Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Which Windows

I have been a Mac user for 25 years, but with a recent acquisition of an Intel Mac, I find myself wanting to install Windows, if for no other reason than to run MCConfig. So, which Windows should I get, Vista or XP? And which version of which one? I will probably not use it for much besides Meridian, and using a few web sites that still don't work on a Mac. I currently have a 561 so at least for a while will need the legacy MCConfig. Thanks in advance.

I'm a big fan of Vista. But for parallels I'd use XP.

I run Vista on an intel mac using bootcamp and it works seamlessly apart from a few keyboard odditys. If you're starting from scratch and plan to use bootcamp I can't see any reason to run XP, Vista is a significant advance IMO, despite media commentary to the contrary, particularly in terms of the security model.

In terms of which version of Vista to use, ultimate has quite a few nice extras and is more flexible if money is no object, otherwise the home version will probably suffice.

Oh, and perhaps most importantly the legacy config program works perfectly .

XP Home or Pro? Any sources besides eBay?

I have XP PRO installed on my 'Parallels' MacBook. I initially had problems with MConfig crashing moments after loading. After looking around there was a conflict with the power management settings in XP, once PM was disabled it worked perfectly!

Is there any advantage running Bootcamp instead of Parallels/Fusion?

I don't like Vista. However, from a protection vs. malware perspective, Vista is the way to go as it's much more locked down. Those annoying "do you want to do this?" messages keep you safe. I use XP at home and work, but I know what I'm doing.

Have Leopard 10.5 running on several Macs, all with Vista running under VMWare Fusion without any issues. Also tried Parallels, but Fusion just seemed more stable on Laptops, especially when using Sleep modes etc.

I have a copy of the new Parallels (4.0 I think) that has been reviewed well and may try that over the Christmas

The single biggest advantage to running Vista / XP under Fusion / Parallels (rather than Bootcamp) is Longer Battery Life. Under Bootcamp, the battery life on a Macbook Pro 17" is about 140 min. This extends up to 190 approx when Vista is run under Fusion. OSX returns about 220 min, but this wouldn't be a fair comparison, as I would only be using Firefox under that condition. Most of the heavier duty apps, I run under Vista for several boring reasons

Problem: Almost sure that Vista / XP will NOT have access to the USB ports when under Fusion / Parallels. So if you want to run MConfig, then the best thing would be to boot under Bootcamp for the MConfig and then revert to Fusion for everything else

Erm? USB works perfectly fine for me in XP from within Parallels and therefore MConfig...

Vista is so well locked down I don't bother running antivirus on any of them. 3 at home and 4 at work. So I actually gain in performance. Some XP machines have got virus on them WITH antivirus. But nothing yet on any vista machines. Many times I've also run stuff that I never knew was going to write to program files which shouldn't. I know what software is well written and what is not. Stuff that is dumb (i.e. writes to say program files that you trust) you can mark as always run as admin. It will get one annoying bleep each time you run but that's fine. It's way better than sucking down 10%-20% of machine doing background virus scans etc. Modern antivirus has got way out of control. It's more annoying than most viruses.

Not having to ever deal with viruses on a mac, this really makes me think Vista will better for me. Will Home Basic do what I want, or do I need to look at more expensive versions?

If you're only using it for mconfig and what not Vista is way over kill.