Windows on Mac, what's the best way? Options

[Undecided]

I'm playing with a friend's iMac and he has boot camp on it. It made me wonder, what is the best way to run Windows on a mac? If I wanted to use the windows side mainly for office apps and adobe framemaker but still needed the real windows experience (i.e. not office for mac) and be able to access files across partitions...is virtualization still the best way? Or could I use something like NTFS for Mac (or HFS for Windows?). Any other ways to get a native windows office experience with access to the whole system?

Thanks.

[ModusOperandi]

How much do you want to reboot. It comes entirely down to that.

[Undecided]

Not very often

[CP264]

Not very often

If you don't want to be restarting all the time then virtualisation is the best bet. Problem is, this just raises more choices. There's VMware Fusion, Parallels and Virtual Box. Virtual Box is free but both VMware and Parallels have more features. All three have recently released brand new versions, I'm yet to see any in depth reviews for them.

[nabe]

Not very often

If you don't want to be restarting all the time then virtualisation is the best bet. Problem is, this just raises more choices. There's VMware Fusion, Parallels and Virtual Box. Virtual Box is free but both VMware and Parallels have more features. All three have recently released brand new versions, I'm yet to see any in depth reviews for them.

Ars technica just released reviews for 2 of them.

[daGUY]

Any other ways to get a native windows office experience with access to the whole system?

I think FAT32 is the only filesystem that both Mac OS X and Windows can read and write to. OS X can read NTFS but can't write to it, and Windows (if installed via Boot Camp in Snow Leopard) can read HFS+ but can't write to it.

Booting directly into Windows lets you run it at native speed, but then you have to reboot to go back to OS X. If you virtualize, you can run Windows and Mac apps side by side, but then there's a performance hit - although if you really just want to run Office, you probably wouldn't even notice it.

[Undecided]

Thanks. I'll start exploring the options. So far, I kinda like the Mac, it just takes a little getting used to doing a few things slightly differently.

So, if a Windows partition on boot camp was formatted in NTFS, and I saved a file from it, can I move it over onto a folder on the Mac side and be able to both read and write to it on the Mac side? Or would I have to save the file from Windows onto a FAT32 formatted usb stick or something.

[CP264]

Thanks. I'll start exploring the options. So far, I kinda like the Mac, it just takes a little getting used to doing a few things slightly differently.

So, if a Windows partition on boot camp was formatted in NTFS, and I saved a file from it, can I move it over onto a folder on the Mac side and be able to both read and write to it on the Mac side? Or would I have to save the file from Windows onto a FAT32 formatted usb stick or something.

If you want to read and write a file on both OS's then yes, you will need to keep it on a FAT32 drive. But if you have something on the NTFS windows partition and you really need to use it in Mac OS X, you'll need to copy it to the Mac drive first before you can write to the file.

[Undecided]

It's a shame I was only able to spend a little time on my friend's iMac. So, if I have a WORD or Excel document, for example, on the Windows side (NTFS) and I happen to be on the mac side and want to open the doc and work on it before emailing it from Safari, is there a way to get at it across the partition? Or do I need to be on the windows side first to copy it to the mac drive ?

Sorry it's still kind of new and confusing.

[CP264]

It's a shame I was only able to spend a little time on my friend's iMac. So, if I have a WORD or Excel document, for example, on the Windows side (NTFS) and I happen to be on the mac side and want to open the doc and work on it before emailing it from Safari, is there a way to get at it across the partition? Or do I need to be on the windows side first to copy it to the mac drive ?

Sorry it's still kind of new and confusing.

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Windows, the file can't be copied to Mac.

The reverse of both is also true.

[ModusOperandi]

Not exactly, there is software you can install to allow Windows to write HFS or OS X to write NTFS, but I think they're not cheap. Does NTFS3G work on OS X?

[Undecided]

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

[daGUY]

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

NTFS and FAT32 aren't file formats, but filesystems (I assume that's what you meant). Once you copy the file over to the OS X partition then you can write to it, regardless of whatever filesystem the Windows partition is using. Same goes for the reverse.

The only reason why there's an issue is because OS X and Windows use different filesystems and neither can write to the other, although both can read. So, you just have to move the file over to the partition that you're currently using and then you can write to it. The only exception is FAT32 - both OS X and Windows can read and write in that case, but then you hit other limits that don't exist with NTFS and HFS+.

[CP264]

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

NTFS and FAT32 aren't file formats, but filesystems (I assume that's what you meant). Once you copy the file over to the OS X partition then you can write to it, regardless of whatever filesystem the Windows partition is using. Same goes for the reverse.

The only reason why there's an issue is because OS X and Windows use different filesystems and neither can write to the other, although both can read. So, you just have to move the file over to the partition that you're currently using and then you can write to it. The only exception is FAT32 - both OS X and Windows can read and write in that case, but then you hit other limits that don't exist with NTFS and HFS+.

Like files that can't be bigger than 2 GB for example.

[Randy Decker]

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

NTFS and FAT32 aren't file formats, but filesystems (I assume that's what you meant). Once you copy the file over to the OS X partition then you can write to it, regardless of whatever filesystem the Windows partition is using. Same goes for the reverse.

The only reason why there's an issue is because OS X and Windows use different filesystems and neither can write to the other, although both can read. So, you just have to move the file over to the partition that you're currently using and then you can write to it. The only exception is FAT32 - both OS X and Windows can read and write in that case, but then you hit other limits that don't exist with NTFS and HFS+.

You can buy a utility called Tuxera NTFS that allows Macs to read/write to NTFS volumes. Tuxera NTFS can not be used if Snow Leopard is started in 64 bit mode though.

[Undecided]

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

NTFS and FAT32 aren't file formats, but filesystems (I assume that's what you meant). Once you copy the file over to the OS X partition then you can write to it, regardless of whatever filesystem the Windows partition is using. Same goes for the reverse. The only reason why there's an issue is because OS X and Windows use different filesystems and neither can write to the other, although both can read. So, you just have to move the file over to the partition that you're currently using and then you can write to it. The only exception is FAT32 - both OS X and Windows can read and write in that case, but then you hit other limits that don't exist with NTFS and HFS+.

Thanks. This is one of those things I've always had difficulty understanding clearly. Since some of you guys are programmers or write code, I want to ask: Is the actual file or document itself not affected or somehow not connected to a filesystem? What about the application the file was made in, is it dependent on a filesystem? If I can copy or move a file to a different filesystem, could I do the same with an app? When I open a word doc on a floppy, for example, it seems from the way it looks and behaves, that the file is opening within the app.

I guess I don't quite get the architectual relationship between a filesystem, a file, an app and an O/S and which depends on which.

Ideally, I'd like to open Windows apps from the Mac side... but I guess that's what virtualization is for.

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

NTFS and FAT32 aren't file formats, but filesystems (I assume that's what you meant). Once you copy the file over to the OS X partition then you can write to it, regardless of whatever filesystem the Windows partition is using. Same goes for the reverse.

The only reason why there's an issue is because OS X and Windows use different filesystems and neither can write to the other, although both can read. So, you just have to move the file over to the partition that you're currently using and then you can write to it. The only exception is FAT32 - both OS X and Windows can read and write in that case, but then you hit other limits that don't exist with NTFS and HFS+.

Like files that can't be bigger than 2 GB for example.

I think for FAT32, the limit is 4GB.

[CP264]

If you have a document on Windows and you're currently in Mac, copy the document to the desktop.

Thanks.

Does it matter what file format (NTFS, FAT32) that document is in? Would I be able to write to it on the Mac side ?

NTFS and FAT32 aren't file formats, but filesystems (I assume that's what you meant). Once you copy the file over to the OS X partition then you can write to it, regardless of whatever filesystem the Windows partition is using. Same goes for the reverse.

The only reason why there's an issue is because OS X and Windows use different filesystems and neither can write to the other, although both can read. So, you just have to move the file over to the partition that you're currently using and then you can write to it. The only exception is FAT32 - both OS X and Windows can read and write in that case, but then you hit other limits that don't exist with NTFS and HFS+.

Like files that can't be bigger than 2 GB for example.

I think for FAT32, the limit is 4GB.

Yeah you're right, 4 GB limit.