Thinking of getting a macbook pro, and was wondering if you can boot the thing running XP, while leaving the mac OS off. Why? To maximize RAM for other programs (I run several). I realize that I could just buy more RAM, but its spendy as hell, and I don't need the mac OS at the same time I'm trading. I will only use mac software during my "off" time. Thanks, Jay
Alternative to BootCamp is http://www.parallels.com/ Price is modest (not free) but offers some significant security advantages. Parallels runs a VM (as many VM's that you can put in memory) so both OSX and Windows will be available to you. The VM can secure sanbox your windows application. Leslie
Parallels uses too much CPU. I need to run the thing completely without Mac OS during trading. Security isn't an issue.
Just a note. If you turn off the windows PRETTY windows and use classic mode, you will only use 160MB - 250MB when running XP in parallels. Please forgive me, I dont recall what they call it. I just know it is under the appearances panel. Finally. Boot Camp doesnt "Gum up" anything. When you run the installer, you will create a HD partition just for your windows environment. I started with boot camp and realized the $150 I spent on memory to bump my unit to 2GB was worth and I dont notice any slowdowns when running trading sofwtare under parallels coherence mode. Trading software is totally not processor intensive (unless it was badly written.) Also if you turn the VT-x mode to normal, I barely hit 50% of the one processor Parallels uses. Tweaking is necessary to run both OS's I am pretty tweaked and my system is FAST.