Boot Camp: Windows on the MacBook

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had installed Windows on the MacBook using Parallels, a virtualisation application within OSX. Yesterday I took the plunge and installed Boot Camp. Boot Camp allows you to run Windows natively as a Dual Boot alongside OSX.

Ok, I don't know how good idea this was for Apple. They have made it bloody easy and neat to partition your hard drive and get Windows installed. It was a snap. Once partitioned the Boot Camp Assistant restarted the laptop and the Windows install started. The Assistant even burned a CD of Mac Drivers for when Windows needs to install the strange hardware.

Once all installed I customised Windows to how I like it and I have to say, it runs about 5 times better than OSX running on the same hardware. Firefox starts up in about a quarter of the time, Outlook is practically instant (compared to quite a long wait for OSX Mail). Windows Media Player loads up my entire media library in no time, searching and playing across the network without fault, while iTunes chunks and falters. Photoshop runs BRILLIANTLY in Windows, but is plodding and slow on OSX. All the neat features of the Mac are here: decent hardware, "dual touch" mouse or whatever its called, eject button, function keys and all the crap parts of OSX are gone (Finder is a poor subsitute to Explorer, and the inconsistancy between interfaces on programs).

It runs beautifully. Better than any PC I have ever used Windows on before. I guess all those years of knowing how to write for Intel Hardware really paid off for Microsoft / the rest of the PC community. For those interested the specs of my Macbook are: 2ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 gig of 667mhz RAM, 64mb Intel Onboard Graphics, 120gig 5400rpm HDD.

Will I switch back to OSX? Occasionally, but really: why would I? It offers me nothing that Windows doesn't, I know how to look after my PCs (I don't get viruses / spyware) and there is a much larger software library and better programs for Windows (uTorrent to name but one piece of software brilliance).

Suddenly my laptop is useful.