I would like to be able to use both Boot Camp and Parallels on the same MacBook Pro. I would love to be able to use the Windows partition created by Boot Camp with Parallels. Is there any chance this could work?
Not now. And the Parallels folks have indicated this isn't a priority. Technically it is very difficult because none of the existing Boot Camp drivers are suitable for use in the Parallels virtual environment, so it would have to swap out drivers depending on whether you were loading bootcamp or Parallels.
Another thread raised the suggestion of using more than one hardware profile (in Windows) with one configured for Boot Camp and the other for Parallels. This sounds like a workable idea (all other issues not withstanding).
Right. This is entirely doable; a certain competitor of Parallels can do it (though they don't yet have an IntelMac product ). It's just a matter of priorities. I totally respect the fact that they have bigger fish to fry now, but I hope they do get to this little fish some day!
This would be awesome. Of course, admittedly, part of my desire for this right now stems from the fact that Parallels is in beta and thus not terribly stable and so it'd be nice to trade off mac interop with a stable windows environment without having to manage two copies of windows or two file/app locations. Once Parallels is stable I'm sure I'll just run everything under a VM and while there may be times it'd be nice to have it run in standalone mode I don't think it'll be a high priority is the VM works consistently.
Actually, RC1 is very stable for me - I have been using this productively for day to day work since B5. What I'd really like to be able to do is to ACCESS the BootCamp partition in a transparent fashion (i.e., Parallels recognizes it and offers it as a local drive D: - don't boot from it, I know that's tricky, but mount it as r/w partition. /D
Boot from Bootcamp XP partition? Count me in as someone else who would be VERY interested in seeing this feature in Parallels. So far, I've held off on using Parallels completely, because I'm not willing to go through the hassles of loading XP twice on the same computer. I'm not sure how many people are very aware of how XP activation works - but basically, when you own an OEM or retail copy of XP Home or Pro, they only allow a given CD key to be matched to a specific, uniquely generated string of code created from your hardware configuration. When you try to load your copy of XP onto a separate partition for use with Bootcamp, and then load it again for Parallels, you get the message saying it's already been activated and to call customer service for help. Even though you can do this and get someone at Microsoft to "reset" your CD key for you - all you've accomplished is swapping the newly allowed configuration for the original one. (In other words, MS isn't doing something over there that allows you to install on both configurations in the future. Rather, you'll run into the same problem with activation the next time you attempt to reinstall on that Bootcamp partition you started out with first.) I'm not sure how many times they're going to let someone keep calling back in to reset the thing before they cut you off (and potentially blacklist your CD key completely so it's totally useless for any installation!). And my alternative of buying 2 XP licenses for the same laptop is unacceptable.... So this is just a deal-breaker for me.
