Hello all.

I'm going to be getting the 15.4" 2.33 GHz MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, with 2GB RAM and a 160GB 5400 rpm HD. I'll be running Logic Express 7.2, Reason 3.0, Line 6 GearBox, and NI Guitar Rig 2, and I'll be wanting to record at 24-bit level.

But I also want to be able to run Windows on the machine. I understand that, for gaming, Boot Camp is the only way to go - and running PC games would be nice. But Parallels is also attractive to me for various foreign-language dictionaries and other little programs that only work on Windows, and for which I wouldn't want to start the computer up again every time I want to use them.

My first question is: will installing either Boot Camp or Parallels affect the computer's performance negatively in any way when I am NOT running them (i.e. while I am recording in Logic and simultaneously working with Reason and/or GearBox)? Simply put, will their simple existance on my machine hamper its performance for my music apps?

Secondly, whichever I choose (Boot Camp or Parallels), which version of Windows XP should I put on it? Pro or Home? I have been running XP Home on a Sony Vaio for years and I'm very familiar with it, and I understand that Pro isn't really that different. I'm not going to be networking with other computers, and I'm not a business guy. But I understand that it supports dual processors, while Home only supports single ones. Does that include the Intel Core 2 Duo? Or is this treated as a single processor, despite having two cores on the one chip? Again, simply put, do I need to get XP Pro in order to maximize the power of my machine, or will XP Home work totally fine?

Any help on either question would be greatly appreciated.

BootCamp and Parallels do things very differently :

BootCamp let you boot from either OS X or XP (it's not restricted to this but let's keep things simple)

Parallels allows to run OS X alongside XP, Linux, whatever can run in virtual machines.

As BootCamp is just a choice of boot, 100% of the computer is available for the OS you've booted from. As Parallels let you boot multiple OS at the same time, parts of the ressources are used by them. So it's clear that any serious job is better to be done under BootCamp while small things can be done in Parallels. You'll have to figure out logically what to do with which.

When you don't run them, well… BootCamp is just a choice of boot system, nothing more or less (there's just drivers thrown in for windows to use but that's all and it won't run if you're not in windows. Parallels when used eats CPU because you run multiple OS in virtual machines, if you don't, you won't see it. So you will be using BootCamp all the time (no impact), parallels no impact as long as no virtual machine is on (if I'm not clear enough, tell me, the whole thing can be ambiguous but once you understand the big difference between the two it's clear enough)

Now, another thing to know is you need to install twice XP, once for BootCamp, and once Parallels. And you must then have 2 licences as a member learned from a Microsoft support staff (apparently not in the know macintel could run windows…).

There's not much difference between home and XP, I'd say it makes a real difference in the handling of some pro networking protocols… just like the Server version of OS X has tools aimed at network and server administration. So it's not that a big deal save if you really need those. Now I'm not a Windows afficionado (I wonder why so opinions are welcome. I had friends making music who liked the pro version better some while ago for stability reasons, SP2 seems to have cool things in this regards. I don't know about the processor support. I've heard only gossip on multiprocessing under windows so I'll let the people who know better talk about it.

Thanks very much for the detailed post. That's exactly what I needed to know.