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    Using the same folders for OS and Win7

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by custom90gt, Jul 3, 2012.

  1. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    So I bought my girlfriend a 2012 MBP 13" for her birthday and I'm a total OS noob. I put win7 on it via bootcamp, and moved all her old files from her old laptop into their respective places in OS X. My question is, how can I set the win7 documents/music/picture location to the OS X partition? When I tried it, it says that I do not have permissions. I tried using get info in OS X to set permissions to everything for everyone, but that didn't work. Any ideas for me?
     
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  2. saturnotaku

    saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    It won't work as Windows 7 can't write to an HFS (OS X format) drive without 3rd-party software. Even then, those programs are not reliable. The easiest thing to do would be to put everything onto an external drive formatted as exFAT, as this is a system that both Windows and Mac OS can read from and write to. Is there any particular reason why Boot Camp is needed? If it's for using something like MS Office, it would run just fine in a Windows virtual machine created with either Parallels or VMWare Fusion.
     
  3. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    I didn't want to run a VM because I'm not a fan of how slow they run. I figured bootcamp would be good for her to do anything she needs to do in windows. I guess I should have created a 3rd partition as just a data/store directory.
     
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  4. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    that works pretty well. I had divided my SSD in 3 parts before, OSX, win, and exFAT for the data, redirected everything from docs to pics to there and it worked wonders
     
  5. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    you need to have a copy on both partitions, and not try to share them between 2 OSes. YOu can add a 3rd partition in there formatted exFAT and keep data stored there that both drives can use, but it won't be "My Documents" etc...

    Also... if you set your home permissions to read/write for everyone instead of just your user like its supposed to be... I'd change that back if I were you, as that is VERY insecure and can lead to problems, and has nothing to do with the problem you were having anyways.
     
  6. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    you can direct the windows libraries to the folder in question, and name my docs, my music and so forth
     
  7. xfiregrunt

    xfiregrunt Notebook Evangelist

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    I have a 2011 i7 second gen MBP and Parallels works flawlessly. I don't really have any slow down issues. I am however, not running any games on it.
     
  8. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    yep, Parallels is super fast as long as you aren't comparing it in graphics intensive performance, but for running something simple like MS Office, you can't really tell its a VM. Years ago that was never the case and VMs were always a lot slower. CPU intensive things are much faster now as long as you have a CPU that supports virtualization so the virtual machine has direct access to the CPU. It would be nice if AMD, nvidia, and Intel would put in virtualization tech in GPUs for VMs to take advantage of.
     
  9. Thors.Hammer

    Thors.Hammer Notebook Enthusiast

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    Another approach to this is to copy all of your files to the Mac. Fusion allows you to share those files and folders with a VM, and have full write access.
     
  10. dmk2

    dmk2 Notebook Evangelist

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    Here's another vote for using a VM. I use Parallels and don't notice a speed difference vs. native except in games. And it's way more convenient.
     
  11. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    Does having half the ram/processors when running a VM slow things down quite a bit? I tried in with a customers imac, and was less than impressed with performance.
    I'm wondering how to repartition the drive after bootcamp has been installed. Is there a way to do this, or do I have to redo windows?
     
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  12. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    what partition do you want to resize? and unless you are using gparted more probably it wont happen
     
  13. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    I was going to make the windows partition smaller. Is there a good partition program for OS X?
     
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  14. Karamazovmm

    Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!

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    use windows to make it happen. But you cant make the OSX partition larger without gparted.

    I dont know any other option
     
  15. dmk2

    dmk2 Notebook Evangelist

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  16. custom90gt

    custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator

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    Ok great, I will see what I can do. Another question from a mac noob. How do I tell OSX to change its default documents/music/picture directory?
     
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  17. RMXO

    RMXO Notebook Deity

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    Use OSX disk utility to delete the BC partition & then use it to resize the OSX partition. Disk Uitily has the ability to recover all the space you used for BC back to OSX

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