Windows 7 and The White Side

[Dynasty]

So I finally threw my card at Amazon and bought a Macbook Pro. 2.66ghz core 2 duo, 4gb DDR3 1000hz RAM, 320gb HDD and the 9600m GT 512mb. Its the one I always wanted, and the £500 off was just too irresistable.

Anyway, I want to put Windows on as well for gaming. So I'm deciding to get Windows 7...*waits for flaming*...as I want DX10 and Im frankly bored of XP, Vista is too risky IMO, so I can also install it on my desktop PC as well which is a bit more powerful thanks to the 8800GT.

So, you can install it easily through Boot Camp on the Mac(s), with Leopard 10 (which comes pre-installed on the Mac), format the drive etc which is all done like a normal Windows install which I was quite impressed with. Seems like Apple knew that most people want to be able to have Windows aswell as their OS on their laptops.

Question is; because you set aside an amount for Windows when you partition your drive in Boot Camp (like 30gb or whatever), when youve installed Windows, does Windows only have the remaining space of that 30GB youve set aside after it's 10GB install?

So, you set aside 30GB, the install is 10GB (for arguments sake), does Windows then only have 20GB of space left on the drive or can you still use the remainder of the 300-odd GB left on the HDD?

Effectively you split the drive into C: and D:, so if the majority of space is on C: and you 'install' Windows on the D: drive youve formatted, can you still install things on the C: drive when in Windows or are you forced to stick with the D: that its 'installed' on?

 

[VirusType2]

Yes you can install programs to other partitions and hard drives.

Not to confuse you because it won't matter, but when using Windows, it will change the drive letters. Windows is always C. When you boot into OSX, the drive letters will be whatever OSX calls them, so it might show Windows as installed on D. Again, this isn't anything to be concerned about. I have 3 versions of Windows installed on 1 hard drive. When I boot into XP, it's on C drive. When I boot into Win 7, it's on C drive, and then it shows Win XP as D, or whatever.

 

[Dynasty]

No that makes sense.

Thanks for that. Just wanted to make sure I wouldnt be limited in HDD space by the Windows 7 partitions install before I ordered it.

 

[Escaep]

So I finally threw my card at Amazon and bought a Macbook Pro. 2.66ghz core 2 duo, 4gb DDR3 1000hz RAM, 320gb HDD and the 9600m GT 512mb. Its the one I always wanted, and the £500 off was just too irresistable.

Anyway, I want to put Windows on as well for gaming. So I'm deciding to get Windows 7...*waits for flaming*...as I want DX10 and Im frankly bored of XP, Vista is too risky IMO, so I can also install it on my desktop PC as well which is a bit more powerful thanks to the 8800GT.

So, you can install it easily through Boot Camp on the Mac(s), with Leopard 10 (which comes pre-installed on the Mac), format the drive etc which is all done like a normal Windows install which I was quite impressed with. Seems like Apple knew that most people want to be able to have Windows aswell as their OS on their laptops.

Question is; because you set aside an amount for Windows when you partition your drive in Boot Camp (like 30gb or whatever), when youve installed Windows, does Windows only have the remaining space of that 30GB youve set aside after it's 10GB install?

So, you set aside 30GB, the install is 10GB (for arguments sake), does Windows then only have 20GB of space left on the drive or can you still use the remainder of the 300-odd GB left on the HDD?

Effectively you split the drive into C: and D:, so if the majority of space is on C: and you 'install' Windows on the D: drive youve formatted, can you still install things on the C: drive when in Windows or are you forced to stick with the D: that its 'installed' on?

I have a 24" iMac with a 320 GB HD. I too use Boot Camp every day. For me, since I need the Windows space a lot I made a 225GB Partition out of the 275GB of free space I had on my OSX partition. As a result, this reduced the available size of my OSX drive to somewhere around 50GB.

Now, after I installed the OS, games, programs, and started rendering videos, I'm down to around 130GB of free space on the Win7 partition, and my OSX size remains unchanged. All you have to work with when in Windows is whatever size you made your Windows partition minus the size of the OS.

So to answer this question:

So, you set aside 30GB, the install is 10GB (for arguments sake), does Windows then only have 20GB of space left on the drive or can you still use the remainder of the 300-odd GB left on the HDD?

Yes, you only have 20GB of free space to use on the Windows partition and not the 300GB or so that the entire drive has. If you want to put more than 2 games and a program on there, definitely partition it to be more than 30GB. For me, I've always found I needed to increase it. My first partition was 55GB and I thought "wow, this is alot." Then I found I ran out of hard drive space in a week with having only a few programs and games. Then I went to 125 GB and still thought "Now this'll be enough." However, I started getting into video production and the footage and whatnot and it too went down. So now I'm at 225 GB and I know this will be the right one. Like I said before, I'm at about 130GB free space and about 70GB of that is the project I'm working on.

Hope this answer your question. TLDR: you have whats available on your Windows partition.

 

[No Limit]

Mac users running windows. You guys are funny, ever consider just buying a PC for a fraction of the price? ahh never mind. I know, macs look pretty.

 

[Dynasty]

Okay cool, thanks for that Escape.

I cant see me needing that much. I'll probably just do a 60:40% split or something. More to Windows, as I want the gaming freedom.

Ive got an external 500GB USB drive, where all my movies and music are stored, with a good 400gb left, so space isnt really a problem for OSX.

I take it you can just delete Windows from the Windows partition in Boot Camp and then increase the space and reinstall? Or can you just add more space once the installation is complete through OSX using the Boot Camp slider?

 

[Escaep]

Mac users running windows. You guys are funny, ever consider just buying a PC for a fraction of the price? ahh never mind. I know, macs look pretty.

I got my mac as a Christmas present two years ago and didn't have a say in getting it. Also, try posting something that's useful to this thread instead of baiting.

I take it you can just delete Windows from the Windows partition in Boot Camp and then increase the space and reinstall? Or can you just add more space once the installation is complete through OSX using the Boot Camp slider?

Unfortunately, the only way to increase the partition size is to delete the partition with Boot Camp then re-do the process with a larger size.

 

[No Limit]

I got my mac as a Christmas present two years ago and didn't have a say in getting it. Also, try posting something that's useful to this thread instead of baiting.

Unfortunately I had absolutely nothing useful to add

 

[The Brick]

Unfortunately, the only way to increase the partition size is to delete the partition with Boot Camp then re-do the process with a larger size.

Don't spread crap please. You can always use GParted to resize any partition.

 

[VirusType2]

I was too tired to go through this last night, but I also don't think 30GB is nearly enough room.

I found that 85 GB gives XP enough room, putting some larger stuff and games on another drive.I mean, like after everything you'd ever use and patch would be installed, forever.

Win 7 probably would want at least that much.

That said, I gave XP 85GB, Win 7 160GB this time, because 80GB was out of breathing room after all was said and done (3 year old installation)

Keep in mind there will be a lot of applications that you cannot change their install drive. Also patches and updates will need to go on Windows. You will also find it a hassle to install things to another drive, because the default.

I think if you don't give it at least 40 or 45, you're going to end up reinstalling it within 2 months.

 

[Dynasty]

I'm probably going to give 200GB to Win 7, 120GB to OSX.

My PC's HDD back home is 250GB and Ive only used about 100 of it so far. Thats running XP.

 

[OmegaX]

>Buy a Mac

>Install Windows 7