How Boot Camp Works on Your MacBook

Boot Camp is the free utility included with Lion that allows you to install and run Windows on your MacBook’s hard drive. This gives you the freedom (and convenience) to make both Windows and Mac apps available.
In years past, you may have heard that a Mac computer couldn’t run Windows out of the box (without expensive hardware or software) and that Mac software was banned on computers. Well, you were correct, at least for everyone except the recent history of the Macintosh computer.
Why incompatibility? It was because Apple uses a series of Motorola processors (or CPUs) that don’t “speak the same language” as the Intel CPUs used in computers. Think of a Korean speaking person trying to read a book in Arabic and you’ll get the general idea.
Then Apple started using Intel processors in Macs, and the ground rules changed. Now Apple devices are surprisingly compatible with Windows. All that was needed was a “bridge” to help keep the two operating systems separate on the same hard drive – and Apple developed Boot Camp. Of course, this bridge only works in one direction because you still can’t run Macintosh programs on PC. (Go and conclude.)
Boot Camp achieves this magic by creating a separate Windows partition on your laptop’s hard drive. The partition holds all of your Windows data, including the operating system, program files, and documents you create while Windows is running. Keep in mind that this partition is completely separate from your Mac OS X data, even though both partitions are on the same physical hard drive.
When you restart your MacBook using Boot Camp, it’s the same as changing the station on FM radio: the hardware is the same, but you’ve switched to a different DJ (Windows instead of Mac OS X) and you’re listening to different music (country instead of rock). How does that compare, Dr. Science?
Naturally, you will need free space on your Mac’s hard drive to install Boot Camp. Apple recommends 10 GB of free space to install Windows 7, but it’s more than 40 GB. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7 are compatible with most Macs capable of running Mac OS X Lion, and any Intel-based Mac can run Windows XP or Vista 32-bit.
When your MacBook runs Windows, it is as vulnerable to virus and spyware attacks as any Windows computer. Make sure you invest in high-quality anti-virus and anti-spyware protection for your Windows side!