Mac Bootcamp Hard drive partition?

Question

I just bought a new iMac and I want to put Windows XP on it. The problem is that I can't decide how big to make the hard drive partition. I have a 750 GB HD (which is actually only 698 GB before any installations). I will only be using Windows for small school related things such as Access. I will use Office for Mac and do all of my internet things in OS X. Basically I will only be using Windows for any school project that I have to do that I can't do on my Mac. I do, however, want to upgrade to Vista in the future so I would need to leave enough space for that.

How big should I make the Windows partition?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you really think you will use it very limited, then a 30-50GB partition will suffice. On that size drive, I would start with 100GB, in case you later decide you may expand your use. If you really do not need that much space for MacOS, I might go as much as 250GB. The point being that there is no simple way to resize your partitions later, without re-installing Boot Camp and Windows.
As an alternative, if you can install a second drive in your machine, that may be a better option. Boot Camp can use a second internal (not external) drive to setup.
Though I do have Vista in my Mac (used to have XP Pro), I have yet to find anything I cannot do on my Mac side. I use MS Office for MacOS, and it is completely compatible with the Windows Office, with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. A good alternative is OpenOffice, which is free.

Answer 2

Set up an 50 - 100GB partition for each version of Windows. By the time you learn OS X, and finish school, you won't want or need XP or Vista anyway.