Latest feeling around Wndows 8 on Macbook pro (Bootcamp or parallels?)

Vanilla · 25 Mar 2015 at 14:14

After a bad experience with Dell hardware I'm thinking of going to the new Macbook Pro 13". I think apple have the best hardware despite the Dell having a sweet 4k screen).

I need Windows for work and don't want to run a VM or Fusion. I'd like to run Windows 8.1 natively.

Seems quite a few people do this and i'm wondering how you're finding it? People say using Parallels improves Windows Performance and Battery life?

Thanks for any input

DanF · 25 Mar 2015 at 19:15

You could use Parrallels and it's feature to allow running windows as a VM from a bootcamp partition, then I guess you get the best of both worlds. Some adhoc stuff, just run it from VM, need more power then reboot in to bootcamp windows.

http://kb.parallels.com/en/112941

MagicBoy · 25 Mar 2015 at 19:24

Battery life is significantly shorter with Windows running natively under Boot Camp than OS X or a virtualised Windows install.

As for native vs virtual it would help to know what you will be using on Windows.

cotton31 · 25 Mar 2015 at 20:34

Not sure whether anything has changed, but when I tried to do what DanF is describing (albeit using VMWare Fusion) I ran in to a few licensing issues with Windows.

Basically, bootcamped Windows would see the VM hardware as a hardware change and require a 'relicense' and then when booting back in to bootcamp it would see it as another change!

Seems like a pretty fundamental flaw, which may well be resolved now as this was a few years ago, or maybe Parallels are able to deal with this a bit better?

chex · 26 Mar 2015 at 10:10

Depends which software you need to to be using.

The higher end Thinkpads are good quality and can be specced with great screens. Most thinkpad reviews test a base spec and complain about low spec without mentioning the options available.

rG-tom · 26 Mar 2015 at 11:52

i use windows 8.1 for work in a VM under parallels, it runs as a seperate "desktop" and the only time i've had it struggle was when trying to do some video editing of 1080p 5Dmk3 files in premiere, which obviously isn't an ideal scenario

Otherwise it's lightning quick on my 16gb of ram 2.5ghz mbp 13

Vanilla · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:02

MagicBoy said:
Battery life is significantly shorter with Windows running natively under Boot Camp than OS X or a virtualised Windows install.

As for native vs virtual it would help to know what you will be using on Windows.

It's a two prong thing:

Firstly, i'm a Windows guy. No disrespect to OSX, tried it, didn't like it. Just me - Windows more than meets my needs.

Secondly, up until a few days ago when my Dell died I was the only PC user in a MAC office and it was full of people swearing about things not working for one reason or another. My experience was great...apart from the hardware (Dell) so I want to combine what I tihnk it the best hardware with the software I like.

I'm also into my HD movies and photo editing. I know the MAX is great for this but I just don't like OSX, so i'm thinking bootcamp rather than a VM.

I'm looking at the new new Macbook Pro 13, top CPU, 16GB RAM, etc.

MagicBoy · 26 Mar 2015 at 18:54

I'm of a similar opinion to rG-tom.

I've got a Windows 7 VM which I use for general apps. It's lightning fast for general use, and easily runs software that hammers a local SQL Express database without breaking a sweat. The only thing Parallels isn't much good for is things that require direct hardware access, so I've got a small Boot Camp partition for running games.

I like OS X and run apps in that the majority of the time. For purely running Windows I'd buy a ThinkPad to be honest. Some of the best bits of the MacBooks like the trackpad just don't feel anywhere near as good via native Windows.

LazyManc · 26 Mar 2015 at 21:17

Vanilla said:
It's a two prong thing:

Firstly, i'm a Windows guy. No disrespect to OSX, tried it, didn't like it. Just me - Windows more than meets my needs.

Out of interest, how long did you try it for, and did you have a Windows machine to fall back on at the time? I found the first couple of months annoying as it takes extra brain power to think about keyboard shortcuts etc, but after getting past the initial hump, I now much prefer it. If you're switching back to Windows regularly then obviously that takes longer.