How to Run Windows XP & Vista on a Mac
- 1). Download and install Boot Camp on your Mac OS X system. The Boot Camp installer will divide your hard drive into two partitions, each of which will appear to your Macintosh as if they are separate hard drives. The installer will then walk you through the installation process of installing either Windows Vista or Windows XP. You must have a Windows installation disc with at least Windows XP Service Pack 2 to install Windows XP under Boot Camp.
- 2). Evaluate either of the two commercial products that run Windows simultaneously with Mac OS X: Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion. Both run as a Mac OS X application, which creates a "virtual" Windows computer within your Mac environment. You have the option of running Windows applications as if they were Mac applications, without a Windows desktop, or using a full Windows environment in addition to the Mac environment. (You can switch back and forth between these using Mac Spaces, putting each on a separate virtual desktop.) A disk image on your Mac hard drive acts as the Windows "boot drive" and stores any data you create under Windows. As of August 2010, these competing applications are roughly equivalent in feature sets and price; both offer trial download versions, so try them both and see which works better for you.
- 3). Install the free VirtualBox virtualization software, which provides a subset of the features offered by Parallels and VMWare. As of August 2010, Windows running under VirtualBox is somewhat slower than commercial software, and does not offer a side-by-side option. However, the full version of VirtualBox can be downloaded for free, and tested alongside commercial virtualization software to determine which is best for your needs.
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