Dear Lifehacker,
I've seen you talk about running Windows on a Mac by dual booting, as well as dual booting Windows 8 alongside Windows 7. But you've also talked about how to run Windows 8 in a virtual machine. If I want to run a second operating system, which is better? Dual booting or virtualizing?

Sincerely,
Double Trouble

Dear Double,

It's not quite a matter of which is "best", but—as is often the case—which is better for your particular needs. Both have pros and cons, but are better suited to specific situations. Here's a quick primer on what each does well, and when you'd be better off using it.

Dual Booting Is Great for Games and Other Long Stints in an Operating System

Dual booting, which involves separating your drive into two sections called partitions, essentially lets you run two operating systems on one computer completely separate from one another. When you turn on your computer, you select which OS to boot into, and you boot into it as if it was the only operating system on the machine. Often you can see your files and data from the other OS, but that OS won't be running—you're running the current OS completely natively on whatever hardware you have.

As such, you're getting the most out of your hardware by dual booting, since neither OS will slow down the other in any way. This is great if you're playing games, since you need all the power you can get, as well as extended work in a given program or OS. If you're editing video, for example, and have to do so on Windows, you're better off dual booting. You'll get the best performance, and you won't miss much since you'll be pretty focused on your work.

The only big downside of dual booting is that you have to restart your computer completely each time you want to switch operating systems, and you can't run them both at once if you want programs from each running together. It also becomes a bit harder to share files between each OS, though you can fix that problem with a few simple drivers.

Virtualization Is Great for Running That One Program, or Testing Out a New OS

Virtualization involves running a program like Virtualbox or Parallels to create an installation of your second OS on a virtual drive. There's no partitioning or drive formatting involved; instead, that installation is stored in a file on your current hard drive, and you can boot up that OS in its own window atop your normal desktop. This way, you can use both operating systems at the same time without rebooting, and do things like share your clipboard contents between each OS.

Virtualization is perfect for those times you need to run one or two resource-light Windows programs in tandem with all your Mac programs, or want to test out a new OS (like the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, or a new distribution of Linux). You don't have to go through the complicated process of partitioning your drive, or deal with rebooting your computer. Lots of virtualization programs, including the ones mentioned above, have "seamless modes" that let you run your virtualized programs on top of your current desktop, without having to deal with a second desktop window taking up space.

The big downside of virtualization is that it's quite a bit slower than dual booting. Because you're sharing your computer's resources between two operating systems at once, neither can take full advantage of your computer's hardware—making this a bad choice for gaming or other resource-intensive tasks. In addition, if your computer isn't blessed with awesome hardware, you might find that even playing around with a second OS can feel pretty sluggish. If you have a nice desktop with lots of RAM, though (I'm talking like 8-12 GB), the experience will probably be more than adequate, if not great.

Many people will tell you that dual booting is better than virtualization, or vice versa, but a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Before I got a powerful enough computer, I rarely if ever virtualized—just because I couldn't stand the slowness. A lot of people hate rebooting more than anything though, so they're willing to put up with a little lag rather than wait a few minutes to boot everything up from scratch. In the end, it comes down to what you're doing, what kind of computer you have, and your own pet peeves with each.

Sincerely,
Lifehacker

P.S. If you have a particularly sweet dual-OS setup that you use—or additional pros and cons that we didn't mention for either method—share them with us in the comments below.

Windows is a great operating system, but PC laptops often leave a lot to be desired. If you're a Mac owner (or you're just in love with Mac hardware), you can install Windows natively on your computer in just a few steps. Here's how.

Why Install Windows?

It's no secret I'm a big Windows fan, but I've always been disappointed with PC hardware that I didn't build myself. When it comes to laptops, everything seems to have something wrong with it. The trackpad is a pain to use, the keyboard feels cheap, or the things are just too darn big (though the ultrabook movement is starting to solve the size problem). So, after selling my old MacBook Pro, I ended up buying a MacBook Air, running Windows on it 99% of the time, and I've never been happier.

Obviously, everyone's needs are different. Maybe you still need a few Windows programs, or maybe you just aren't a huge fan of OS X (but you love Mac hardware). Whatever your needs, installing Windows on a Mac is dead simple, even if you don't have a CD drive. All you need is a copy of Windows and the Boot Camp program that comes preinstalled on OS X.

Note: If you hate Apple and feel like ranting to me about the so-called "Apple Tax" (why are you even reading this?), please do it somewhere else. Believe it or not, some of us don't love OS X but find Apple's hardware phenomenal, and are willing to pay a bit extra for it, especially considering you'll be using this computer regularly for a few years. Plus, if you buy refurbished—which you always should from Apple—you can probably get a pretty good deal. So please don't rant about this in the comments. Please keep the discussion focused on Boot Camp.

Step One: Create Your Bootable Windows Thumb Drive (Optional)

If you have a Windows disc and a computer with a CD drive, you can skip this step. If you have a MacBook Air (or you bought Windows as a digital download), you'll need to put the installer on a thumb drive before you can continue. Luckily, Boot Camp has this feature built-in in OS X Lion. To do this:

1. Insert your flash drive into your computer and find your Windows ISO image. If you don't have a Windows ISO (i.e. if you have Windows on a physical CD), this would be a good time to create an ISO with Disk Utility—though you'll need a Mac with a CD drive to do so. Also note that you'll need a flash drive with at least 8GB of space—even if your ISO is only 3GB in size (probably because it doesn't take into account discs that are only upgrades).
2. Run the Boot Camp Assistant (from /Applications/Utilities) and click continue.
3. Check the "Create a Windows 7 Install Disk" and "Download the Latest Windows Support Software from Apple" boxes and click continue. This will create a Windows installation thumb drive, along with all the drivers you'll need for your Mac's hardware.
4. On the next screen, choose your Windows ISO image from your computer and click continue. It will download and copy the necessary files. This step can take awhile, and the progress bar can seem like it's stopped moving. Just leave it alone for awhile and let it do it's thing—it'll get there eventually.
5. When it's done, it will prompt you. Close the Boot Camp Assistant when you're done.

Step Two: Partition Your Hard Drive and Install Windows

Before installing Windows, you'll need to split your hard drive into two parts—one that houses OS X, and one that houses Windows. This is called partitioning, and won't delete any of your OS X data (though I'd back it up before continuing, just to be safe). The Boot Camp Assistant can make this process simple, so we'll use it to perform the required tasks. To do this, just:

1. Open up Boot Camp Assistant (from /Applications/Utilities), check the "Install Windows 7" box, and click Continue.
2. Next, choose how big you want your Windows partition to be. For Windows 7, Boot Camp requires at least 20GB, though if you plan on using Windows a lot, I'd make it much bigger (I chose to divide them equally). You won't be able to resize this later, so make sure you pick the right size now.
3. With your Windows 7 thumb drive still in the computer, click the Install button. Boot camp will partition your disk, then reboot your computer. It might reboot a few times, but soon, you'll be greeted with the Windows 7 installation screen.
4. Go through the installation as you normally would. When it asks you to choose a drive, choose the drive labeled BOOTCAMP, as this is the Windows partition we created in step two. Let Windows install, and when it's done (again, after rebooting a few times), you'll see the familiar Windows 7 desktop.

Step Three: Install Apple's Drivers

The last thing you need to do is install Apple's driver software to make sure your trackpad, keyboard, volume buttons, and more work as they should (since by default, they won't). To do this:

1. Open up Windows Explorer and head to your Windows thumb drive. Open up the WindowsSupport folder and double-click on Setup.exe.
2. The setup should take you through the process of installing all the drivers. It'll also ask you whether you want OS X or Windows to be your default operating system, so you can choose that here. If you ever want to boot into the other OS, just hold the Option key when you boot up your Mac—it'll give you the choice of booting into OS X or Windows.

That's all there is to it. You can now install all your favorite Windows programs, share your data between the two partitions, and even get your favorite Mac features in Windows. Enjoy!

Emailable Tech Support is a series of easy-to-share guides for the less tech savvy people in your life. Got a beginner tech support question you constantly answer? Let us know at tips@lifehacker.com. Remember, when you're just starting out computing, there's very little that's too basic to learn.

Android (rooted): SwitchMe dual boots your Android phone in just a few taps, so you can configure different Android installations for different situations.

We've already shown you how to dual boot your Android phone, but SwitchMe is a bit different. Unlike BootManager,it won't let you dual boot different ROMs, but it's also much less complex to use. With the touch of a button, SwitchMe will create a new, clean installation of your current ROM, free of the apps and settings tweaks you're currently using. You can then craft that installation to fit whatever purpose you want—like one with fewer apps that doesn't suck up battery life. The app's developer offers some other great suggestions for your other installations, or "profiles":

Privacy—the most obvious benefit is that you can securely share one device among multiple users, which gives you privacy and peace of mind.

Testing—if you are a developer, you can use profiles as clean sandboxes to test your applications and their interaction with the system.

Gaming—with multiple installations of Android on a single device, you can now play online MMOs as different characters.

Speed—the games your kids play slow down your tablet, but with SwitchMe you can easily create profiles in without games or messengers.

Battery life—when the battery is low but there are important emails or documents to edit later, switch to a profile which only contains these essentials.

If you aren't looking to try new ROMs, SwitchMe is a fantastic way to dual boot your phone without any fuss—it literally just takes a couple taps to create a new installation, and you can manage it all from SwitchMe's simple interface. Hit the link to check it out.

SwitchMe is a free download for Android. For $2, though, you can grab the pro key that lets you create as many profiles as you want, and password protect them for increased privacy.

SwitchMe | Android Market via XDA Developers

We write about a variety of platforms here at Lifehacker, and even if you're perfectly happy with what you're using, nothing makes you feel more appreciative (not to mention knowledgeable) than trying something new. Take some of your free time this weekend and give a new OS a shot.

Windows

Windows gets a bad rap these days, but it's actually a great operating system. If you haven't tried out Windows 7 yet (or if you haven't used it in a while), check out our master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, and get to know big features like the taskbar and the Windows 7 libraries. Of course, it has a lot of really underhyped features that rock, too, not to mention lots of clever hidden tricks.

Of course, if you've been using Windows 7 for the past few years, you still have some new things to try out in the awesome, upcoming Windows 8. You can download the developer preview now, and install it or run it in a virtual machine. It may not be ready to be your primary operating system, but it's cool to see how far it's come in terms of speed and features. Check out our Windows 8 in-depth guides, from the Metro interface (which isn't great without touch, not that it matters) to the desktop, to Windows Explorer and the brand new Task Manager. While you're at it, you can check out some of Windows 8's lesser known features, too.

Once you've got everything up and running, be sure to check out our Lifehacker Pack for Windows and the Windows App Directory for a ton of cool programs.

Mac OS X

If you haven't used Macs since the 80s, now's a good time to take another look. If your desktop or laptop is compatible, you can turn your computer into a hackintosh. They're tough, but with a bit of troubleshooting, you should have no problem getting it up and running. You can also run OS X off a flash drive, or run it in VirtualBox on Windows. The latest version of OS X has some pretty cool features both secret and obvious., especially once you've de-iOSified it (though you can get a lot of those features in Snow Leopard, if you aren't a Lion fan).

Once you've got everything up and running, be sure to check out our Lifehacker Pack for Mac and the Mac App Directory for a ton of cool apps.

Linux

Working with Linux is a hefty undertaking, but we've tried to make it easy with our Night School course on getting started with Linux. Of course, if you have used Linux before, you could always try a new distribution, like the super-customizable Arch Linux (my personal favorite) to the netbook-friendly Lubuntu or Archbang. Even if you've done your fair share of distro-hopping, you might try a new desktop environment instead, or even something a bit more out of the box like Chrome OS. Programs like Lili make it easy, by creating versatile, go-anywhere bootable thumb drives so you don't even need to install anything on your system.

Once you've got everything up and running, be sure to check out our Lifehacker Pack for Linux and the Mac App Directory for a ton of cool programs. Check out our guide to getting cool desktop effects in Linux, too, while you're at it.

Putting It All Together: Dual and Triple Booting

If you like what you see and want to give your new OS a more permanent spot on your hard drive—without losing your old one—you can dual boot your computer. We've done guides on how to dual or triple boot your computer with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, whether you're on a Mac or a hackintosh-compatible PC. You can also dual-boot Windows 7 and Windows 8 side by side, or run all your OSes at once using VirtualBox. Once you've got it all set up, make sure you're able to share your data across all your operating systems, too, for super-seamless switching.