Is Boot Camp Necessary for Parallels?

I'm a little confused as to the need for Boot Camp for installing Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac. Many posts mention installing Boot Camp first, yet the install instructions, chapter 3, make no to mention of installing Boot Camp at all. It is mentioned way back on page 226, but how does one decide:

1. When should Boot Camp be used.
2. When to boot into the Boot Camp partition.
3. When to boot using Parallels as a Virtual Machine
4. Advantages and disadvantages?
5. How large the Boot Camp partition should be.

If Boot Camp is preferred, why isn't it mentioned in the chapter 3 install instructions?

I'm finding all this very confusing so far and reading all the sticky posts and reading the owners manual is making it more so. How does one sort through all these options and determine what is best for them? I'm after the simplest way of using Windows XP on my new Mac without having to reboot. Or, is it better to reboot? Yet another concern.

 

Boot Camp is not needed. If you don't know why you would want to use Boot Camp, then ignore it.

Use Boot Camp if you want to boot your Mac directly into Windows. This would be used for better compatibility with devices and better processing and graphics performance since it won't be sharing resources with Mac OS X. After you install Windows to a Boot Camp partition you can use the partition with Parallels and still use it to boot your Mac. One disadvantage is that you can't use snapshots with a Boot Camp partition.

 

Thanks, Joevt.

I appreciate your response.

 

But various Parallels documentation ask to install Bootcamp even though you do not want to boot directly in Windows : for example it is recommanded to obtain a correct mapping of Apple keyboards.

(Actually this solves some problems, but does not solve all keyboard mapping problems : see eg the thread "2 bugs with caplock")

 

Can you post links to the documentation you are referring to?
Doing a google search for:
boot camp keyboard site:download.parallels.com/desktop/v5/docs
finds nothing. The v6 docs haven't been scanned by google yet.

 

Frankly speaking, is a bootcamp installation of Windows really essential in the first place? Bootcamp was an option, an alternative, a way, to run Windows on a Mac before there were really any alternative solutions. VMware's Fusion is a relatively new kid on the block. Earlier versions of Parallels were more sluggish and not worth it's salt. Unless you are doing heavy-duty 3D gaming and you feel you must have all the resources of your Mac available to Windows, then, perhaps one might want to go through the bootcamp routine. But then, you don't even need Parallels then. I find nowadays, if you have sufficiently spec'd hardware, and if the new Parallels 6 does all the latest performance gains (41% faster, 64-bit operation, etc.) it claims it can do, a VM should be just fine for all practical purposes. It's more convenient, more portable being all self-contained in a single file, etc. I use the 27" iMac with Core i7 and 12GB of RAM. I assign 2 cores and 3GB of RAM to a VM of Win7. For all practical purposes I find that to be just fine and fast enough. Additionally, you eliminate the hassles and headaches which accompany a bootcamp installation:
- needing to start with a singled partitioned hard disk in your Mac
- Needing to create an NTFS partition
- Needing to reboot the computer everytime you want to use the bootcamp install.
- Having to do one more backup routine of some form from within Windows because you are no longer in OS-X.

Granted you can access a bootcamp installation from within Parallels Desktop, but then that begs the question: Why bother to install a bootcamp installation in the first place? Furthermore, you can not make snapshots of that bootcamp installation you are accessing from Parallels. So, you need to ask yourself, 'WHY' do you want to install a bootcamp version of Windows.

I use my VM of Win7 in full screen to do FX trading for example, and the VM is plenty good enough for me.

If someone really wants that bootcamp installation one might then consider why bother with a Mac to do a Windows job in the first place? One should just consider a good quality, well-spec'd Windows machine (i.e., HP Envy, etc.) and just do their Windows in the environment it was originally intended to be run in.

 

joevt : see for example http://kb.parallels.com/fr/5965
I don't want to use Bootcamp per se, but it seems that Parallels being unable to provide a correct keyboard mapping relies on the one from Bootcamp. My result was improved, but still incomplete as indicated in my post "2 bugs with caplocks". Other incorrect mappings are still not corrected also.

tokyojerry : Bootcamp is for people who have sometime one specific PC application to run and nothing else in the same time, or for gaming. Then the rest of time they use the Mac.
I run through Parallels also for trading, everything else form this specific application is done in Mac OS in the same time.

 

Yes, for me as well, I usually use Parallels primarily for online forex trading. Unfortunately OS-X handicaps you totally in this regard.... which equates to being handicapped for money creation. Most trading platforms are developed for the Windows platform. So, not really many other options.

I am not a heavy gamer. In fact, seldom play games anyway. Even if I did, Windows full screen under Parallels still performs pretty decent. I had a bootcamp version of Windows installed but didn't see any point. I deleted it, recovered disk space and just decided to go with the VMs under Parallels. Much more portable. You can keep multiple VM files. But true virtual machining is ultimately through hardware VM and not software VM solutions. But then you are talking bucks. A fast, well-spec'd machine with Parallels is the easier, cheaper, software solution, I think Parallels is doing a pretty decent job. They've got VMware scrambling now, offering any Parallels user to buy Fusion 3 for only $9.99. Such a deal!

 

I trade trough TradeStation, which I run through Parallels, and I do everything else meanwhile in Mac OS. TradeStation runs without problem on Parallels and even with less problems than when running on PC's …!
But incorrect mapping of the keyboards is a crippling issue when you are changing permanently very quicky from one OS to the other. And I want to have a uniform keyboard use. I don't want to change form Mac type of keyboard and key combinations to Windows types when I change. I want to be "coherently" with Mac keyboard and key combinations.

 

I reckon god is on your side. In version 6 of Parallels, it appears your prayer has been answered: QUOTE:
New! Mac Keyboard Shortcuts in Coherence Mode
Don’t worry about learning Windows keyboard shortcuts. Use Mac OSX keyboard shortcuts to make Windows applications work the way you do.
Mac OS shortcuts (Cmd+W, Cmd+Q, Cmd+~, Cmd+M, Cmd+H, Cmd +Alt+H) can be used to manage Windows applications when using Crystal mode
END QUOTE
http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/whatsnew/

 

Boot Camp can describe several things:
1) A Mac utility to partition your drive to run Windows
2) The ability to boot into Windows on your Mac
3) A partition that you run Windows from
4) A set of drivers specific to the Mac hardware
5) A control panel for selecting the startup device in Windows

http://kb.parallels.com/en/5965 is just number 4. It talks about using key layout drivers from Boot Camp to improve compatibility with Mac keyboards. Parallels should probably try to figure out how to make there own and include them with Parallels Tools.

 

joevt, yes they should, and it is surprising this is not done already. It seems one of the first "coherence" feature needed. And certainly not a very complicated one.

tokyojerry, but they speak only about some shortcuts : there are others they do not mention, and more seriously there are many keyboard mappings which are not correct and there is no mention of that. I am afraid that I will pay for getting 2 more keys at the right place and 20 still at the wrong place…

 

Maybe The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator would help? I haven't tried it myself but it seems exactly what you need to fix keyboard layout issues. It lets you make your own keyboard layouts.

 

joevt,

thank you for this link. I may use it, although it is a lot of work and complication to rebuilt several keyboards this way, for something which seems a basic ingredient…

In any case many thanks again.

Sincerely