Boot Camp vs. Parallels 11

You may not be aware of this but OS X comes with a Mail program. MS Office is available for OS X as are most Adobe products like Photoshop. OS X also comes with its own browser. My question is why would you need to use Windows to run programs that you can run on OS X without using Windows?

Although Boot Camp is slightly faster with Windows than is Parallels, but unless speed is essential Parallels is much easier to use provided you have adequate memory to run the two operating systems concurrently.

Just in case:

You can download a trial version of Office 365 for OS X at the Microsoft website. Similarly, there are trial versions Adobe products you can download from their website. Since these apps are quite similar on both platforms you can see if you can't use native versions instead of having to run Windows on your Mac. However, if you don't wish to change you would be better off with a Windows computer in my opinion.

My macbook pro has a 2.6 GHz i7 and 8gb ram and I would personally choose parallels. It is so much better to be able to switch between Windows and OSX instantly, and my macbook pro has lower specs than yours and I wouldn't say performance has been an issue, and I've been running intensive software like 3DS Max and playing games on it

I have a Macbook Pro Retina 13" early-2015 with 256GB flash storage and 8GB of RAM.

I use Parallels 11 to run both Windows 7 and Windows 10. Parallels has a feature call Coherence Mode which allows one to run Windows apps within OS X as if they were placed on the Dock. I actually prefer not using this feature and run Windows in it's own window. With Parallels, you don't have to reboot every time you want to run a Windows app. With 8GB of RAM, I haven't seen any performance issues running Windows and OS X apps at the same time. Since you have 16GB, I would think you should be fine without loss of performance. I give 4GB of RAM to my Parallels Windows virtual machines. You should be able to give it twice as much and not worry.

Bootcamp, for me, is not an option because I only have a Windows 7 DVD and my rMBP will only run Windows 8 or later in Bootcamp.

Only when it is running, quit and you use no RAM,

If I run parallels and lets say split the memory to 8gb by 8 gb. When I don't need to use the Windows can i just quit the Parallels just like applications and use the whole memory for the OS X system ?

The 8GB allocated to Parallels (Windows) will only be used when Parallels is running. Quit it and all 16 goes towards OS X.

Just an FYI, Parallels can also run Bootcamp. You can use both. You can set up Bootcamp, reboot into it, and open Parallels and access Bootcamp while inside your Mac too.

Parallela does not run Boot Camp or vice-versa. Boot Camp is merely a way to partition an OS X drive such that one partition can be used on which to install Windows. Parallels is a virtual emulation system. However, one can use a Windows installation in Parallels instead of creating a separate pseudo-drive on which to install Windows. Parallels does not access Boot Camp, rather it makes use of the Windows installation.

In reality what you call Boot Camp is in fact Boot Camp Assistant. it is an application that performs the partitioning on which to install and boot Windows.

Hi keg55,

I have pretty much the same computer as you do. I'm trying to achieve the same setup you have going on. The problem I'm running into is multifaceted (I think there is a lot of mis-information out there).

I would GREATLY appreciate your help in setting up my computer to be like yours.

My current set up includes:

Early 2015 Macbook Pro i7 3.1 GHZ 16GB ram 1TB HDD

I've heard you can't load Windows 7 through a USB 3.0 drive (needed to upload Windows .iso file). I can buy a product key and download the .iso file from Microsoft but don't know what steps to take to have it install in Parallels 11 and not set up a boot camp partition. Although, that may be a smarter thing to do in case Windows gets corrupted (virus or something).

Please let me know your thoughts and how you achieved this feat.

Thank you,

Hector

In my experience, Parallels has been up to the task of giving you what you need in a Windows machine on your Mac. I like the idea of Boot Camp and I have used Boot Camp in the past and my biggest concern is that the drivers provided for Windows do not utilize the Mac hardware well enough. By this I mean that power management and cooling are not optimized in Windows like they are in macOS. My fans run constantly while in Windows using Boot Camp after being on for approximately 15 minutes.

I hope this helps, even if it is late.