HOW DO I RUN MAC AND WINDOWS XP SIDE BY SIDE WITHOUT GOING THRU BOOTCAMP?

[happyjean]

i am so new to a macbook pro-apple- that i'm not even sure of the correctt terminolgy. I installed windows xp home edition thru bootcamp but then i bought fusionware and called tech support who had me install fusion and then install win xp home addittion again. this placed 2 copies of windows on my mac when i asked about the space used it was suppgested that i remove 1 copy and run fusion thru my boot camp partition or else call apple and asked to have boot camp removed which would also remove my widndows applications that i had also installed. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PROCEED. I JUST WANT TO RUN WINDOWS AS A VIRTUAL AND ALSO MY MAC PROGRAMS. DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND WHT I'M TRYING TO ASK?

ANY HELP WILL BE APPRECIATED. THAKS HAPPYJEAN

[admin]

Before we can give you instructions for what to do, you need to decide how you want to run XP. Are you ever going to need to boot natively into XP? Do you need a specific Firewire or ExpressCard device? If so, you want to keep the Boot Camp partition and get rid of the normal virtual machine by deleting it via the Finder. Otherwise (and my guess is that this is the case), you want to use the normal virtual machine and get rid of the Boot Camp partition by using the Boot Camp Setup Assistant.

See also .

PS - I think your capslock key is broken.

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

You can start by killing the caps lock! Typing in all caps is considered shouting and rude much less it harder to read!

There are pros and cons for running Windows in Boot Camp vs as a native Fusion Virtual Machine and or a Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine and that all depends on your needs and only you can decide which way is best for you.

In General...

Running Windows from Boot camp gives you full native access to all of the physical hardware although it's either or not both at the same time.

Native Fusion Virtual Machine gives you the ability to run OS X and Windows side by side and gives you vitalized hardware with the exception of CPU and RAM but does not provide direct hardware access to Firewire and if direct access to firewire is needed that Boot Camp is needed.

Running you Boot Camp partition and a Virtual Machine gives you the ability to run OS X and Windows side by side with having the option to boot to the Boot Camp partition when needed although a Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine runs slower than a native Fusion Virtual Machine.

So when you know what you want to do or need further help in deciding then post back and I'm sure someone will help you.

[happyjean]

i am so sorry for using the caps key! i just wanted to be able to read what i was typing. pls pardon me and i won't do it again.

i want to turn on my macbook pro and use also windows xp. should i uninstall all windows xp and fusionware and start over? i was told that i can't

move documents from mac side to windows side by a rep from fusionware-is this tru? i thought tha twas reason for having virtual. what do i do to run both os's side by side? help. happyjean

[jfriesne]

It sounds to me like your best bet is to keep Boot Camp installed, and set up VMWare Fusion to use the Boot Camp partition as its VM. Then you'll have the option to access Windows either of two ways:

1) When you boot up your Mac, you can choose to boot into Windows directly via Boot Camp. At that point your Mac will act just like a Windows PC. In this mode you won't be able to access MacOS/X, but it's a bit faster and more compatible (especially for 3D games)

or

2) You can choose to boot into MacOS/X and run VMWare Fusion. At that point you'll have MacOS/X and Windows running at the same time. This is usually more useful, since you can switch back and forth between the two instantly, and share folders between the two, etc. I find the best way to do it is to set up Leopard's Spaces feature (virtual desktops) and then run Windows full screen in one of the desktops.... switching from Win to Mac and back again is as easy as pressing F9 and clicking on the screen you want, or command-arrow key works too.

Hope that helps,

Jeremy

ps the best way to share documents between the Mac and Windows side is to create a VMWare shared folder. That is a folder that will be visible to both the Mac and Windows sides; e.g. if you share your MacOS/X Home folder, then you'd see a new "Home" folder inside Windows also, and any file you put in your Mac home folder, Windows would see in its copy of the folder too. Of course this only works when running Fusion, not if you booted into Windows via Boot Camp. Check out the Fusion on-line help (available from the Fusion app's menu bar) for more details...

[admin]

move documents from mac side to windows side by a rep from fusionware-is this tru? i thought tha twas reason for having virtual. what do i do to run both os's side by side? help. happyjean

Virtualization (such as Fusion) lets you run multiple operating systems at the same time. From this point of view, it doesn't matter if you use the Boot Camp partition or if you use a normal virtual machine; if you go through Fusion, you can have both OS X and Windows at the same time. Using Boot Camp means you have the additional option of booting natively into Windows (but this won't be side-by-side with OS X). Using a normal virtual machine means potentially fewer activation headaches and more flexibility if you want to change the disk configuration.

You can move files from OS X to the guest in a couple ways. One is via Fusion's Shared Folders, which jfriesne has described. You can also just drag-and-drop files between OS X and Windows (good for occasional use since you don't have to set stuff up) or use regular network shares (good for intensive work).

originally i had installed windows thru boot camp and allocated 50gb but if i am understanding you correctly if i use the regular virtual machine then i let it use what is needed and i don't have to partition anything is this correct?

To answer this question you posted on , it's sort of right: you don't have to partition anything, but "use what is needed" is vague. I added a bit to the What Type of Disk? section to explain how sparse disks work, you should go back and read it.

[Shae]

I was looking for a way to access my mac files when using vista bootcamp partition in vmware when I found this thread, so I thought I'd share what worked for me.

To explain what I am doing and why, I decided I wanted to be able to boot in either OSX or Vista if I wanted to, and also to run Vista side-by-side on vmware. I had originally just been running Vista in vmware (no bootcamp partition at all) but ran into some problems and had to reinstall vmware.

When I reinstalled and set it up for use with bootcamp, I found I couldn't access files as I had been able to before with the other setup. I wanted to be able to use a program on Vista that would access (and write to) files stored on Mac.

This was what worked:

To enable shared folders for a virtual machine

To add a shared folder

1 Choose Virtual Machine > Settings or click the Settings button in the toolbar to open the virtual machine Settings sheet. Place the cursor on Shared Folders so that it is highlighted.

2 Click the add :smileyplus: button in the lower-left corner of the Settings sheet, and select Add Shared Folder. The Shared Folders section of the virtual machine Settings sheet is displayed.

3 Select Enabled.

4 In the Name field, enter the name of the shared folder on your Mac.

5 In the Path field, enter the path on your Mac to the shared folder or click Browse to browse for the folder.

6 Select Read-only to prevent the virtual machine from changing the contents of the shared folder on your Mac. Access to files in the shared folder is also governed by permission settings on your Mac.

7 Click Apply.

Note: Do not open a file in a shared folder from more than one application at a time. For example, do not open the same file using an application on the Mac’s operating system and another application in the virtual machine’s operating system. If one of the applications writes to the file, data could be corrupted.

[tomchap]

You hit the nail on the head, ive been looking everywhere to find out when i use my bootcamp partitionif i can use it both virtually using vmware fusion and also as standard using bootcamp at startup.

Thanks for your clear and consise explaination of the effects of converting a bootcamp partition to VM Ware.

Spot on!

(sorry for going on, im a new Macbook user having been a Windows User since the 3.1 days and im just getting to grips with my Macbook Pro. Decent bit of kit so far!)