The integration with OS X is amazingly well done, and the speed blows away Virtualbox. Note: we don’t often recommend paid software, but in the case of Parallels Desktop, it’s something we use at How-To Geek every single day for testing software and running Windows. The vast majority of the time you don’t actually need to use Boot Camp, and you’d be better off using a virtual machine. If all you need to do is run a few Windows applications on your Mac, and those applications aren’t games or something that requires a lot of resources, you might consider using a virtual machine like Parallels (there’s a free trial), VMware Fusion, or VirtualBox to run that software instead. In addition, to actually use Windows, you’ll need to reboot, and if you want to use OS X again, you’ll need to reboot yet again. The benefit of Boot Camp, of course, is that you’re running Windows directly on the hardware, so it’ll be a lot faster than a virtual machine. Since storage on a Mac is fairly expensive, it’s something you should really think about. When you use Boot Camp to install Windows on your Mac, you’ll need to re-partition your drive, which is going to take up quite a bit of your available drive space. Do You Actually Need to Use Boot Camp? Before we proceed with the details on how to install Windows in Boot Camp, you should first stop and think about whether or not that is the best choice for your needs, because there are also a couple of drawbacks to consider. Both operating systems will be installed, but you can only use one at a time. You’ll know what to expect if you’ve ever installed Linux alongside Windows. Macs come with Mac OS X, but you can easily install Windows on them with Apple’s built-in Boot Camp feature.īoot Camp installs Windows in a dual-boot configuration. Thanks to the switch from PowerPC to Intel many years ago, a Mac is just another PC.

How to use mac boot camp