Running Windows XP on a MacBook

In article ,
"Shenan Stanley" wrote:

30GB is a decent number - although you can easily get away with 20GB as long
as you use network/mapped directories for your files. Windows XP is just
small, even if you install MS Office and assorted full versions of Adobe
products (why you would do that on a mac in Windows is weird to me) and
autdesk products and corel products and the likes - you might make it to
10-12GB used space.

Well the MS ofice versions are much superior to the Mac versions, and
Windows has much software that Mac does not, and usually Windows
software is better with more features.

If you know of any steals on ebay for a WinXP Home edition (I really
could care less about Pro if Home is cheaper) let me know.


Thanks,


John
--
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conduct its worship services? Is drinking Alcohol a sin?
If you want to learn, get answers, and be able to defend
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In article ,
Dan wrote:

In article
,
John wrote:


On Ebay what version of Windows XP Home do I need to look for?

Forget XP Home. Professional is the same price on eBay - about $50 -
$60.

You want at least SP2. Discs with SP3 are a little more, around $75.
You can download SP3 and install it yourself if you need it. I
personally have not bothered with SP3 on the ancient laptops that I have
that are still running XP.

All of my main Windows machines here are 7 now. Just deleted my last
remaining Vista partition. I would take either Vista or 7 over XP on
new hardware. Running XP on new hardware is like running OS X 10.2 on
new hardware - pointless.

Get Parallels 5 unless short of cash
http://www.mactech.com/articles/spec...HeadToHead/ind
ex-001.html

If you can, get a corporate edition of Windows XP - no activation.
Otherwise get Windows XP SP2 at least (so you can boot XP as well under
BootCamp - it is possible to use the same partition also in Parallels,
ie parallel to Mac OS X).
And certainly update to SP3 immediately, to cover the most glaring
security holes.

And certainly do not get Vista, if not XP then get Windows 7, much
cleaner.

But Windows XP is still compatible with more software, so unless you
need Windows 7, or absolutely want it, then go with Windows XP. It will
run faster.
You'll find yourself using Windows less and less anyway.

HTH

Marc

--
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On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:58:17 -0500, Mike Rosenberg wrote:

Stefan Patric wrote:

VirtualBox is the easiest VM to set up and work with, and for personal
use, it's free.

http://www.virtualbox.org

The price is definitely right, but how is it easier than Fusion or
Parallels?

Perhaps it isn't anymore. They all have GUI interfaces now.

It has been about 4 years since I last seriously looked at VMWare. At
that time, VMWare--I don't even think they had a Mac version then--was a
very stable, for pay, commercial product designed for running multiple
virtual server servers, although you could run it on a desktop, and
people did. (There is now a free one for non-commercial users, but only
for PC platforms. I hear it's very good.)

Set up was technical--you had to know what you were doing--but was at
least through a GUI and a lot easier than the commandline VM I was using
then. Then I discovered VirtualBox. Its market was for the general
desktop computer user like me who wanted an alternative to multi-booting
OSes. It still basically is that, although they do have a "pro" version
that they sell.

Since VirtualBox is free, even for the Mac, and is designed for the
casual user, wouldn't it pay to try it before buying one?

Have no experience with Parallels.

Stef

Stefan Patric wrote:

On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:58:17 -0500, Mike Rosenberg wrote:

Stefan Patric wrote:

VirtualBox is the easiest VM to set up and work with, and for personal
use, it's free.

http://www.virtualbox.org

The price is definitely right, but how is it easier than Fusion or
Parallels?

Perhaps it isn't anymore. They all have GUI interfaces now.

It has been about 4 years since I last seriously looked at VMWare. At
that time, VMWare--I don't even think they had a Mac version then...

They didn't. It was released in late 2007, if Wikipedia has it right. So
no, you don't have any experience with the Mac product. And...

Have no experience with Parallels.

Ok. So you have no basis for judging whether "it is the easiest VM to
set up and work with".

It might be easy. Not having tried it myself. I couldn't say. (I have
used both Parallels and VMWare on the Mac, in addition to a much older
VMWare product on Linux some time ago). I don't dispute that VirtualBox
might be a fine product, and that the price is right. I just note that
your statement about it being "the easiest" is, by definition, a
statement of comparison, for which you appear to have no basis.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain

Stefan Patric wrote:

Why don't you try VirtualBox and see if it's "easiest." I would be
interested in your opinion.

I've thought about it in the past. At the moment, I'm in the position of
having a paid-for copy of VMWare that is doing what I want. My system
not being broken in this regard, I'm not at all sure that I want to
"fix" it just for curiosity about whether another solution would also
work. Yes, I'm also curious, but probably not enough so to risk breaking
what I have now (I can easily imagine conflicts from having multiple
virtualization apps installed.) Maybe one of these days I'll try it on
my wife's machine, as we aren't currently using VMWare for anything
important there. It would be quite awkward if my VMWare installation on
this machine broke; I suppose I'd figure out some way to get the
employees of my wife's small business paid (I do the bookkeeping for her
and the payroll app I'm using is a Windows one), but I really don't want
to have to.

Seems to me that when I first looked at it, it was missing features that
I needed/wanted. USB support comes to mind. Looking at its current page,
USB suport is claimed to be one of the closed-source features, though
that would be ok for my personal use. Hmm, though maybe not, as running
my wife's payroll probably means it doesn't count as completely personal
use. I didn't spend the time to carefully study all the definitions in
the license terms, but at a first guess, I'd say that means that it
won't meet my needs unless I pay for it. That might be fine if VMWare
wasn't working for me. After all, I have paid for both VMWare and
Parallels licenses (though my Parallels license is for an old version
that I don't think will even run on my current machines). But I'd need
more than curiosity to motivate buying it.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain

On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:16:20 -0800, Richard Maine wrote:

Stefan Patric wrote:

Why don't you try VirtualBox and see if it's "easiest." I would be
interested in your opinion.

I've thought about it in the past. At the moment, I'm in the position of
having a paid-for copy of VMWare that is doing what I want. My system
not being broken in this regard, I'm not at all sure that I want to
"fix" it just for curiosity about whether another solution would also
work. Yes, I'm also curious, but probably not enough so to risk breaking
what I have now (I can easily imagine conflicts from having multiple
virtualization apps installed.) Maybe one of these days I'll try it on
[big snip]

Here's an idea: Use VMWare to create a new virtual machine; install
VirtualBox on THAT machine, then use VB to create a virtual machine on
it. That way VB is isolated from the host machine, and in no way can it
muck it up, and you can safely play with VirtualBox.


Stef

Stefan Patric wrote:

On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:16:20 -0800, Richard Maine wrote:

work. Yes, I'm also curious, but probably not enough so to risk breaking
what I have now (I can easily imagine conflicts from having multiple
virtualization apps installed.) ...

Here's an idea: Use VMWare to create a new virtual machine; install
VirtualBox on THAT machine, then use VB to create a virtual machine on
it. That way VB is isolated from the host machine, and in no way can it
muck it up, and you can safely play with VirtualBox.

I wouldn't expect that to work. Suppose I could be wrong. Even if it
did, it wouldn't really end up being the particular port of VirtualBox
that I'd have any interest in. I can't do an OS-X guest OS, which is
what I'd need in order to then run in it the port of VirtualBox that
uses an OS-X host. I have no interest in any other host systems.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain