[Mugge]

After much putting off I've finally made up my mind about installing Windows on my iMac in order to play some games that probably aren't coming to OS X for the foreseeable future. So with gaming in mind I have decided on the following approach:

1. Acquire appropriate Windows drivers and put them on a CD/DVD
2. Switch FileVault off
3. Make a 100 GB Boot Camp partition
4. Install Windows 7 (home premium) on said partition
5. Set up Windows to operate in a games only fashion
6. Switch FileVault back on
7. Install and play games
8. Use SuperDuper! to clone a back-up of the windows partition to another exteral drive than my encrypted Time Machine back-up for OS X.

Regarding number 3: I suppose games run better when they don't have to deal with virtualisation, but my knowledge about this may be wrong.

Regarding number 5: I suppose I don't need any 3rd party security software if I just restrict user privileges and internet setting as much as possible and solely use Windows for gaming and the odd download of a software patch. For the sake of space saving and performance I would prefer the installation to be as basic as possible.

My iMac is a 2010 i5 version with a 1 TB HD and 8 GB RAM running ML. I know it's not particularly powerful gaming hardware, but I have checked with the spec requirements and it should do just fine.

Do you guys see any flaws in my approach?

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Mugge Regarding number 3: I suppose games run better when they don't have to deal with virtualisation, but my knowledge about this may be wrong.

No, that's true. Virtualization by necessity impacts performance, and games tend to harness as much as they can.

Originally Posted by Mugge Regarding number 5: I suppose I don't need any 3rd party security software if I just restrict user privileges and internet setting as much as possible and solely use Windows for gaming and the odd download of a software patch. For the sake of space saving and performance I would prefer the installation to be as basic as possible.

Install Microsoft Security Essentials, and use Microsoft Update. That should be all you need.

[dmegatool]

Virtualization softwares can generally boot off a Boot Camp partition. At least Parallels does. So if you want to access your partition without rebooting, it's possible. When you need full power, you reboot.

[Mugge]

Thanks for the info guys.

One issue I forgot to mention in my original post, was the issue of wether Win 7 or Win 8 is the better option for gaming. Seeing how I can choose either, what would you recommend?

[chucker]

There is virtually no gaming performance difference, and the other benefits for Windows 8 don't seem relevant to your interests, so I'd suggest 7.

[dmegatool]

Isn't there a 15$ upgrade price to Windows 8 going on ? If you ever change your mind. Think it's running 'till 2013/01/31

[Mugge]

Thanks again

I'l go with Win7. My employer is also upgrading to that from XP soonish, so I might as well get familiar with it.

[Mugge]

By he way, is 100 GB sufficient for my purposes? I'm getting the impression that resizing a Boot Camp partition is a pain in the ass. I have room for more, but I'd prefer to keep it on my OS X partition since FileVault has been known to demand an overhead in order to encrypt/decrypt.

[addison]

I would say 100GB is way more than enough but I'm not a gamer so I don't really know how big these games are. I have Windows 8 on a 25GB partition on my mini and it says I have 9.4GB free space. Did the whole thing from a usb drive and it was painless.

[dmegatool]

I think it's ok. Most games takes a lot space now... so with 3-4 games you'll be getting it half full already.

If you ever need more space, you can set some free in OSX and claim it back on Windows. I know there is tools to expand partitons with free space. I've already done it. Don't know about the other way around though.

[Mugge]

Thus it has been done and my iMacs innocence has been lost.

It went quite easy, the only exception being that my Magic Mouse doesn't come on in Windows by itself. I tried some trouble shooting. But eventually I learned that the best way to make it work was just to shake and click it repeatedly and violently for a while. I'd like to hear if anyone has a better suggestion for that issue?

Some other observations:

• Apparently the Windows 7 installer sees four distinct partitions on the internal HD excluding the EFI. Fortunately the intended target was labelled "BOOTCAMP", but for a second I did think Boot Camp had fuxxrd my drive. Apple does mention this in the print out instructions, but I had charged ahead without consulting them first. Windows must think HFS+ is weird or something.
• Aero is an eyesore. Fortunately that was a classic theme reminiscing good old Win 2k.
• The icons have a nice size on a 27" screen, but the text and chrome is a bit too small.
• I spent three times as much time downloading and installing security updated than actually installing the OS. Now I think remember why I ditched Windows six years ago.
• Other than the above Win7 is quite nice.