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Parallels Adding BootCamp Support

Parallels Adding BootCamp Support

by , 1:45 PM EST, December 1st, 2006

Parallels released a new beta of its Parallels Desktop for the Mac on Friday that includes support for Apple's BootCamp. Parallels Desktop for Mac build 3036 Beta adds several new features, but the most notable is the ability to select and launch a Windows XP installation from a BootCamp partition, as well as read and write data to and from the partition.

Parallels Desktop is a "virtual machine" application that lets you run alternate operating systems - including Windows XP - in a window on an Intel Mac running Mac OS X. One of the advantages Parallels Desktop brings to the table is that you don't have to reboot your Mac to switch between Windows and Mac OS X. Apple's BootCamp, in comparison, requires you to choose which operating system to boot your Mac with at startup.

There has been some speculation that Apple would let BootCamp run as a virtual machine system, like Parallels Desktop, when Mac OS X 10.5 is released. Apple representatives have stated that BootCamp will continue to function as it does today.

The Parallels Desktop beta is available for download through the Parallels Desktop for Mac online forum. Keep in mind that this is a beta version of the software, and should be used with caution. Some users are reporting issues, including a reappearance of some bugs when running on Mac Pro systems.

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Observer Comments

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Close Name:Tiger Posts: 1018 Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:35 pm Subject: and the transition begins

Soon, you will be able to move your Boot Camp partition to Parallels. Will Boot Camp even make it out of Beta before it is dropped?


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Close Name:brett_x Posts: 322 Joined: 24 Jan 2006
Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:53 pm Subject:

Quote
Tiger wrote:
Soon, you will be able to move your Boot Camp partition to Parallels. Will Boot Camp even make it out of Beta before it is dropped?


Boot Camp won't be dropped unless virtualization allows full hardware graphics acceleration. It really is the only way to play games. And that means a lot. There's a lot of money in upgrades alone for gamers.


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Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:15 pm Subject:

Quote
Tiger wrote:
Will Boot Camp even make it out of Beta before it is dropped?


What are you talking about!? This is great news for Parallels AND Boot Camp!

If this works the way I'm thinking it will, then I would think everyone who wants Windows on their Mac would install it using Boot Camp and ALSO buy Parallels.

Want to play a game? Restart in Boot Camp! Just want to check something in IE? Open up Parallels!

It's the best of both. Why wouldn't anyone do it that way? To work like this before meant wasting hard drive space for 2 copies of Windows and either spending money on two copies or trying to get around the liscencing issues that come from trying to run 1 copy of Windows on "2" machines.

This takes care of both of those problems.



Last edited by Small White Car on Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Close Name:luomat Posts: 15 Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:36 pm Subject: Curious

Also remember that Microsoft's draconian licensing for Vista means that the cheaper two versions cannot be used in Parallels, so BootCamp will be important there too.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Dec 01, 2006 6:50 pm Subject: parallels+boot camp

If you think about it, parallels+bootcamp is almost what we used with classic+OS9. Most things would run in Classic, but sometimes you needed to boot into OS 9. With this WindowsXP is the new Classic.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:39 pm Subject:

Actually, I believe it would be possible to run Vista home edition under both Bootcamp and Parallels legally. You are not allowed to install Vista twice, but the clever thing here is that you don't have to. And you are not allowed to run Vista twice at the same time, but that's fine because you can't do it anyway.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:55 pm Subject: Vista Virtualised

Clarification: Microsoft has specified in the ULA that the Home versions can't be run in a virtual machine.

So boot camp = YES, Parallels = NO

Unless they say no to boot camp as well, because it is an extension to Apple's EFI that allows it to emulate a standard PC BIOS. It might be considered a kind virtual machine.

How will they police this? An industry wide TPM won't work because its bound to get hacked, cracked or leaked by someone.


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Close Name:Guest
Sat Dec 02, 2006 3:34 am Subject: But remember what we're talking about....

an upgrade to WINDOWS!!! It will take at least two major revisions before they get a version stable enough to be worth installing.


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Close Name:zpok Posts: 80 Joined: 06 May 2004
Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:43 am Subject: windows the new classic

Quote
Guest wrote:
If you think about it, parallels+bootcamp is almost what we used with classic+OS9. Most things would run in Classic, but sometimes you needed to boot into OS 9. With this WindowsXP is the new Classic.


If you don't want to think about it, read Gruber's daringfireball.net, who most of the time figures out those things long before anybody else.

http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/windows_the_new_classic

Oh, and seriously consider buying a t-shirt, this guy lives from his blog.


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