I was going to try this so I could use a couple of windows programs but wanted to hear from you guys if it works good, only works ok or is a pain in the butt. I don't really need it but don't mind buying the Parallels program and a copy of windows if it works right.

I don't own a mac, but I've heard bootcamp is popular and lets you boot into either operating system.

You can use Parallels or if you want to try the concept, give VirtualBox a try. It's free.

You could also use VMware Fusion, which is my weapon of choice, since I'm a VMware guy. That said, I'm working on a project with Parallels, and another with KVM, and I've used VirtualBox. Go ahead and try VBox first and if it doesn't do whatever for you, try one of the paid ones.

If your computer is fast enough, they all work just fine. I would turn down the effects in Windows to make it work best, and I'd recommend using Win7.

Ok, thanks guys. I have a pretty good MacBook pro that is less than a year old. I think I will buy a copy of windows seven and then do the free trials and see what one I like best.

Good timing for this thread, we bought an iMac last week, good to know about these things.

What about going the other way around? What, if any, are the practical options available for running Apple programs on a Windows box? I've Googled a fair bit but haven't found any good solutions to do so.

I'd love to be able to play with the new iBook Author to see what kind of end product I can come up with, but I don't have a Mac machine. Is the only real option to purchase one, like a Mac mini?

I'm thinking reversing the scenario Ken proposed would work, running the Mac OS in a virtual machine on an intel based PC.

That's prohibited by Apple licensing, which all the virtualization vendors are honoring. So, in short, it's not possible.

The only way to do the reverse is make a Hackintosh. Technically, it's not legal.

The only warning I'd give you is to make sure you have at least 4GB of RAM. Anything less is unusable.

The next problem: is Windows really $200 or can I find it for less money.

You can get an OEM license for much less than that. Look at Newegg.com.

About 2-3 weeks ago, I installed Windows 7, Professional 64 bit OEM for $140 from Newegg.

If that happend for Microsoft there would be a ton of lawsuits.

I doubt it. If MS says you can't use their OS virtualized, that's what they say--and they're perfectly within their rights. Same deal with Apple.

I personally think Apple is being foolish, but I understand why they're doing it.

Their main business on the Mac side is hardware; the OS is just gravy (which is why it costs $40 now--that's the upgrade price, there is no full version SKU.)

And you can virtualize MacOS, it's just that you have to virtualize it on Apple hardware, which I guarantee pretty much no one is going to do, at least in a server environment. You can even run ESXi on an Xserve--it's cleared by both companies. Unfortunately, they don't make those any more.

Hell, for that matter, if Microsoft said you had to pay more for a version of Windows that you would run virtualized, they're perfectly within their rights to do that.

I see what you are saying, makes sense, wasn't really thinking that through.

Although it looks like VMware is allowing it anyway.