what is the best way to run windows 10 on MacBook Pro

Depends on what you want to do. If getting the best speed out of the computer is important then BootCamp is the way to go but at the cost of having to having to leave the Mac environment if you need to use a Windows app. (You might also find BC is the better solution if you need to connect to a Windows only peripheral.) If raw speed isn't an issue then virtualization lets you use Windows programs while popping in and out of the Mac environment. I prefer virtualization and use it on my notebooks while I do have a small BC partition on my desktop.

That depends on what exactly you wish to run on Windows.

Generally you can use BootCamp to create a partition on your Mac and load Windows onto it. This will essentially boot the Mac into Windows and it will work just as a regular Windows laptop would.

Boot Camp - Apple Support

If you don't need a full Windows partition on your Mac, you can use virtualization software such as Parallels or VirtualBox. Either one is pretty stable, and you can manage the resources you assign to Windows.

https://www.parallels.com

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox

Boot Camp is furnished by Apple. When you're using Boot Camp, you are configuring your Mac at a very low level so that Windows can be installed and exist in much the same manner as it would be on a PC. I think of Boot Camp as a sort of system switch to let you choose between an Apple operating system and a Microsoft operating system so that each can access the most basic attributes of the hardware. That's good in some ways, especially if you have another piece of hardware that requires low level PC hardware to accomplish firmware updates. But the main drawbacks arise from the same ability to access hardware at a very low level. The configuration forces you to consider how to preserve your Windows environment with almost every low level change you you make to your Mac, including upgrading the Mac system, and configuring or expanding your hard drive storage. The latest MacBook Pro models allow fewer configuration options than older models, but keeping a Windows environment viable in Boot Camp is a major consideration, even for experienced Boot Camp users. Also, with Boot Camp, you are entirely at Apple's mercy as to what Windows system drivers are provided to access the Apple Hardware. You may find yourself waiting for months or even years, or you may have to live forever without Windows equivalence for some of the Mac hardware features that are always available in an Apple environment

For those reasons, I'm convinced that the trade-offs justify choosing virtualization over Boot Camp in almost every case. The two major commercial software competitors for virtualization are probably VMware Fusion and Parallels. There are others, including the open source VirtualBox. I think that VMware Fusion and Parallels probably offer the best experience for setup and ease of use. They both offer good customer support and have a reasonably quick turnaround for all Windows drivers supplied by the virtual system. I've used both with success, but I think VMware Fusion probably edges out Parallels, because they've been in the virtualization business a lot longer than Parallels, but all of this is just my opinion, of course.

As said in the last post of dwb.

Virtualisation is taking much more resources than the Bootcamp solution. And is slower.

For heavy use of Windows I se the Bootcamp solution, for once in a while use the VM solution.

There are 3 well known Virtualizers: Parallels Desktop (very expensive), VMware (expensive), Virtualbox (free).

Lexiepex wrote:

As said in the last post of dwb.

Virtualisation is taking much more resources than the Bootcamp solution.

Actually its entirely the opposite.

Bootcamp takes over the entire machine, meaning it uses 100% of the machines resources to run Windows. Virtualization will only use the resources assigned to it. Which in every case will only be a fraction of the available RAM, storage and processor.

OSx is not running when Windows is running through Bootcamp.

Virtualization by its very nature uses less resources, since it only uses a fraction of the available RAM and processor which can even be configured as to how much it uses.

What DWB said, and I agree, since I said the same thing above, is, if you don't need the entire resources of the Mac to run a very resource intensive Windows application, then Virtualization is a much easier and better solution if you do not require full power of the Mac.

I would recommend either a dual boot Boot Camp installation or Parallels Desktop 12. Both are good options. With Parallels you can use both MacOS and Windows 7/10 at the same time inside MacOS. Boot camp will let you use the full performance of your machine and is recommended if you want to use intensive programs or play new games from Steam for example.

Lexiepex wrote:

Bootcamp uses a space of about 10GB.

Why is "Virtualisation is taking much more resources than the Bootcamp solution" different than what you said?

No, Bootcamp uses whatever size partition you tell it to use. You can make a 1TB partition if you wanted to. 10GB for a Windows installation is hardly enough though. Windows 10 itself requires at least 16GB and even then it will struggle.

Virtualization can also be set to use 10GB for the Windows Install if that's what you want, but again it won't be working well with such limited space in either scenario.

The benefit of Virtualization is it can be set to use a dynamic virtual hard drive, meaning it can grow as it is required. If its not required it will maintain a minimum size you configure for it.

Any way you see it, Virtualization is much less resource intensive than Bootcamp. Its also much less involved to setup.

Phil0124 wrote:

Any way you see it, Virtualization is much less resource intensive than Bootcamp. Its also much less involved to setup.

If you narrowly define "resource intensive" to mean hard drive space then maybe virtualization could be called less resource intensive but when you include the CPU and RAM the story changes. Virtualization requires more RAM than BootCamp in order to run well because the virtualization program is a very RAM hungry program running in the MacOS which is pretty RAM hungry itself. I can run Win10 on a 4GB Mac with an HHD in BootCamp and it runs quite well in that environment - don't try to run Win10 in virtualization on a 4GB Mac with an HHD. Using virtualization the CPU is running the MacOS which is running the virtualization software which is running Windows. In BootCamp the CPU is running Win10. Those extra layers in virtualization means the CPU has less horsepower to apply to Windows. And that is why BootCamp is much faster than virtualization.

dwb wrote:

Virtualization requires more RAM than BootCamp in order to run well b

How? Bootcamp uses the entirety of the available RAM and processor. Virtualization uses only part of it. Try to Run Windows 10 on Bootcamp on a Mac with only 2GB of RAM and you'll be in the same boat as if you tried to run it in Virtualization on a 4GB Mac, from which you need to devote 2GB to Windows.

The point is Bootcamp takes it all to run Windows. If you have 8GB of RAM then Windows will use all 8GB of RAM if you have 16GB it will use 16GB, no less.

Virtualization by nature needs to run on less than 100% (no more than 50% generally) of the resources of the Mac (minus storage) since the Mac side needs to be running as well.

Bootcamp by definition will use it all. There is no way it is less resource intensive that Virtualization since it uses all available resources to run the Windows installation. Osx is not running, and all Processor., RAM, and defined storage is being devoted to Windows.

You are restating my point and calling it less intensive.

To give Windows X amount of RAM to use for applications, in virtualization I need X + RAM for the MacOS + RAM for Parallels Desktop. For BootCamp I need X. That makes virtualization more resource hungry in my book. If my computer has lots of RAM that might not be important but if my computer has 8GB or less it is.

Virtual Box uses less than 1GB for its install if that is what you are referring to. But not sure what the size of the app has to do with anything.

Its the resources used to run Windows we are talking about. Not the resources the app itself uses.

Bootcamp uses a space of about 10GB.

Why is "Virtualisation is taking much more resources than the Bootcamp solution" different than what you said?

"No, Bootcamp uses whatever size partition you tell it to use."

Misunderstanding: you are talking space on the disk, I was talking about resources.