BACKGROUNDLet us say you (or more likely your boss) needs to run an application that only works on Windows. You are smart, so you don’t want to run out and buy a PC. Instead you want to use the existing Macintosh. Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 ship with Boot Camp which is made for this situation.
When a software developer writes their code, it is written to a specific type of cpu (or cpu’s). Software written for the Macintosh may be written for any one of the multiple PPC chips used in older Macs, or any of the Intel chips used in new Macs, or some combination. This is why a “Mac OS X” application may not be fully compatible with all Macs, even though they are all running Mac OS X.
The same is true for software written for Windows. There are multiple incarnations of Intel processors, as well as AMD, VIA Technologies, Transmeta, and a few others used in Windows PC’s. Because of these variations in cpu, many Windows applications are not fully compatible with all cpus that may be found on a “Windows” PC.
In the same way, software is developed for a specific operating system or systems. A skilled and motivated developer will work at making their code work on as many OS versions and subversions as possible (for example, 10.4.x to 10.6.x).
The bottom line is that you cannot just run Windows applications on a Mac, and you can’t run Mac applications on a Windows machine. At least, not without a little help.
GETTING THAT LITTLE BIT OF HELPBOOT CAMP
Since current Macintosh computers use a cpu and other internal components that meet Microsoft’s specifications for running Windows, one of the simplest options is to run Windows on your Mac natively - functionally, turning your Macintosh into a PC running Windows.
The Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 installer DVD ships with
Boot Camp. Boot Camp performs the following functions:
- Partitions the internal boot drive into two volumes. One partition for Mac OS X, and the second for Windows.
- Formats the second partition in either FAT32 or NTFS (required for Windows).
- Prepares and prompts for the installation of Windows.
- Once Installation of Windows completes, installs Windows drivers for Macintosh-specific hardware.
With Boot Camp, now you really do have a Windows computer!
Boot Camp has the advantage of not requiring any additional software beyond Windows, runs at the full speed of your computer, uses all available RAM for Windows, and is as close to being 100% compatible with Windows software as possible.
The disadvantage is that you cannot run Windows and Mac OS X at the same time - it’s either/or. You will also need to reboot in order to switch from one to the other. A small obstacle is that NTFS (a more modern format than FAT32) is read-only by Mac OS X, and HFS+ (the native format for Mac volumes) is unreadable by Windows. But not to worry, we have a solution for both of these issues.
CROSSOVER MAC
CrossOver Mac from
CodeWeavers ($39 for standard version, $69 for professional) is a port of the open source
Wine project. Wine is translation software, capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other
POSIX compatible operating systems such as Mac OS X. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop.
Using CrossOver Mac you are able to run many (not even most) Windows applications as just another application while you are running Mac OS X! CodeWeavers lists
compatibility level for over 5,000 Windows applications.
If you have a fully compatible application to run, this is an ideal solution - run both Mac OS X and your Windows applications at the same time, no need to purchase Windows, full read and write capability for both the Mac and Windows applications to all data, and both Mac and Win apps run at close to full speed.
The only potential downside would be if your application was not fully compatible with CrossOver Mac. Fortunately, CodeWeavers had a
demonstration copy download so that you can fully test how well your applications will work with CrossOver Mac.
PARALLELS DESKTOP FOR MAC, VMWARE FUSION, AND SUN XVM VIRTUALBOXThe third option is to use a Virtual Machine emulator (or VM). VM technology has been around for many years, but is relatively new to Mac OS X. The two commercial offerings are
Parallels Desktop for Mac ($79.99), and
VMWare Fusion ($79.99), along with
Sun xVM VirtualBox (free, open source).
VM allows you to run both the host OS (Mac OS X) and the guest OS (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.) at the same time. Current versions also allow full read and write of the Macintosh drive from Windows, and applications are typically highly compatible. All three of these VM utilities create a disk image file to serve as the C drive. This makes it easy to create backups of the guest OS - it is just another file to your current backup strategy (you
do have a backup strategy, don’t you?). Parallels and Fusion also offer the option of using the Boot Camp partition, giving you the best of both worlds depending on your current needs. This can be a huge advantage to overall productivity, but not without its own costs.
The downsides include cost and performance. In addition to the cost of Windows, there is the cost of the utility itself. Also, each OS has to share the available RAM and cpu time. At a simplistic level, each OS gets 1/2 of the RAM and 1/2 of the horsepower. The end result is that applications on both sides run slower.
If you would like to read the only serious 3rd party head-to-head test and comparison of Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, take a look at as this article from
MacTECH.
READ AND WRITE TO YOUR BOOT CAMP NTFS DRIVEWhen using Boot Camp, Windows is installed on a separate partition of your internal boot drive. During the partitioning process, you have to choose between FAT32 and NTFS formats. Which to choose?
FAT32 is an older format, Mac OS X can natively read and write to it. However, that is where the advantage ends.
NTFS supports extreme file permission control, per user disk quotas, file compression, automatic disk error correction, automatic file system repairs, and native partition sizes beyond 128 GB.
For most users, NTFS is the correct choice. Unfortunately, Mac OS X can only natively read NTFS, but cannot write. As most users will need to have their Mac OS X able to exchange files with the Windows drive, we will need to both read and write to the NTFS partition.
The solution? Install software on your Mac that allows writing to NTFS! Among the options, I recommend either
NTFS for Mac OS X from
Paragon Software Group ($39.95), or the combination of
NTFS-3G (free) and
macfuse (free).
READ AND WRITE TO YOUR MAC DRIVEMac OS X drives are formatted in HFS+, the native format for the Mac. However, no version of Windows can read or write to this format. To do so will require installation of a helper application within Windows.
When booted to the Boot Camp Windows drive, what if you need to write to your Mac drive? There are two options available.
hfsexplorer from
catacombae (free), or
MacDrive from
Mediafour ($49.95). The only significant difference between the two is that hfsexplorer provides no warranty or support, MacDrive has a long successful history and does provide for technical support.
BACKUP YOUR WINDOWS DATAThose of you who know me, know I am obsessed with backups. I recommend at least 3 different types of backups, and backing up multiple times a day. But how do you backup your Windows data? Easy!
If you are using Boot Camp, use
Winclone from
twocanoes software (free). This utility runs under Mac OS X, and creates a perfect backup of your Boot Camp partition onto your Macintosh drive (or another drive). Then when your Macintosh drive is backed up, so is your Boot Camp! The only major buzz kill is that Winclone does not yet have scheduling built in, and must be run manually.
If you are using CrossOver Mac, no need to perform any backup other than the existing one(s) on the Macintosh, as all of your Windows documents are stored natively on your Macintosh drive.
If you are using any of the Virtual Machines without Boot Camp, they maintain a disk image of the Windows C drive on your Macintosh drive. This will be backed up as a standard file with the existing Macintosh backup. If you are using a VM with Boot Camp, just use
Winclone as if you were using Boot Camp alone.
Tags: boot camp, windows, crossover mac, parallels, fusion, winclone, macdrive, hfsexplorer, ntfs for mac os x, macfuse, sun xvm virtualbox
