[Quagmire]

Ok one of my friends is finally considering a Mac. Since I don't know a lot about the questions he is asking I am coming to you. His first question is about Boot Camp. Maybe it was due to me, but he thinks Boot Camp is a complex thing. I told him that Boot Camp just makes a separate partition on the HD that you set and install windows on it. Could someone go into detail exactly how Boot Camp works in order for him to understand. Now he has a network setup where his Vaio laptop can share a printer wirelessly with his desktop. While I know this can be done on a Mac as well, I am not so sure on the Mac-Windows sharing capability with this setup. Can someone also explain how he can get the Vaio laptop to talk to the Mac. Thanks. He is considering the Mac Pro and the iMac.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Quagmire ...he thinks Boot Camp is a complex thing. I told him that Boot Camp just makes a separate partition on the HD that you set and install windows on it.

It's literally that simple. Boot Camp splits the drive into two partitions and you install Windows on the new one. That's all there is to it! Then, you can select which operating system you want to use when you boot the machine by holding the option key or you can change the default setting in System Preferences -> Startup Disk.

[World Leader Pretend]

1)Show him a piece of paper, and tell him it is the hard drive.

2)Draw a line down the middle, with XP on one side and OSX on the other

3)???

4) Profit!

[Quagmire]

Now this is just my own little question to help reinsure him. Can Windows recognize the Airport Card since XP doesn't have the driver for it or does Boot Camp install it into windows?

[rasmits]

Yes, airport wireless drivers are included with Boot Camp.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

[Brad]

Yes, Boot Camp will include Windows drivers.

More details here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303572

Note the "Frequently asked questions: Drivers, Macintosh features within Windows XP, other" section.