XP on MacTel: game over?

We're still a little dubious about this one, but word is out that one narf2006 has successfully installed Windows XP on an Intel iMac, has gotten it to boot (despite the EFI issue, and apparently after extensive hacking), and is now asking for volunteers to test his process on other Intel-based Macs. And that last bit is really what has us thinking this may be more than just the latest Photoshop art project. Sure, narf may be hoping that a share of the $12,000 he stands to win in the XP on Mac contest could convince some other Mac owners to help him perpetuate a fraud. But this is starting to look like it just might be real, blurry pics and all.

[js @ Mar 14th 2006 8:51AM]

He should make a movie to prove it.

[Joe Smith @ Mar 14th 2006 8:51AM]

That's final: I'm getting a mac. And I'm gonna install XP on it! Long live Microsoft! Death to macs! And I'll be on both sides: I like the mac hardware and the microsoft software.

[Joe Smith @ Mar 14th 2006 8:53AM]

oops... i meant death to mac os.

[docjohnboy @ Mar 14th 2006 8:54AM]

Um, Joe, you might want to wait until this is verified.

[Ethan @ Mar 14th 2006 8:55AM]

How is it that a person who is capable of running an OS on a machine that's not designed to run it, is incapable of taking decent photo of it running ... or a video for that matter? I know that if I managed to do something that was potentially worth $12k, I'd for sure figure out a way to make it almost impossible to debunk.

[phoenixdude24 @ Mar 14th 2006 9:00AM]

Page appears to be down, but if its real than damn... there went 12k

[gabeosx @ Mar 14th 2006 9:03AM]

Here's the Flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/32436196@N00

Some of those pictures were posted 3 weeks ago...

[jgoforth @ Mar 14th 2006 9:03AM]

While it is certainly true that he should be able to get a decent quality shot as proof, I would venture to guess that given the race for $12k, you don't want to lose just because you get held up in Wal-Mart lines.

[ohayo @ Mar 14th 2006 9:03AM]

If this is indeed true then I will buy another MacTel and I plan to keep it this time LOL!

[slobbbbby @ Mar 14th 2006 9:05AM]

why does the right side of the screen not line up with the toolbar on the bottom right?

[Devildog325 @ Mar 14th 2006 9:09AM]

I just don't see why you couldn't take a clear picture. I don't think it is photoshop. I think he is running a G5 iMac with the build in isight and running virtual pc. I can use my mac and generate video and high resolution pictures to go along with it. Using virtual PC. When someone post instructions on how to install Windows XP on an Intel based mac and I can do it myself I will believe it. I think they need to do away with that stupid $12,000 prize so people will start working together on this.

[Eli Burke @ Mar 14th 2006 9:09AM]

#5 -- 3 words: cell phone camera. God's answer to "How do I stop people from taking high quality snapshots".

I notice that the fine sleuths at E)) have not reported their usual "EXIF header contains Photoshop tags" debunkery...

[Synthaxx R-or @ Mar 14th 2006 9:16AM]

This looks like someone is shining a projector onto a Mac because.
1. the right side has a bit missing
2. it's overly bright
3. top and bottom have light leakage

Guess we have to wait a little while longer folks.

[chris @ Mar 14th 2006 9:18AM]

if you notice the distortion in the photo... he probably can't take a clear picture because he has an ultra crappy camera.

Intel iMac......$1699
crappy camera...$20
making the world think you're about to win $12,000.... priceless

[Jay @ Mar 14th 2006 9:23AM]

Anyone else noticed that is now shows the account has been suspended?

[Neil @ Mar 14th 2006 9:25AM]

His website account has now been suspended apparently. Could this simply be due to bandwidth?

[john Doe @ Mar 14th 2006 9:27AM]

"could convince some other Mac owners to help him perpetuate a fraud."

This is the most illogical engadget post I've ever seen. To win the money a person has to e-mail the owner of the "pot" the instructions. No doubt he is going to test it and post it. At which point narf wins. That is unless you think the owner of the pot is in on it but he would have to post the instructions on HOW to install it and at that point the game is REALLY over.

[G. Snyder @ Mar 14th 2006 9:31AM]

You are still "a little dubious"? Ha ha - I have always thought that too. Oh, and I think the screenshots are dubious too ;o)

[Manatee @ Mar 14th 2006 9:35AM]

Rather than post such an awful photo, I'd have just drawn a picture of it with crayons. It would still give a general idea of what appeared on the screen.

[Emre Aydinceren @ Mar 14th 2006 9:36AM]

If Apple unlocks Windows installation, but they say it is not supported, will they sell more units? I bet. So what is the deal? What is their strategic thinking process that prohibits dual OS install on their machines?

[Adam M @ Mar 14th 2006 9:37AM]

#9 - If you look carefully at the side of the screen, it is not a problem with the image lining up with the toolbar, something is partially blocking the view of that side of the computer (it extends beyond the screen to also block the frame around the screen.)

[PodMonkeys @ Mar 14th 2006 9:41AM]

If it is a fake, I'd say its the Virtual PC kind, and not a projector or photoshop job.

[lowspeed @ Mar 14th 2006 9:41AM]

I really don't understand why someone would even want to put windows on an apple machine.

You pay a premium for the apple name when you can just buy a better box from another vendor.

I just don't get it!

[john Doe @ Mar 14th 2006 9:43AM]

Wow the morons are out in force today.

1. Projector...HA. A better suggestion would be that he hooked up the internal LCD to a PC. Fanbois can make anything up. Stupid fanbois.

2. The boxy thing covering the screen is another monitor.

3. It�s a crappy shot because its dark. MANY camera phones suck in the dark. He turns on the light or uses a flash the end result would be a pretty damn washed out screen.

The way he did it was to hack VGA compatibility into the installer and to use a CSM module cobbled together. There isn't anything overly magical here. What we've needed all along is someone who REALLY knows what they are doing. Narf seems to be that person; who just don't have the money for a decent camera.

Seriously people I've heard more coherent arguments from intelligent design proponents. For those who have been following this on winxponmac the last few weeks this does APPEAR legit. But stranger things have happened.

PS- Engadget's posting engine still sucks my white ***.

[eBoy @ Mar 14th 2006 9:46AM]

What's illogical is that anyone wants this. Running Windows on a Mac for pure reason of "see what I did" factor, I can understand. But the fact that there are people saying, "I been waiting for the day I can run Windows on Mac hardware" is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Most mac users prefer Apple for the OS, not the hardware. Indeed, many complain that the hardware is too expensive, and most of the less expensive computers can't really be upgraded, except for the memory. For about the same money you lay out for a Mactel, you could get a just-as-nice, if not better, PC from Alienware or another high-end PC company, and it will be more upgradeable, too.

[nate @ Mar 14th 2006 9:47AM]

#19

And that's on all of the pictures I've seen of this. That's the only thing that makes me suspicious. Of course, I have zero interest in running Windows on my Mac, so I'm not a doubter, but I think there is room for suspicion. If he's actually done what he says, having a few doubters will make the reward that much better.

[Kunal @ Mar 14th 2006 9:47AM]

Why do people keep on asking this retarded question!! Some people require XP for work. Some people want XP for games. Chooseing to have greater choice by putting XP on a Mac doesn't ruin the Mac, it only makes it more versatile.

[john Doe @ Mar 14th 2006 10:06AM]

eBoy,
Please shut the hell up. Right now I'm carrying 2 fracking laptops with me around town. My MBP and my ThinkPad X31. All told its a bit over 10 lbs in computer hardware I'm carrying.
For those of us who exist in the REAL world we need to do out job and that requires access to software and utils that do not exist on the Mac or if they do they aren't compatible with the rest of the world. Again take your Apple zealot crap somewhere else the rest of us have work to do.

[Rob @ Mar 14th 2006 10:07AM]

Wouldn't it be easy as pie to just take a screen shot on a Windows machine and view that screen shot on a Mac? Perhaps do a little Photoshop work if necessary to make it fit, etc.? Wouldn't that be a visually flawless way to appear to have Windows running on a Mac for a photograph? Seems like a much more obvious way to pull of a fraud of this sort than projecting an image onto a screen, or Photoshoping a Windows screen image onto a PHOTO of a Mac, and making it blurry so no one could tell.

[JC @ Mar 14th 2006 10:10AM]

As has been noted before, if macs run windows, the 3rd party developers may choose to develop for one platform only...windows.

[Raghu @ Mar 14th 2006 10:13AM]

What was more interesting when going over his flickr photos was a comment to look out for this project too... http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/misc/legacyboot/

[Ben @ Mar 14th 2006 10:14AM]

Look at the lower right hand corner, isnt that the Windows XP Embedded version? Also I thought that win Windows first boots the Recycle Bin icon is in the upper left corner?

[Dave Schroeder @ Mar 14th 2006 10:15AM]

Even if this one isn't real, Amit Singh from IBM and kernelthread.com (slashdotted 16 times for excellent technical articles on various bits of internals of Apple hardware and Mac OS X) has his own legacy boot solution as well. From a rejected submission elsewhere:

It appears that Amit Singh of IBM Almaden Research Center, of kernelthread.com and author of Mac OS X Internals, has devised a method to allow legacy, or BIOS-based, booting on Intel-based Macs, which they're calling "BAMBIOS". This means operating systems that currently only support legacy booting, such as many Linux distributions that don't yet support EFI, or things like Windows XP and the forthcoming Windows Vista (the 32-bit version of which will lack EFI support), will now be able to run on Intel-based Macs without modification (and completely legally).

So even if narf2006's solution isn't real, Amit's solution most certainly is, since he has a great deal of credibility. One way or another, we'll all be able to boot Windows directly on our Intel-based Macs.

Also, I just spoke with Colin Nederkoorn (the guy running the contest) moments ago, and narf2006's solution has NOT been submitted to him yet. He said that narf2006 said he's "cleaning it up" and will be submitting it "later this week". So, no one, including Colin, has actually seen this solution working yet. Also, he apparently hasn't been in communication with Amit on the BAMBIOS solution as yet...

[Coasterjob @ Mar 14th 2006 10:19AM]

John Doe,
Do yourself a favor and sell the MBP, and just carry around your ThinkPad....Then you don't have to use a mac, carry a mac, or even worry about compatability..Wow I just saved you lots of heavy carrying and stress!! :o

eBoy is right, if all you want to do is run Windoze, why bother with more expensive hardware from Apple? I'm sure your IBM is much more durable, less expensive, and lighter. SO just use ONE computer instead of two.
Don't carry two "fracking"(what the hell is fracking anyway?) laptops. Also, if you have sooo much work to do, what are you doing on this blog?

[Brooks Bennett @ Mar 14th 2006 10:25AM]

(25) Right on. I would love a portable machine to dual boot XP and OS X, mainly for testing purposes. Develop website in OS X and then test it on XP. Right now I have to make a Remote Desktop Connection to my PC while I am developing on the road to test on XP and that is slow as molasses.

[John Bellone @ Mar 14th 2006 10:28AM]

This may be a fake. When is the last time you saw the Windows XP Professional version tag at the bottom right?

[BSays @ Mar 14th 2006 10:30AM]

Just as a "food for thought" question.

What if this (the photos) is the iMac G5 with Virtual PC running windows xp in full screen.

Hay, hate to sound stupid, but you wouldn't want ot be the fool, if it were true.

[davidboome @ Mar 14th 2006 10:31AM]

account suspended

[Excuse me for my terrible grammar @ Mar 14th 2006 10:35AM]

My feel tell me that that person might use pictures in iPhoto or Preview in full screen to make look like Windows XP running on iMac.

I test myself and running on eMac in full screen and it look totally real but it's fake.

Here is example that took from Canon S400.

http://iballoon.crazytech.com/pix/fake_winxp_emac.jpg

[Peter @ Mar 14th 2006 10:36AM]

You really have to wonder why every dual boot post brings out Morons'R'Us, incapable of understanding the advantages of dual boot.

Some of us like to use multiple OS's. Get over it. My PC was once set up to tri-boot. Win98/Win2k/Linux. Linux was my secure, internet OS, Win2k was the best of Microsoft and Win98 was kept for some games that didn't like win2k. Note Win98 and Win2k together to ease a transition.

This would essentially be the same thing I would do with a Windows/Mac dual boot. Be able to move to the Mac without leaving anything behind. Win-Win.

If your tiny minds can't handle that, stick with your one OS and be happy.

[Joe @ Mar 14th 2006 10:46AM]

Coasterjob

"Fracking" / "Frack" - Made popular by the TV show Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi channel.

[Zadillo @ Mar 14th 2006 10:48AM]

This has already been answered, but I'll just add another voice to the whole question of "why would anyone want to install windows on a mac?". The answer is that I prefer OS X, but still would like to be able to run Windows for some things (primarily games). In this case, yes, I'm willing to pay a premium to own Apple hardware which allows me to run OS X (vs. building or buying a PC and running Windows on it), and the added bonus of being able to install and run Windows and Windows games on it is a nice bonus that allows me to have an OS X machine and not have to buy a separate PC for Windows. To answer the people who say "why not just buy a PC if you want to run Windows?" - again, the thing that I would miss with that is being able to run OS X, which is my preference.

[Daryl @ Mar 14th 2006 10:55AM]

Why do people keep asking the same old question. " why would you want windows on a mac bla bla bla " First hand exp for me is I need a pc for work "mcse work in it " Mac has no place here but I love the design feel and build quality of a mac, I would love to dabble in OSX on my own time and feel its a nice OS but i absolutly need windows for work and most of my stuff. That is why I would want to boot windows and probaly why alot of others would too.

[GhostyDog @ Mar 14th 2006 11:00AM]

Even if he did have a movie it wouldn't be hard for him to just run a quicktime movie in fullscreen mode that he made with training software on a M$ fueled machine. I can't see why you'd want to run XP on a Mac anyway, I want to see OS X on a wintel box. All that lovely UNIX power and stability. :)

[Adam @ Mar 14th 2006 11:04AM]

My guess is it's a Virtual PC copy. Run VPC, and simply put it in fullscreen mode. A la Windows on a Mac. In fact, I just did it on my Powermac G5 to prove the point. Looks EXACTLY like Windows running on a Mac.

It was a nice try, but I'd like to see him go to the System control panel and show us the actual GHz and RAM ratings for it.

[z @ Mar 14th 2006 11:04AM]

Now, you can even check this fantastic background on a Mac. You could even get a photo from the real place it ('Bliss' desktop picture) comes from: http://www.zzz.ch/photos/landscapes/switzerland/joux/colline_des_taupes/
We just wish Bill Gates would tell us if he took the picture during on of his trips to Switzerland...

[Tom @ Mar 14th 2006 11:05AM]

To all the people saying the right side of the screen doesn't look right - it's the same in all the photos he posted. I mean, if he did photoshop it, why make the same mistake 6 times? I'd say his camera just has a really sh*t lense.

[Markus @ Mar 14th 2006 11:05AM]

I have an Intel iMac and I want to run windows on it. Why?

1) For the "cool" factor of being able to run a non Apple OS on my Apple branded computer. I'm a geek, what do you expect :D

2) To allow me to run the odd windows application that I might need to use. This is not so important for me, but it is for others in my company. We're trying to migrate everyone over to Macs, as seemlessly as possible, and using the latest hardware, so that means Intel based Macs.
Email is no issue, we can convert that over, but we have various databases that are MS Access based, and there's no MS Access on the mac, so transitioning that is a little tricky. Yeah, we could export the data and put it into something else, and that will probably happen over time, however, from second one we need people to be able to access the database. We also have accounting packages that again are Mac only and cannot instantly, if ever, be converted over.

Right now the only solution we really have is the Q (based on QEMU) emulator. We've got win 98 installed, however, the networking is somewhat limited (it might be Q, might be the Mac OS) and this prevents Access from being to access the database if it's on a network drive, and this is a critical point, the DB must be network hosted, so for now, we don't have a solution we can use.

VPC for Intel isn't here and who knows when/if it will be.

So right now, being able to dual boot an Intel iMac into Mac OS X and Windows would be very useful indeed.

[Brendan @ Mar 14th 2006 11:11AM]

Guy's there is something over the right side of the screen. It looks like a light spring jacket or long sleve shirt, it looks blue with a grey stripe in the middle of the sleve. From Adidas maybe?

I don't really know if it's real the glare is wierd, it looks like be took them with a camera phone or something.

My Stupid Comment...

Wait I looked at the flikr bank of pics. No it's not a shirt / jacker its a blind. Like the slat blind floting over the screen.
And the Real VGA! titled picture is a little screwed it looks like it's comming out of the SCREEN ( in the lower right hand corner). Anywho after some examination it looks sorta real, sorta fake. I just really wanto belive it.

[WhyNot @ Mar 14th 2006 11:12AM]

I think Apple should just release a Rossetta equivalent to run Windows apps on OSX.