When Apple switched its
desirable Macintosh computers from the aging Power PC architecture to
Intel's PC-compatible x86 platform in 2006, the computing landscape was
changed forever. No longer were PCs and Macs incompatible at a very low
level. Indeed, Macs are now simply PCs running a different operating
system. This fascinating change opened up the possibility of Mac users
running Windows software natively on their machines, either in a
dual-boot scenario or, perhaps, in a virtualized environment that would
offer much better performance than the Power PC–based virtualized
environments of the past.
These dreams quickly became reality. Apple created software called Boot Camp
that now enables Mac users to dual-boot between Mac OS X (Leopard or
higher) and Windows XP, Vista, or 7. And enterprising tech pioneers such
as VMware and Parallels have created seamless virtualization
environments for Mac OS X that enable Mac users to run popular Windows
applications alongside Mac-only software such as iLife.
Now
consumers can choose a best-of-both-worlds solution that combines
Apple's highly regarded (if expensive) hardware with the compatibility
and software-library depth of Windows. Indeed, Paul has been using an
Apple notebook running Windows 7 ever since Microsoft's latest operating
system shipped in early beta form.
NOTE
The differences between
these two types of Windows-on-Mac solutions are important to understand.
If you choose to dual-boot between Mac OS X and Windows using Boot
Camp, you have the advantage of running each system with the complete
power of the underlying hardware. However, you can access only one OS at
a time, and you need to reboot the Mac in order to access the other.
With a virtualized environment
running under Mac OS X, you have the advantage of running Mac OS X and
Windows applications side by side, but with a performance penalty. In
this situation, Mac OS X is considered the host OS, and Windows is a guest OS running on top of Mac OS X. Thus, Windows applications won't run at full speed. With enough RAM,
you won't notice any huge performance issues while utilizing
productivity applications, but you can't run Windows games effectively
with such a setup. Note, too, that the Windows 7 Aero user experience is
not available in today's virtualized environments, so you would have to
settle for Windows 7 Basic instead.
Regardless of which method you use to install Windows 7, be aware of a final limitation: you need to purchase
a copy of Windows 7, as no Mac ships with Microsoft's operating system.
This is a not-so-fine point that Apple never seems to mention in their
advertising.
1. Dual Boot with Mac: Using Boot Camp
Boot Camp is a feature of Mac OS X and is configured via that system's Boot Camp Assistant. As shown in Figure 1, Boot Camp Assistant is available from the Mac OS X Utilities folder (Applications => Utilities) and provides a wizard-based configuration experience.
NOTE
Boot Camp is available only
in Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" or newer, and it supports only 32-bit
versions of Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
The key to this wizard is the
Create a Second Partition phase, where you can graphically resize the
partition layout on the hard disk between Mac OS X and Windows, as shown
in Figure 2. (Macs with multiple hard drives can be configured such that Mac OS X and Windows occupy different physical disks, if desired.)
After that, Boot Camp prompts
you to insert the Windows 7 Setup DVD and proceed with setup. From a
Windows user's perspective, setup proceeds normally and Windows looks
and acts as it should once installed. Be sure to keep your Mac OS X
Setup DVD handy, however. It includes the necessary drivers that Windows
needs to be compatible with the Mac's specific hardware.
Once you have Windows 7 up and running on the Mac, there are just a few Mac-specific issues you should be aware of:
Configuring Boot Camp:
When you install Windows 7 on a Mac using Boot Camp, Apple installs a
Boot Camp Control Panel application, which you can access by selecting
Start Menu Search and typing boot camp. This application helps you configure important functionality such as the default system to load at boot time (Mac or Windows).
There's
also a system notification tray applet that enables you to access the
Boot Camp Control Panel and Boot Camp Help and choose to reboot into Mac
OS X.
Switching between operating systems at boot time:
While you can choose the default operating system at boot time via the
Boot Camp Control Panel application, or choose to boot into Mac OS X
from within Windows by using the Boot Camp tray applet, you can also
choose an OS on-the-fly when you boot up the Mac. To do so, restart the
Mac and then hold down the Option key until you see a screen with icons
for both Mac OS X and Windows. Then, use the arrow keys on the keyboard
to choose the system you want and press Enter to boot.
Understanding Mac keyboard and mouse differences:
While Macs are really just glorified PCs now, Apple continues to use
unique keyboard layouts and, frequently, one-button mice. As a result,
you may have to make some adjustments when running Windows on a Mac. Table 1 lists some commonly used keyboard commands and explains how to trigger equivalent actions on a Mac.
Table 1. Windows Keyboard Shortcuts on the Mac
| Windows Keyboard Shortcut | Apple External Keyboard | Built-In Mac Keyboard |
|---|
| Ctrl+Alt+Delete | Ctrl+Option+Fwd Delete | Ctrl+Option+Delete |
| Alt | Option | Option |
| Backspace | Delete | Delete |
| Delete | Fwd Delete | Fn+Delete |
| Enter | Return | Return |
| Enter | Enter on numeric keypad | Enter |
| Insert | Help | Fn+Enter |
| Num Lock | Clear | F6 |
| Pause/Break | F16 | Fn+Esc |
| Print Screen | F14 | F11 |
| Print active window | Option+F14 | Option+F11 |
| Scroll/Lock | F15 | F12 |
| Windows | Command | Command |
2. Windows on Mac: Virtualization Solutions
If you'd prefer to join
the ever-increasing ranks of Mac switchers—you traitor, you—you can
still run Windows and, more important, Windows applications, from within
Mac OS X. You do so via a virtualized environment such as VMware Fusion
or Parallels Desktop, both of which fool Windows into running inside of
a software-based PC that itself runs as an application under Mac OS X.
In the past, virtualized
environments presented a number of huge issues, especially on the Mac.
First, performance was abysmal, owing mostly to the underlying
architectural differences between the PowerPC and Intel x86 platforms
and the difficulty in translating running code between them. Second,
virtualized environments have typically presented Windows and its
applications as a sort of thing-in-a-thing, whereby the entire Windows
environment would run inside a closed-off window that was quite separate
and distinct from the Mac environment in which it was running. Moving
back and forth between the Mac and Windows environments was jarring and
difficult.
Modern virtualized
environments—such as VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop—have mostly
overcome these issues, just as Windows Virtual PC has on the Windows
side. Thanks to the underlying Intel x86 platform now used by the Mac,
virtualization offers better performance because there's no need to do
on-the-fly code conversion. Yes, performance still suffers, but you
might be surprised by how well Fusion and Parallels Desktop actually
work.
More impressive, perhaps,
both VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop offer unique new usage modes
that blur the line between the Mac and Windows desktops. VMware Fusion
offers a feature called Unity that enables you to run a Windows
application directly from the Mac Dock, switch between Windows and Mac
applications using the Mac's Exposé window switcher, and drag and drop
files between both systems.
Parallels Desktop
offers a similar feature called Coherence, which also integrates Windows
applications into the Mac desktop experience. Coherence even supports
copy and paste between Mac and Windows applications, and many other
integration features.
VMware
Fusion also offers an impressive bit of integration with Apple's Boot
Camp functionality. If you've already installed Windows 7 in a dual-boot
setup with Mac OS X using Boot Camp, Fusion will detect that Windows
install and automatically enable you to access it as a virtualized
environment from within Mac OS X. This, truly, is the best of both
worlds, as you can choose to access Windows 7 natively via Boot Camp or
virtualized from within Mac OS X using Fusion, all on the same machine.
