Using Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc Windows 7 on MacBook Pro 15" (2010 model)

Question

Hi,

I realise that there are many existing questions regarding this issue, but I haven't found any that discuss specifically shortcut keys, usability etc.

Can people please give me good/bad feedback on using the above development tools on the 15" MBP (2010), with regards to the following:

• Shortcut keys in VS - how do they perform running in a VM, does os x interfere etc? (one example being F10 and F11 for stepping through code)
• Lack of dedicated delete and # key - does this create a frustrating dev environment?
• " and @ switched on keyboard - too frustrating when doing storedprocs etc?
• any other things I've missed relating to ussability of the above

I don't particularly want to use bootcamp, as I might as well just not have a Mac then.

This is all to decide whether to have a MBP as my main machine for personal + professional use.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi Dave

I used a 2008 MBP 17" with Visual Studio...

You kinda have to either plug in a pc keyboard or live with the macbook keypad really...

I was in the same position as yourself, I didn't want to install Bootcamp unless I really had to.

Turns out some software called PARALLELS allowed me to install windows vista in a VM environment whilst logged into OSX, it literally feels like Windows is running in its own window, although you can have full screen of course.

Performance turned out to be great, parallels will setup the networking too so you can still access the Internet from your VM environment.

http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/desktop/

Edit: I should make it clear that if you are serious about .NET development then it would be much much better to actually get a PC with Windows running natively - with things like parallels you cant obviously devote all resources to the virtual OS.

As .NET is a strong part of my career I no longer use the mac, I have PC with Windows 7 installed now. It really does depend on how you define 'professional' use of visual studio... it can be done on the mac however!

Answer 2

I have a late 2009 13" MBP with only 2GB of memory running VS2008/SQL Server 2008. I used Bootcamp as I don't see what the big deal is - the install was a snap and Apple has released 2 updates to address compatibility issues.

The speed is good, not great, and I've been putting off going to 4GB of memory, but most definitely workable.

The function keys work for debugging. The most annoying thing to get used to is the fn key at the bottom left, as I'm really used to having the control key there. There are keyboard equivalents to delete, pg up, pg dwn, etc...

Also annoying is the keyboard backlite. The only way I found to disable it is to kill the Bootcamp process, sleep and wake.

Not sure what you mean by @ and " switched on the keyboard, as I've been using shift+2 and the " two keys right of l.

I've built some fairly large web apps using VS and I'm happy with the MacBook as I use it to build iPhone apps as well, so I need a Mac. It's also nice to have 2 OSes. You can't get a Windows machine to run both Windows and OS X as easily as you can get a Mac to run OS X and Windows.

Also, not keyboard related, but design related. Apple, IMHO, put aesthetics over usability in making the edges of the body so sharp. When you lean your wrists on the keyboard, the edges dig in and after leaning on them after awhile, you have pretty deep dent marks. I've seen videos where people actually file down the edges (I think I saw that the MacBook was still powered on in one video. Ouch.)

Answer 3

I have a 2009 MacBook and I have Virtual Box setup on it with Windows 7, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008 with Management Studio. I use this not for my main development machine, but rather if I need to quickly look at something and already have the MacBook out and on.

For proper development I have a separate Windows 7 machine which is obviously much more powerful than running a virtual machine on top of OS X. Using the MacBook is OK, but you couldn't use it day in day out for serious development.

Over the years I've tried Parallels, VMWare Fusion and Virtual Box and overall performance and functionality doesn't vary hugely in the real world. The main difference here is that Virtual Box is free.

As to the keyboard differences, under System Preferences you can opt to have the function keys act as regular F keys which solves that issue, and then using something like DoubleCommand you can remap the other keys that are giving you trouble.

See this SuperUser question about it:

MacBook Pro Keyboard - How to Swap / Remap Keys?