Question

Running Windows XP/Vista & Visual Studio 2008 on a Macbook Pro laptop?

Asked by: vsCoder

I'm considering purchasing a Macbook Pro and purchasing add-on software (versus the built-in Bootcamp feature) to allow me to run Windows XP/Vista on the laptop. Has anyone successfully used Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 under a Windows VM on a Macbook Pro?

Basically, I want to run Windows XP/Vista on a Macbook and create Windows applications using Visual Studio 2008.

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Asked On
2009-02-19 at 12:04:12ID24159531
Tags

macbook

,

vmware

,

visual studio

Topics

Bootcamp

,

Mac OS X

,

Apple Laptop

Participating Experts
2
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: bswinnertonPosted on 2009-02-19 at 15:27:17ID: 23687331

I would recommend either going the VM route (and for that I would recommend Sun's open source Virtualbox http://www.virtualbox.org)

Or if you would like a more built in functionality I would go with Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/). Which would allow you to launch the program from the dock in a similar virtual fashion.

 

by: jhyieslaPosted on 2009-02-19 at 18:32:32ID: 23688376

I can't speak to VS 2008 directly, but I have run Parallels, VMware Fusion, and Bootcamp.

The advantage to bootcamp is that you run bare metal on the hardware so you get complete access to the hardware.  As I said, I don't use VS, but the only thing that I have had issue with under the VMs are games that require large amounts of graphical power.  The disadvantage to BC is of course that you don't have access to OS X at the same time.  I think that you can try out both Vmware and parallels in an evaluation mode before you plunk down your cash.  Yes Virtual Box is free, but I've had people tell me that... well you get what you pay for... but I haven't used it myself.

 

by: vsCoderPosted on 2009-02-27 at 18:20:30ID: 23761372

I read a blog from a developer who recently purchased a MacBook Pro and was running VMWare and VS2008 on the laptop alongside the MAC OS/X. Works fine in his experience.

 

by: vsCoderPosted on 2009-02-27 at 18:22:20ID: 31548960

Thank you!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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