The ol' bootcamp questions, re-visited..!

[Buffalo]

Last time i looked at bootcamp was probably 6 months ago. Things have moved on, it is being offered as part of Leopard as far as i can see on the apple page. Does this mean that the bugs that were mentioned previously are largely sorted..? I am still running tiger by the way.

The reason I ask is that i finally need to think seriously about running windows on my mac for a couple of programs at work that don't run through OSX. I think from a resources points of view it would be better to run bootcamp, but it would be groovier to run windows inside OSX. Is there an alternative to bootcamp to do this, or is it still better to run windows as it's own boot? The programs would be from 2D AutoCAD to 3D viewers and modelling programs.

Is there anything in particular to think of when running bootcamp..? Just how does it affect the running of OSX?

Any other dregs of useful information would be gratefully received as i mentioned elsewhere, i am a veritable novice on this stuff so i always rate outside experience.

[jamieboy]

I haven't found many 'bugs' as such. The biggest problem running Vista on my MBP (other than the rubbish wireless, which isn't an OS or bootcamp issue) is the power management - it runs much hotter and gives less battery life than OSX, and I wonder whether it'll reduce the lifespan of the machine.

The other things are just annoyances rather than bugs - no right-click button on the trackpad, no # on the keyboard, etc. These aren't massive issues, and there are workarounds, but still a bit of an inconvenience.

edit: running bootcamp doesn't affect OSX at all - at bootup, you can either let it boot whichever OS you set as default, or you can hold down the alt key and choose the one you want. The two OS are completely independent of each other.

Edited by jamieboy on Sunday 11th May 12:29

[Buffalo]

Dragging this back up again (i move slowly... ) - i think that there is merit in me installing both boot camp and parallels. I have been reading the parallels user guide this afternoon. Basically some applications are going to be high end graphics users (3D modelling) that i guess would need me to boot into windows (although it will be interesting to see if that is actually necessary) and other stuff i could probably get away with just "popping in" to windows from OSX.

I have enjoyed trouble free use from my mac for a year now (MBP1) - the only worry i have is by utilising boot camp and parallels is that i might jepoardise this...

Just how stable are the macs with these extra stuff installed..?

Thanks ~PHIL