Windows for a Macbook Pro

[David Hellman]

I just got a new MBP and want to use it for Windows XP as well as OS X. Any suggestions as to what version of Windows to get, or whatever? Can I just download it from Microsoft and buy a license?

[Coca Cola Zero]

You can buy Vista online and get it as a digital download, but I think (not sure, never used this system, but based on what I've heard....) you might need an existing Windows box to actually perform the download and then burn the Vista installation DVD into a format that BootCamp will accept as a Windows install disc. Might be easier to just order the OS in a standard physical media box.

You can get Vista (or XP) at a substantial discount if you buy the OEM version (Newegg sells them), the catch being that you're only licensed to run that copy of Windows on one system ever, so if you upgrade your MacBook Pro in a few years you'd need a new Windows license for the new laptop. If you want to buy XP, you better act fast because they're going to stop selling it in a few months.

I've run both Vista and XP on a MacBook (the black higher end non-Pro) and both work pretty well.

[Midnight Son]

I just got a new MBP and want to use it for Windows XP as well as OS X.

XP Home should work fine. Get it from Newegg. Ignore the Vista fanboi's. (Both of them.) :)

[Coca Cola Zero]

One last thing -- if you do want XP and you decide you want Pro for some reason (Remote Desktop, whatever), take a look at Windows XP Media Center Edition. It has most of the features of Pro but costs about the same as Home.

[David Hellman]

Hmm, what about torrenting an ISO and buying a license online? That's legit, right?

[Midnight Son]

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr, matey!

[David Hellman]

Okay, just repeating what I was told. I'm an honest fella, I swear.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that would be OK in the eyes of Microsoft. It is pretty easy to come by legit Vista/XP install DVDs, the license itself is what they want your money for. Just make sure you torrent it from a relatively trustworthy source because OS install discs are a prime target for trojans.

[Ergo]

I put XP on mine, but be forewarned: for some strange reason, the optical drives in the Macbooks can be finicky as hell. I had to burn three different copies from the same ISO before the laptop would recognize the disk.

[metta]

I just put XP on my MBP. It was a piece of cake. Just make sure you're using SP2.

[Ergo]

I really like how Apple has included all the windows drivers in one installation on the first OS X DVD. It's nearly a one-click install.

[SqueakyFoo]

Hmm, what about torrenting an ISO and buying a license online? That's legit, right?

If you pirate Windows, Microsoft makes it incredibly easy to just buy a legit cd-key.

I ended up going with Vista as it was actually cheaper than XP ($90 for Vista OEM as opposed to $110 for XP OEM). It's not as bad as people make it out to be, but if you've already got a copy of XP, there's no real reason to upgrade.

I really like how Apple has included all the windows drivers in one installation on the first OS X DVD. It's nearly a one-click install.

Oh god yes, this is awesome. I spent about half an hour trying to figure out which drivers to get and what everything was and whatnot. If I had taken the 15 seconds to open the gottdamned MBP manual, I would have realised that I could've just stuck the OSX disc in and had a working system in minutes. The drivers even support some of the advanced touch-pad features (two finger scrolling, for now).

[David Hellman]

Yeah I just went and bought a boxed copy and the installation was easy. Thanks for the comments about it.

[shang]

You can get Vista (or XP) at a substantial discount if you buy the OEM version (Newegg sells them), the catch being that you're only licensed to run that copy of Windows on one system ever, so if you upgrade your MacBook Pro in a few years you'd need a new Windows license for the new laptop.

Another big catch is that you don't get any tech support from Microsoft for OEM versions, assuming you ever need any.

[rei]

Who the hell has ever called for technical support? They're just script monkeys.

Hit the knowledge base, Google or the hivemind.

[WarrenM]

I run Vista on my Macbook Pro and it works great.

As for tech support ... yeah, I haven't called a tech support line since I discovered the internet.

[rei]

I was looking at downloading a Vista torrent earlier this week but they all were cracked/preactivated versions. I borrowed an OEM DVD from a friend instead.

[MyNameIsWill]

Vista runs fine on Macs.

[Anti-Bunny]

One last thing -- if you do want XP and you decide you want Pro for some reason (Remote Desktop, whatever), take a look at Windows XP Media Center Edition. It has most of the features of Pro but costs about the same as Home.

You cannot join a domain with Media Center Edition, which was a huge problem for me.

[Michael Fortson]

I'd pick up VMWare Fusion as well. Very good app for running windows apps from OSX. More reliable than Parallels.

[forgeforsaken]

I'd pick up VMWare Fusion as well. Very good app for running windows apps from OSX. More reliable than Parallels.

Any other thoughts comparing the two. I'm doing an eval on them both now.

[dgallina]

They both have pluses and minuses. Parallels is often slightly ahead on features but VMWare has been more stable for me generally.

[Derek Meister]

I haven't tried Parallels, but VMWare Fusion has been running Windows Vista (and 3.11) well enough on my Macbook.

[Michael Fortson]

Parallels has been more prone to crashing and making my entire system unstable, and the company has no problems rolling fixes into the next release and charging close to full-release price for them. Their support sucks, and their forums are full of apologists who rush out at any report of problems to insist that their installation is just fine.

I paid for both, sadly, since Parallels was first. But it's been made abundantly clear that VMWare almost always knows what the hell they're doing, and Parallels sometimes (which is all too often for me) doesn't.

[Michael Fortson]

Fusion has been running Windows ...3.11... well enough on my Macbook.

I really want to know why you were doing that :) and I'll be you're one of less than three or four to do it (one or two of whom probably work for VMWare).

[Damien Neil]

I've never used Parallels, but my experiences with VMware on various platforms has made me a fan of them for life. I don't think you can go wrong with VMware.

[Derek Meister]

I really want to know why you were doing that :)

I did it for the one and only reason to do so: Because I can. Really, as soon as installed Windows Vista Home Premium and had it up and running so easily under VMWare Fusion, the very next thing I did was look over at my binder full of old OS discs with an evil grin on my face.

I installed, played with, then deleted a ton of old operating systems I've used before, including Red Hat Linux 5.1 and BeOS 4.5. It was totally worth the effort to take a hard look at just how far things have come without the blinders of nostalgia.

As for Windows 3.11, it wasn't easy, but I'm far from the only person to have done it. And since I have it running Internet Explorer 5, I've kept it installed just so that I can bring it up quickly when I talk to people about just how much of a difference 14 years can make in computing. The best was forcing one of the 18 year old tech monkeys I work with to try it out and watching her eyes bug out when she understood that I had to support networking on that at one time.

[GuildBoss]

Anybody use Virtual Box?

[MonkeyPunky]

I'm thinking maybe I should have read this before going with Parallels instead of VMWare....

I got a MBP back in April, used Bootcamp to install Vista on a separate partition and then installed Parallels to run off that partition. It worked fine for months, then a few weeks ago when I shut down parallels, I got a warning that the partition was not closed properly. Now I am unable to boot into Vista but I am able to continue using OSX and Parallels, with the same warning whenever I shut down parallels.

Has anyone had this problem and been able to fix it?

[Fugitive]

Can you still see the Windows filesystem from OSX? If so, it's probably still salvageable if you boot from the Windows disc and do a chkdsk and a repair install.