MacBook Pro - The Good, the not-so-Bad, and the ugly

[Royce Brown]

If my laptop is alread split 80/20 for Mac/PC would I have to reformat my drive if I decided to use the Parallels?

[Chris Waldrip]

Nah. Parallels uses a file for storage. The file can be set to grow as needed, and can be compressed when space is cleared off of the virtual 'disk'.

[Royce Brown]

I would have to purchase a copy of Windows for thie Parallel install?

[Chris Waldrip]

Yeah, that's the unfortunate part. But you'd have to buy a copy if you were going to dual boot using BootCamp. You can also use PC operating systems other than Windows XP (Service Pack 2) which is all you can run if you dual boot using BootCamp. You could probably find a good price on Windows 2000 (which is almost as good as XP - not that that's saying a lot ). But it'll be cheaper and just about as good. A quick search of Froogle and I found an OEM copy of 2000 for $28. OEM copy of XP Pro is about $150. OEM copies are what a PC manufacturer buys to bundle with the PC they build and sell.