Under the hood, there are some serious differences between dual-booting and virtualized solutions. When a Mac boots into Windows using Boot Camp, it essentially is a Windows PC. When virtualization is used, Windows does not have direct access to most of the Mac's hardware. Virtualization uses a feature of Intel processors to essentially partition the processor into virtual processors and then gives the primary operating system and each guest operating system access to these processors. It also relies on a mix of genuine and virtual hardware to complete the creation of a virtual machine onto which Windows and applications are installed and run.

For more background about Mac virtualization, read our story .

Ryan Faas is a freelance writer and technology consultant specializing in Mac and multiplatform network issues. In addition to writing for Computerworld, he is a frequent contributor to InformIT.com. Ryan is also the co-author of Essential Mac OS X Panther Server Administration (O'Reilly Media, 2005). You can find more information about Ryan, his consulting services and recently published work at www.ryanfaas.com, and you can e-mail him at ryan@ryanfaas.com.