Are you using a MacBook Pro with Windows Vista to write computer programs? I've heard the trackpad is atrocious in Windows. Is this true? What has your overall experience been? How are the drivers for Vista64?
I'm interested in running Vista on the bare metal, but if you have experience with VMWare or Parallels I'd like to hear that too. How well does VS2008 and SQL Server run?
I don't use the trackpad - have a Mighty Mouse... but maybe I am old fashioned :)
I use a previous gen Macbook Pro everyday as my main windows dev machine, but I run and recommend x64 XP Pro rather than Vista for the main reason that its not such a resource hog!
Its a 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM (OSX 10.5.5) with x64 XP Pro running on VMWare Fusion 2.0.
1.5GB RAM is allocated to XP, and 2.5GB to OSX. I run vs.net 2008, sql 2005, office 07 and expression tools, and use twin monitors. OSX is used for everything but development; mail, RDP, VPN connection into the office, itunes/iphone syncing. XP is purely used for development. I also use OSX for making music, using Ableton Live as it tends to be a lot more stable than on XP.
The trackpad is fine, and the keyboard shortcuts work great too., although Ive normally got an external keyboard & mouse plugged in.
Version 2.0 of VMWare Fusion is much more stable than 1.3, as I was often experiencing crashes while debugging in visual studio, normally related to memory corruption.
IMO, Get a MBP with 4GB runing VMWare Fusion with x64 XP Pro, and you'll enjoy the one of the fastest, most reliable windows development environments ever!
I'm using a plain MacBook for intermittent Windows development. I run Visual Studio in XP under Parallels, which works well. I also have a Vista image, which works well for testing the Windows app under Vista, but Vista works OK, too.
At least when running Windows in Parallels, the trackpad and everything works well as usual. You can even get a right click easily with double-finger tap on the trackpad.
Because of the benefits of having virtual machines (see below), I wouldn't use Boot Camp to run Windows; Also I prefer to use OSX tools at the same time...
Some notes:
Memory: In my experience, it is important to have lots of RAM if you want to do real work on Windows (Parallels or VMWare) and OSX apps at the same time. Max out the memory, won't cost much.
Multiple virtual machines: I have about 10 Windows virtual machines on the MacBook. Easy access to any Windows version needed for testing, anywhere any time. Cool stuff. Buy a large 7200rpm hard disk and life is better ;-)
Quick installations: Installing Windows and Visual Studio etc goes much faster when you install from ISO or disk images on the laptop's hard disk, not from the original physical media. You can make a CD or DVD image with OSX's Disk Utility and you can mount it in Parallels. Many MSDN disks have ready-to-use .iso images for stuff.
Backups: OSX's Time Machine backups give really easy backups of the Windows images as well. If/when a Windows system gets screwed up, it a snap to restore the virtual machine files from the Time Machine backup.
I've got the most hot-rodded version (4GB RAM and upgraded processor) and Vista 32 running Visual Studio is slow! Painfully slow. I ended up putting Win2K3 on. I'll upgrade it to Win2K8 when we migrate our production stuff and see how that goes.
About the trackpad in general .. I haven't had any issues whatsoever, both in Mac and VMWare. The two finger scrolling is the best thing since sliced bread and it works fine in both OSes.
I do this (With a 2008 MacBook (not pro)). The touch drivers in Boot Camp are difficult, but in virtualization, everything works well. I am running Vista x86 on a BootCamp partition, so I can switch between native and virtual mode. I write software this way, and I am really happy. When I am running natively, I use a wireless mouse.
I use a MacBook Pro running Vista 32bit, booting directly into a bootcamp partition. Rarely boot into the Mac OSX. Doing dev work with vmware is possible but painful after a few hours. Certainly not for fulltime work.
The builtin keyboard for the Macbook Pro lacks pgup and pgdown keys. This makes working without an external keyboard/monitor painful.
Running native Vista and external keyboard and monitor, the MBP works wonderfully as a dev machine.