Guide for using Bootcamp Partition in VMware 3

so after trying everything out there for mac to be able to type in my native language (Arabic) , finally i figured a fully working solution .
my problem was that i was not able to write arabic in office for mac and iwork for mac does not fully support Arabic , so my plan was to install windows on bootcamp (to be able to use it natively) and then setup a virtual machine using parallels to be able to use that partition while i am on mac OS X , but the plan simply failed , because parallels 5 have a problem with bootcamp drivers , so when you install bootcamp drivers on windows , you will not be able to setup parallels virtual machine unless you are extremely lucky or professional , so i decided to try VMware and i gotta admit it , VMware is alot easier than parallels when using your bootcamp drive , it took me like 5 min to set everything up , and 10-15 min more for VMware to setup its drivers on windows, so here is my guide or people who want to setup windows 7 using bootcamp and use it on VMware inside Mac OS X .

Benefits from going through all this :

-Running Games on Mac OS and on Windows.

-Running Windows Natively if you want.

-Running windows applications that you need on mac like (Office with more features , AutoCad , etc.).


what you need :
- Windows 7 DVD (Be sure to make ur serial ready as its needed in installation).
- VMware Fusion 3.something (you can buy it here VMware Online Store - Buy VMware Fusion ? Run Windows on a Mac ? VMware Mac.

Here is the problem that you will face if you wanted to use parallels .
Windows 7 Boot Camp on Parallels 5 - Parallels Forums

Difficulty : Normal , nothing too technical with this stuff , the hardest thing is partitioning the drive if you need to use 3 partitions mac/windows/media , if you will be using only 2 partitions then there you will experience no problems .

-So know you are going to startup you Mac OS X , in the spotlight type bootcamp and run it , N.B. Bootcamp will not work if you have more than one partition already there , don't ask me why .

-Choose the size of windows partition to what you would prefer , i chose 32Gb for windows 7 as i only needed to install Office and some small programs with it , you can go for whatever size that suits you ( leaving good amount for OS X).

-Bootcamp will ask you to enter the windows 7 dvd and hit continue .

-Computer will restart and windows 7 setup will begin .

-If it asked you if you want to choose normal install or custom install ,choose custom .

-Eventually you wil reach a windows which asks you which partition you would like windows 7 to be installed on , you will find NO working options ( because the drive you made using bootcamp is Fat32 and not NTFS , so look for a button like more options or something like that and locate format button and format the drive u set up using bootcamp to NTFS , then choose it .

-THE MOST IMPORTANT PART IN THE PROCESS , be sure to remove the windows 7 DVD during the first restart in the installation .

-If you accidentally booted into Mac OS , just restart and hold OPTION key , and choose windows while booting to continue the installation.

-Continue with the installation until you are on windows 7.

-After you are done with the installation , while still in windows , insert the Mac OS DVD that was provided with ur MB , the one labeled Mac OS X installation DVD .

- An autorun will appear to install bootcamp drivers , run it and install it , then restart your mac , and boot into windows .

- Install whatever applications you would like to install in windows.

- Restart into Mac OS X .

you can skip the next step if you don't want a separate partition for media
- for people who want to make a partition for their media , they can create it now using Disk utility in mac , just select the mac partitions and press the + sign and configure the size needed , you can choose Fat32 if you want the drive to be compatible on both windows and mac , or you can format it NTFS , and it will work on windows , but you will need to buy "Paragon NTFS" for mac to be able to write on that partition on Mac OS , another option is to format it Mac Journalled and buy "Mac Drive" for windows and install it to be able to write on the drive in windows .

- Final step is installing VMware Fusion on mac os and choose Bootcamp as ur virtual machine you want to use .

If you experience any problems through the process , pm me