Which method to use Fusion 4

[RZOA]

I am both a new macbook pro (13 inch i5) and vm fusion 4 user. I replaced the stock hdd on macbook with a 128GB cruical ssd. I bought Fusion 4 but still didnt install it, but from my online surfing I have noticed that there seems to be 2 different ways of running Windows 7 on a mac.

1) directly run Fusion setup with a Win7 cd

2) first create a Win7 partition using bootcamp, and then direct Fusion to it

From my current understanding, both options run Windows inside OSX fine, but it seems that the second option additionally allows you to run Windows 7 independently when you need the full power and features of it. So then it better to go with the 2nd method, tho am sure I am wrong somewhere here.

I understand how the 2nd option works, but the first one, does Fusion partition the drive or how does it handle splitting the drive between the 2 OS's? or it doesn't?

In addition, I am a software developer and am not sure how to partition my 128GB between OSX and Win7. I want to only install XCode on OS X, while I want to install Visual Studio, photoshop and illustrator on Win7, and thats almost all that I will install. I am thinking about maybe giving Win7 85GB and OSX the rest (~40GB). Does this seem like a good split?

Thanks

[admin · Accepted solution]

Hi,

If you run with Fusion alone, the Windows VM is a set of files on your Mac OS X partition and you don't need to partition your hard drive. This is, in my opinion, a huge advantage over using Bootcamp.

I would suggest option #1, create a VM with a Windows install DVD.  If you don't like it, you can then try option #2.

[RZOA]

I was going along the Fusion setup process when I saw that the max size given to my Win7 is 60GB. I really think I need atleast 80-85GB to fit all my Windows stuff... should I go with the bootcamp option?

And another question, how do i delete my Windows file if I decide to go with bootcamp after trying Fusion alone?

Thanks again