Some questions about 'Boot Camp'...

[The_Prodigy1982]

I'm a happy macOS user since I made the switch from Windows in August 2015... never looked back ever since!
However, occasionally (it hardly ever happens) macOS doesn't offer me a good substitute for an app that I loved using in Windows.
So that's why I'm considering installing Windows on a separate partition, using Boot Camp.

- Now I have a few rookie questions about using Windows in Boot Camp;
1) How can I easily switch between both macOS and Windows??
Would there be somewhat of a 'choose your OS' selection screen during system boot??
2) What happens if for example I'm on Windows, and the installation gets corrupted??
(happened to me many times during previous years when I was still a Windows user, making the system unusable)
In such a case, is it easy to boot into macOS, and just reinstall Windows??

- Speaking about Boot Camp... I also heard about using 'Parallels' for installing Windows.
What's the difference compared to Boot Camp, and which of these 2 is the better, and why??

 

[Quis89]

1) Holding the option key while booting up will allow you to choose which partition you'd like to boot into. While you're within the Mac side you can go to System preferences and select "Start Up Disk" to reboot into your Windows partition as well.

2) You can wipe the partition via Recovery and reinstall if you choose. Not terribly difficult. Your Mac partition is untouched by what goes on in your Windows partition typically.

Not sure about Parallels. I've only used BootCamp.

Check out twocanoes.com. They've got some cool features in their boot manager application. Makes the switching between partitions easier at boot.

 

[Ericclark4]

Parallels typically has windows running on top of macOS as a Virtual Machine (VM), instead of picking one OS from the boot manager or dual booting. The drawback from what I understand is that parallels running windows typically eats up more system resources (see system monitor). If you use large resource intensive applications (Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, etc.) than you might have trouble running them with Parallels. I think Parallels can also boot into a boot camp partition instead of a straight up VM