]

Is it a white or aluminium one?

My Alu 24 is fairly good at games on windows and osx.

It can run Warcraft at full resolution (middling fancies & detail) on windows.

I haven't tried any of the newer FPSs but I've played spore and xplane in osx - all eminently playable.

To be fair Warcraft is not a good test of graphics performance. An up to date FPS provides a much better tast and the older iMacs do struggle on these. My 1st gen Aluminium can run TF2 / CS:S / HL at reasonable rates as long as I keep the options reasonable. Run it at too high res or with all the bells and whisltes and it chugs along like an asthmatic slug.

The latest ones have much better graphics cards but sadly iMacs are not upgradeable other than adding memory.

[d000hg]

My iMac 24 still seems crap for games even when I boot Windows natively.

It's got 4GB but I think the iMac graphics chipset is just slow as shyte.

Something like Quake IV runs brilliantly on my daughter's cheapo dell box with 2GB but limps along on my iMac.

Could well be drivers rather than hardware performance... graphics cards can be very sensitive to drivers when it comes to performance.
However, the iMac isn't very high spec AFAIK, until the latest range anyway - they switched to decent nVidia cards in the new macs.

[Moscow Mule]

My iMac 24 still seems crap for games even when I boot Windows natively.

It's got 4GB but I think the iMac graphics chipset is just slow as shyte.

Something like Quake IV runs brilliantly on my daughter's cheapo dell box with 2GB but limps along on my iMac.

Is it a white or aluminium one?

My Alu 24 is fairly good at games on windows and osx.

It can run Warcraft at full resolution (middling fancies & detail) on windows.

I haven't tried any of the newer FPSs but I've played spore and xplane in osx - all eminently playable.

[bogeyman]

Bear in mind that the iMac is running on what are basically Laptop components and you are not going to get equivalent performance from them anyway. The bottle neck is the graphics card, not the memory, which, especially in older iMac's is not the greatest even by laptop standards.

Yeah - what I thought. It's pretty snappy in Photoshop though, even for intensive operations on big files.

I might just lash out a couple of hundred quid and build a nice (OEM) Windows-based multimedia/gaming machine - just for the hell of it.

[DaveB]

My iMac 24 still seems crap for games even when I boot Windows natively.

It's got 4GB but I think the iMac graphics chipset is just slow as shyte.

Something like Quake IV runs brilliantly on my daughter's cheapo dell box with 2GB but limps along on my iMac.

Bear in mind that the iMac is running on what are basically Laptop components and you are not going to get equivalent performance from them anyway. The bottle neck is the graphics card, not the memory, which, especially in older iMac's is not the greatest even by laptop standards.

[bogeyman]

Boot Camp is inbuilt into OSX Leopard, and offers the best performance of windows in Mac, virtual machines are too resource intensive, unless you have a Mac Pro with quad core xeons!

My iMac 24 still seems crap for games even when I boot Windows natively.

It's got 4GB but I think the iMac graphics chipset is just slow as shyte.

Something like Quake IV runs brilliantly on my daughter's cheapo dell box with 2GB but limps along on my iMac.

[Solidec]

Boot Camp is inbuilt into OSX Leopard, and offers the best performance of windows in Mac, virtual machines are too resource intensive, unless you have a Mac Pro with quad core xeons!