Before anybody starts… I have already decided to make the switch from a PC to a Mac – I am not looking for opinions on the pro’s and con’s… that has been done to death

But,

I am interested in software choice/set up etc

So here is my spec:

Macbook pro 13″
i5 processer
4GB RAM
128GB SSD

I need to run (some) Windows software so I am planning to go with a Parellels set up with Windows 7.

What I would like to know is how best to set this up on the machine from new… do I need to split hard drive space, or change RAM settings etc

Also, as I will be using some Microsoft software, is running some antivirus/spyware etc software required as per a PC?

I will be typically using that machine for office based activities (so word, excel, powerpoint, and some stats/graphing packages are essential) as well as general web browsing/wasting time. Are there any Mac specific software packages that are ‘must haves’ over and above what I am familiar with from PC land?

Cheers, Jon

Office 2011?

Assuming that you also need to run software which you can’t get for OSX then yes just run Parallels with Win 7. I don’t use it personally but we have an iMac i5 set up in the studio running Parallels quite efficiently.

Can’t help with the partitioning / RAM info though, sorry, although I’d guess that Parallels just runs in OSX and takes care of any RAM issues for you.

Stevie P – thanks for your reply.

Yep, I have office 2007 at the moment and would be looking to try office 2011. Do you know of much difference between the Mac and the PC version as I could run either with Parallels… is there a ‘best’ option… I mean between running it on the OSX, or via parellels on Windows 7?

Cheers, Jon

I run Windows on my mac mini using VMware; the best way I’ve found is to use the Disk Utility to make a ~20GB “sparse bundle” disk image on the hard drive to put windows on. This will appear as another disk on the desktop even though it’s just a file on the main disk. The advantage of this is you can give windows a huge amount of space but it will only actually use as much as it needs; mine is theoretically 80GB but at the moment it’s only actually taking up 20GB (that includes the backup copy, mind).

A second handy thing is that if you’re running Time Machine or something similar it will get backed up in chunks, rather than backing up the whole many GB thing whenever the smallest thing changes, which takes ages and takes an awful lot of backup space.

I hope that lot makes sense when you start playing… 🙂

I don’t bother with antivirus and whatnot; the windows half gets used for specific tasks rather than just general internet faffage which is where most malware would get in, and with two different bits of software doing backups (Time Machine and VMware / Parallels) it’s dead easy just to replace the whole windows installation with a previous good one if anything does go wrong.

Running windows on a mac is actually way better than running windows on its own… 🙂

Phiiiil – thanks for your reply!

Running windows on a mac is actually way better than running windows on its own

That is exactly what I was hoping for!

So you think that VMware is better than Parallels? Are you still able to switch (copy and paste – e.g. graphs, stats outputs etc to word) between OSX and Windows?

Which ‘side’ would you put Office 2007/11?

Thanks again, Jon

I run Office 2011 on the Mac and 2010 for the PC at work. No issues transferring between the two. The only thing the mac side doesnt have is the database.

I also have VM ware but to be honest hardly ever use it.

I just use openoffice.. its free, powerful and saves a lot of hassle.

unsponsored/.duncan – thanks for your comments

If you’re doing any virtualisation (VMWare/Parallels), the more memory the better! I’d recommend going to crucial.com/uk and bumping the memory to 8GB. It’ll only cost about £70 and the VM will be a lot faster and affect the operation of OSX far less.

Edit – don’t get additional memory from Apple – it’ll cost you >2x crucial prices.

I use Virtualbox for running Windows on my macbook pro – works fine, although it’s pretty slow (i5 macbook pro with 4GB RAM). I only use it very rarely for specific software that I can’t get on a Mac, so it doesn’t bother me too much. Also, VirtualBox (developed by Sun, now owned by Oracle) is free, which helps.

Regarding Office, I wouldn’t bother running Office on Windows. The recent Mac version (2011) is great, and a vast improvement from the previous Mac version (2008 I think). I’d aim to use as much as you can on the OSX and only use Windows when necessary!

Cheers,
Nick

If you’re doing any virtualisation (VMWare/Parallels), the more memory the better! I’d recommend going to crucial.com/uk and bumping the memory to 8GB. It’ll only cost about £70 and the VM will be a lot faster and affect the operation of OSX far less.

No wonder my old 512mb laptop feels slow!

Edit – don’t get additional memory from Apple – it’ll cost you >2x crucial prices.

Good prices… far better than from Apple direct.

Euain – thanks for your comments!

I use Virtualbox for running Windows on my macbook pro – works fine, although it’s pretty slow (i5 macbook pro with 4GB RAM). I only use it very rarely for specific software that I can’t get on a Mac, so it doesn’t bother me too much. Also, VirtualBox (developed by Sun, now owned by Oracle) is free, which helps.

I have heard of virtual box – I will look into that software – especially as it is free.

Can I ask, in what kind of situation do you notice a slowing down of your machine?

Regarding Office, I wouldn’t bother running Office on Windows. The recent Mac version (2011) is great, and a vast improvement from the previous Mac version (2008 I think). I’d aim to use as much as you can on the OSX and only use Windows when necessary!

Sounds good to me.

nickb – thanks for your input.

“Can I ask, in what kind of situation do you notice a slowing down of your machine?”

The whole Windows environment, when running as a virtual machine on top of OSX, is pretty slow. If I used it a lot I could probably improve it’s performance by allocating more memory and disc space, but as it’s occasional use i haven’t bothered.

OSX is usually fine (performance wise) regardless of whether Virtualbox/Windows is running or not.

Nick

Thanks again nick

If I used it a lot I could probably improve it’s performance by allocating more memory and disc space, but as it’s occasional use i haven’t bothered.

Is this a relatively easy process to complete?

As I can run OSX most (75%) of the time, I still need to run windows specific applications at a decent rate.

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far – your comments have been really useful.

Why not just use Bootcamp? I have XP running on Bootcamp and it runs very, very quickly.

Another vote for running Open Office on OSX, too.

Some things to note:

– Bootcamp doesn’t support Windows XP any more on the newer Macs (certainly not on my 2011 MBP).

– I use Office 2011 on my Mac and once you’ve found your way round it’s just as good or better than the windows version. I certainly wouldn’t bother installing it on your windows partition/virtual machine unless you already have the license. Only thing to be careful of is to ensure to save things in the right format if you want to port them over to an old version of windows.

– If you’re only using windows stuff occasionally, you can run quite a lot of software using some WINE software. This is open source stuff designed to let windows stuff run on Linux/unix without needing a windows installation at all. I use it to run Memory Map on my mac, and it’s far better (for me) than using any of the virtual machine stuff.

+1 for Open Office on Mac OS X

Three fish – thanks for your input.

Why not just use Bootcamp? I have XP running on Bootcamp and it runs very, very quickly.

That sounds good – but I tend to spend a lot of time transfering ‘stuff’ from ‘windows only applications’ into word (I like the idea of running the latter on OSX), so I am not sure if boot camp is the right option?

Stevious – thanks, some poitns to ponder there!

– Bootcamp doesn’t support Windows XP any more on the newer Macs (certainly not on my 2011 MBP).

I did’nt know that!

– I use Office 2011 on my Mac and once you’ve found your way round it’s just as good or better than the windows version. I certainly wouldn’t bother installing it on your windows partition/virtual machine unless you already have the license. Only thing to be careful of is to ensure to save things in the right format if you want to port them over to an old version of windows.

I like this idea.

– If you’re only using windows stuff occasionally, you can run quite a lot of software using some WINE software. This is open source stuff designed to let windows stuff run on Linux/unix without needing a windows installation at all. I use it to run Memory Map on my mac, and it’s far better (for me) than using any of the virtual machine stuff.

This sounds good – but I don’t 100% understand how it works? Could you please elaborate a little?

I would like to run ‘training peaks WKO+’ software on the Mac (I am a cycle coach in my spare time) and so if this WINE software could do that I would be very happy!

Thanks again

+1 for Open Office on Mac OS X

Looks like I need to consider this software… just… can’t… quite… let go of microsoft office!

Bootcamp doesn’t support Windows XP any more on the newer Macs (certainly not on my 2011 MBP

You’re correct. I just read through a thread on mac-rumors (link) and it looks like it has to be Windows 7 on the MBP. Thanks for that bit of info.

Three fish – would you believe it… I didn’t think of looking at a Mac specific forum!

… just… can’t… quite… let go of microsoft office!

Oh my god he’s too far gone. Nurse! the screens!

LabMonkey, I just I just spent a wee while on google to find stuff. If the training peaks software is reasonably common, there’s probably some documentation of whether it can be made to work in WINE or not.

As for how wine works, I’m really not sure from a technical point, but all I had to do was follow some online instructions, and I now have a windows application that runs more or less natively in OSX. All the WINE stiff is free – I used something called Wineskins, but there are a few more.

LabMonkey – Member
+1 for Open Office on Mac OS X
Looks like I need to consider this software… just… can’t… quite… let go of microsoft office!

Open office is FREE, does everything that Excel, Word etc does!

Avoid Wine. It’s a complete pain in the arse.

Avoid NeoOffice or Open Office if you ever want to confidently share documents with Microsoft Office users. They’re not bad bits of software but they don’t get the rendering of Office documents 100% perfect. Mac Office 2011 is excellent and you don’t have to worry.

Speaking from being a long-time Mac user, and using a Mac professionally in a predominantly Windows 7 environment I’d second the recommendations to stick as much memory in as you can and run Windows in a VM. Parallels or VMWare Fusion, it makes little odds. I prefer VMWare myself, but mostly because my work is a VMWare partner.

Bootcamp is a good way of running Windows, but no good if you want to quickly be switching between Mac and Windows apps, which is sounds like you do. I tend to have a VM on the go permanently with my development environment in, and run everything else natively on the Mac.

The only thing that’s stuck out to me in your spec is the size of the SSD. VMs can swallow space pretty quick. I’ve got a 2010 Macbook Air with the 256Gb SSD. Once you give up the 50Gb Aperture library, the 40Gb iTunes one, the 100Gb of Vms, there ain’t a whole heap left. SSDs do make VMs whizz along though. The biggest bottleneck for them, after memory, is disc access speed.

Avoid Wine. It’s a complete pain in the arse.

Heh can you elaborate on that comment. That on its own doesn’t really help much. The reason one uses WINE is to provide a compatibility layer – therefore you expect its going to require some effort and patience at times.

Avoid NeoOffice or Open Office if you ever want to confidently share documents with Microsoft Office users. They’re not bad bits of software but they don’t get the rendering of Office documents 100% perfect

I’ve submitted documents [assignments] using Open Office, saving in word 97 format (as that is what they requested) with 0 problems. Unless you are in the work place and being told what to use, I don’t see any reason not to use it now.

OP, out of interest what are these windows programs that you are needing to run?

Mac user here Best windows package is Parallel’s
Also go on Apples App store and buy Pages Keynote Numbers as much cheaper than in store.
Did you get the One 2 One at time of purchase which helps But there are online tutorials
which show there software.

Dont think you need Anti virus mind unless linking with PC machines
Book up a Genius appointment here before throwing money away.

Try Macrumors and join and ask there forums on every thing Apple based
I find this very useful.
macrumors

Conqueror – thanks for your input

I’ve submitted documents [assignments] using Open Office, saving in word 97 format (as that is what they requested) with 0 problems. Unless you are in the work place and being told what to use, I don’t see any reason not to use it now.

I work as a research scientist and unfortunatly I really need to keep my documents to a standard format – most journals want .pdf files for submission, but collecgues seem to insist on Word documents.

OP, out of interest what are these windows programs that you are needing to run?

The main one is Sigmaplot (a graphing package), and also SPSS (a stats package). The former I believe (from their website) is not available for Mac, and the latter I have/can get (updated to the latest version) for PC only via the University for a couple of quid.

Try Macrumors and join and ask there forums on every thing Apple based I find this very useful.

Grantway – thanks, I will!

Ben sales – thanks for you post!

Avoid Wine. It’s a complete pain in the arse.

As someone else has said, could you please elaborate on this point?

Avoid NeoOffice or Open Office if you ever want to confidently share documents with Microsoft Office users. They’re not bad bits of software but they don’t get the rendering of Office documents 100% perfect. Mac Office 2011 is excellent and you don’t have to worry.

I think I will be trying Mac Office 2011

Speaking from being a long-time Mac user, and using a Mac professionally in a predominantly Windows 7 environment I’d second the recommendations to stick as much memory in as you can and run Windows in a VM. Parallels or VMWare Fusion, it makes little odds. I prefer VMWare myself, but mostly because my work is a VMWare partner.

I will be upgrading to 8GB (but not bought from apple).

Bootcamp is a good way of running Windows, but no good if you want to quickly be switching between Mac and Windows apps, which is sounds like you do. I tend to have a VM on the go permanently with my development environment in, and run everything else natively on the Mac.

This sounds right for my needs.

The only thing that’s stuck out to me in your spec is the size of the SSD. VMs can swallow space pretty quick. I’ve got a 2010 Macbook Air with the 256Gb SSD. Once you give up the 50Gb Aperture library, the 40Gb iTunes one, the 100Gb of Vms, there ain’t a whole heap left. SSDs do make VMs whizz along though. The biggest bottleneck for them, after memory, is disc access speed.

I am a bit ‘slow’ on some of this terminology? What’s the ‘aperature library’?

I won’t have itunes on the laptop – I streem via wifi and Spotify

I intend to just run the graph and stats package on the VM, I assume that this will use only a little of the SSD capacity? Or am I missing something here?

Thanks again, Jon

Mac user here Best windows package is Parallel’s
Also go on Apples App store and buy Pages Keynote Numbers as much cheaper than in store.

Good advice – cheers

Did you get the One 2 One at time of purchase which helps But there are online tutorials which show there software.

I haven’t bought it yet, but will do so in a few days.

Dont think you need Anti virus mind unless linking with PC machines.

Does this apply with USB sticks as I will use these with both PC and Mac.

There is Mac malware often packaged in with dodgy torrents etc, don’t pirate your software and you’ll be reet.

Mac user here Best windows package is Parallel’s

I prefer VMWare Fusion, I found Parallels unreliable and worse performing than Fusion.
Both are fine for casual use (as is the free/Free VirtualBox software from Sun), but in daily use the little glitches and problems quickly become irritating in Parallels and VirtualBox.

OP, do you really need that SSD… 128GB isn’t a huge amount of space if this is your only computer..

Might be worth looking at this, saving 120 quid, 4x the storage and still pretty quick

Seagate 500GB Momentus XT 2.5″ Hybrid SSD/HDD SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache – OEM

It has 4GB of solid state memory and 500GB of mechanical disk running at 7200rpm

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/222310

here’s a video of someone using it in a MBP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YQOkVzn0O8

Conqueror wrote:
Avoid Wine. It’s a complete pain in the arse.

Heh can you elaborate on that comment. That on its own doesn’t really help much. The reason one uses WINE is to provide a compatibility layer – therefore you expect its going to require some effort and patience at times.

I’ve never managed to get it to work happily with any software I’ve tried, and frankly my time is worth more to me. VMWare Fusion 3, and Unity, is the perfect solution as far as I’m concerned.

Avoid NeoOffice or Open Office if you ever want to confidently share documents with Microsoft Office users. They’re not bad bits of software but they don’t get the rendering of Office documents 100% perfect.

I’ve submitted documents [assignments] using Open Office, saving in word 97 format (as that is what they requested) with 0 problems. Unless you are in the work place and being told what to use, I don’t see any reason not to use it now.

I’m using it in a business environment. I need to be 100% certain that my colleagues on Windows platforms, and my clients (on just about anything), are seeing exactly the same as me when we’re collaborating on documents. Otherwise, admittedly, it gets output to pdf. But Mac Office is so cheap, it’s just not worth getting anything else.

LabMonkey wrote:

The only thing that’s stuck out to me in your spec is the size of the SSD. VMs can swallow space pretty quick. I’ve got a 2010 Macbook Air with the 256Gb SSD. Once you give up the 50Gb Aperture library, the 40Gb iTunes one, the 100Gb of Vms, there ain’t a whole heap left. SSDs do make VMs whizz along though. The biggest bottleneck for them, after memory, is disc access speed.

I am a bit ‘slow’ on some of this terminology? What’s the ‘aperature library’?

I won’t have itunes on the laptop – I streem via wifi and Spotify

Sorry, Aperture is the Apple photo editing package I use, and obviously you know what iTunes is. I’m would just say that a 128Gb disc in this day and age will disappear very quickly. If you can afford it, (and they do one, I don’t know), put a 256Gb in.