windows for an imac- is it complicated?

InsideInsurance

Bootcamp - you have two OSs installed and boot into one or the other

Parallels/VMWare - you install secondary OSs inside your first and can run both at the same time.

For what you are doing a virtual machine would be the better option as you're not going to have issues over shared resources. Only if you are doing something very processor/ graphics heavy is Bootcamp really necessary.

I use Parallels, its simple and easy but does come at a price. If you search around you'll find discount codes and its also fairly often part of bundles which is often less than just the price of Parallels.

Haven't used any of the free alternatives in years, as I have Parallels. Certainly previously the free versions were more complex to set up but once you were there it operated almost as slickly as Parallels

securityguy

I use VMware Fusion to run Solaris, Windows XP and Linux (frighteningly, at the same time, and doing real work) on one of my Mac servers, and it's very straightforward. I use Oracle Virtualbox on my Macbook to run Windows 7, Windows 8 and Linux of various stripes and it's not quite as tidy, but I suspect for the OP's purposes perfectly reasonable. The OP will need to get a Windows license from somewhere whatever they do.

buglawton

almillar wrote: »

That's a hardware issue, which can be easily solved with a Windows keyboard, which will work perfectly (unless it's PS/2!).

On a Mac laptop?

almillar

Yep - not the handiest solution, but if you really need the keys, you could plug a USB keyboard into it. Or a wireless one. Or, for example, there are some keyboard shortcuts, I think CMD and down or up arrow count as Pg Up or Pg Down. I'm sure there's more out there.