Windows 7 on Mac Pro

[TechPastor]

Ok, I'm considering changing my main workstation over to my Mac. But, being a lifelong PC user and network admin I'm still in need of my training wheels so I'm planning to use Parallels Desktop to have the option of Windows 7. Has anyone here done this before?
My Mac is a Dual Dualcore system w/ 10gig of memory w/ 250, 450 and 1TB hdd's. I'm planning to install Windows on the 450. Is there an issue sharing data between OS's? Until I am comfortable w/ all of the Mac tools I'm sure there will be quite a bit of swapping back and forth.
What issues will I need to look out for?

[petereit]

You're going to LOVE it! You'll most likely find that Windows 7 runs better in Parallels on the Mac than it does natively on your current PC. The only time I have ever had a problem sharing data between OS's is when I have absent-mindedly dragged data onto a Mac-formatted external drive, then tried to plug it into a friend's PC. PC's don't know how to read Mac-formatted drives. DOH!

The only issues you have will be minor -- learning the different options you have in Parallels and optimizing the environment to best suit your personal preferences. And, of course, retraining your fingers for a few minor keyboard differences.

I've been running Windows in Parallels for 3 years, but I find myself using Mac apps more and more. I'm at the point now where the next time I upgrade computers I probably won't even install Parallels and abandon Windows altogether. I think I've booted my Windows VM maybe twice this year, and that was only to test websites in IE.

[zactommo]

To pieces of software I use to help the Mac & Windows drives on my mac computers play nice. By default, mac can read your windows NTFS drive, but it can't write to it, and windows won't read your mac HFS+ drive at all. So I use Paragon NTFS for mac, so OSX can read the Windows Drive And Meadiafour MacDrive, which allows me to read my HFS+ drives in windows. It means that whatever OS i'm booted in, I can have access to all my files, no matter what format the drive is in. As for the problem with using external drives on other peoples computers, this is what I do. I have one 1tb external drive for my projects that I know will be mac only, so its mainly full of FCP files and the like which is formatted as HFS+, which is the best option for FCP. Then I have another 1TB external drive which is general media storage. Finished projects, stock footage, production music, and so on and so forth. That is in NTFS, because that drive tends to be used with others computer, so it can be read on a mac, and read and written on a PC.

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

I am running Windows 7 Pro via Parallels on my Mac Pro. I have three monitors, so I put it on one of them and have the best of both worlds!

[TechPastor]

Ok, got parallels up and running along w/ windows and it's working great but I'm having a few problems. I'm not sure if they're being caused by my newbness or not.

1) On the Mac side I cannot install any applications to my 2nd & 3rd hdd. I can save data there but cannot install any apps there to save room on my primary drive.

2) Again, on the Mac side, I keep getting an installer error that it cannot create a file or folder when I do try to install an application.

[petereit]

I've never tried, but I think the general out-of-the-box best practice on the Mac side is to always install your apps on your boot drive. Being UNIX-based, that's obviously not chiseled in stone, but I'd bet 99% of Mac users default to installing their apps on their boot drive.

And to me it just logically makes the most sense. It makes it quite easy to keep your backups organized. Backup the main boot drive and you take care of all your OS, user accounts, applications and configurations. Save all your data on your 2nd, 3rd, 4th drives and keep their backups seperate.

[[Director] Joseph B]

Windows and MAC disk formatting are compatible. Had that problem myself. If you use anything other then a FAT 16 format I think you're going to have problems.
I use one drive to hold common data.

[petereit]

Mac OS X doesn't have any problem reading and writing to/from Windows-formatted drives. You just need to be careful of filename and file-size limitations imposed by some of the Windows formats.

Windows by itself can't read Mac-formatted drives, but when run inside Parallels on a Mac it can.

[[Director] Joseph B]

Somebody needs to tell mac that then. I can't read NTFS formatted drives and the people at the MAC store tell me that is normal. Has to be fat 16 windows format or I can't read them.

[petereit]

Really? Hmmm. I suppose it's possible that every PC-formatted drive I have ever plugged into my Mac has been formatted as FAT16.