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Now that you've turned your Mac into a PC, turn it into a Mac again
So you've done the formerly impossible and unnecessary: installed Winders on a Mac. Cool, best of both worlds. But there you are, staring at that awful primary color, jumbo crayon, sickly plasticky XP theme. Yeah, you could use one of the many mods featured on Download Squad (please, feel free). Or you could turn your XP rig back into a Mac. At least, you can make XP look a lot more like a Mac. Engadget did this nearly 2 years ago, although Aqua-Soft is still updating their content. Or why not go old school with an OS 9 flavor? Ah, that's better.
What to do if you followed the "Other" dual-boot instructions?
I'm fortunate to have two MacBook Pros here at Pourhadi Labs. Yesterday I jumped on the opportunity to load XP on one of them with Boot Camp. But when OnMac.net announced their Windows/Mac dual-boot solution a little while ago, our first instinct was to install right away and give it a whirl. Five hours, six Cokes and a severe case of Post-Progress Bar Stress Disorder (PPBSD) later, we had a working Windows OS slowly sucking the life from one of our MacBooks. That was all well and good at the time...but then Apple introduced Boot Camp and a BIOS-enabling firmware patch and we were stuck with a copy of XP without all the bells and whistles of a functioning Windows installation (like, uh, graphics support).Attempting to install the firmware update on a machine with the OnMac.net hacked-up bootloader doesn't work. Dunno why -- we'd get the loud beep noise, indicating the MBP recognized an update was ready to install. But instead of loading it, OS X loaded instead. So hmph.Turns out the only solution (that I found, at least), unfortunately, is totally formating your drive. Again. Then re-install OS X, load the firmware patch, and run Boot Camp. A good afternoon worth of tedious, PPBSD-inducing work.Of course, I probably missed something that would've made the whole process easier. And I guess if you don't feel like going through the hassle of doing the installation The Right Way, you could get a Macintosh Drivers Disk (produced by Boot Camp) from a friend with an (a) equivalent and (b) firmware-patched machine. If you do go that route, let us know how it worked.In fact, if you've installed the OnMac.net solution, let us know in the comments how you feel about the Boot Camp thing -- and what you're going to do.
TUAW Poll results: Will you dual-boot your Mac?
Many of our informal polls produce fairly even results. Not so with this one. Of the 5,228 of you who responded to the question, "Will you dual-boot your Mac," a full 50% (2,593) of you said, "absolutely." Twenty three percent of you stated that you have no need to do this and fourteen percent said they'd do it just to see it work. Finally, 681 of you (13%), thought the idea was pure blasphemy.Personally, I'd do it just to see it work, but I immediately thought of the financial department at my day job when this news broke. We use nothing but Macs where I work, except for the finance department. They use a proprietary piece of software that is (and will stay) Windows only. So, the person who does payroll must keep both a Mac and a PC on her desk so she can use the payroll software just once every two weeks. A dual-boot Mac seems custom-made for her situation. I'm sure similar scenarios could be found all over the country. Add to that the number of potential new customers who are considering Macs for the very first time, based on Boot Camp's introduction, and we could have a hardware war on our hands.
Vista on a MacBook Pro
Marc Orchant got the Vista install disk working with a MacBook Pro and Boot Camp. What was his secret? Well, he just inserted a Vista disk instead of a Windows XP disk. There are also reports that Boot Camp supports various distros of Linux.Update: Well, it looks like the Vista install process works, but Vista itself? Not so much. So, you can install Vista on an Intel Mac but you just can't run it.. much like a PC. I kid, I kid.
Hello, Mac Gaming Machine
After my initial tinkering with Windows XP on my 17" iMac Core Duo, I reinstalled XP on my Mac, using Boot Camp to eliminate the original partition and build a new one, this time 20GBs in size, so I'd have plenty of room for games. I then installed World of Warcraft, since I already had a copy installed on my OS X partition that I was very familiar with and which would serve as a nice comparison. The results: WoW on Windows XP on my iMac, running fullscreen on my external 24-inch Dell monitor with all the graphics settings ramped up clocks in at about 6fps faster than my OS X installation of WoW, running fullscreen on the same display with the graphic settings pulled back to their default settings. Nice!Let the PC gaming on sleek Mac hardware begin!ps--sorry the picture above taken with my cameraphone isn't better.
Parallels provides XP-on-Mac in virtual machine
While it probably won't get nearly as much hype as Apple's Boot Camp, the new beta of Parallels Workstation could actually prove to be more useful for Mac owners than the Apple boot manager. Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta for Mac OS X creates a virtual machine on an Intel-based Mac, allowing the owner to install any guest OS compiled for X86, including Windows XP, Linux or MS-DOS (hey, why not?). This could allow Mac users who need to run an occasional Windows app to do so without having to reboot first -- though they'll need enough RAM and processing power to run both OS X and the virtual machine simultaneously. While other apps, including Microsoft's Virtual PC, have offered similar functionality for Power PC Macs, they required processor emulation, seriously undermining performance. By contrast, Parallels Workstation (available as a free beta) is said to provide "near native" performance, which might be enough for users who need to run Visio, Project, or one of the many other Windows-only productivity apps -- though gamers will probably still want to use Boot Camp and keep just one OS running at a time.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Parallels Windows virtualization beta
Hot on the heels of Apple's Boot Camp announcement, Parallels has announced Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta for Mac OS X, a beta of their virtualization software for Intel Macs. Their software allows you to run Windows in OS X, much like Virtual PC, without the need to actually boot into Windows.Using their software you can run lots of version of Windows (3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, Me, 2000, NT, XP, 2003), any Linux distribution, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, or MS-DOS and for the moment the software is free (and in beta). When it is out of beta the software is expected to cost $49.99Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Video of a Boot Camp install
We have heard the pleas, dear readers. More Boot Camp news you scream! Fine, just a little more for you.UNEASYsilence has updated their video tutorial about installing Windows XP on Intel Macs to use Boot Camp.Check it out, if you want to see how easy it now is to install Windows XP on your Intel Mac (it looks really easy).
Windows on a Mac: This isn't the first time
Before we all get completely flabbergasted by Apple's efforts to allow users to run Windows on their Macs, let's respect our elders, shall we? This isn't the first time Apple has supplied Mac owners with an official solution for running Windows. The DOS Compatibility Card was released for the Powermac 6100 series way back in 1995. It actually shipped with an installable version of Windows (3.1) and MS-DOS 6.22. They featured a i80486 processor that cooked along at an astounding 33MHz.We are standing on the shoulders of DOS compatibility cards.Thanks to Jotefa for the great image.
On marketing, and a thanks to Apple's department
While chatting with my brother this afternoon about (what else) this whole Boot Camp thing and its ramifications, he brought up a great point concerning Apple's marketing and a good choice they made with this new software:They didn't call it "iBoot."Bonus points for not calling it "iBooty" either. Thanks guys.
Apple validates and dismisses Windows on Mac at the same time
Apple is seemingly telling us that it is OK to install Windows XP on our Macs with the release of Boot Camp. Does this mean that the years of Apple mocking Windows have come to an end and there will finally be peace on earth?Not a chance.You may not have noticed the following blurbs on the right hand column of the Boot Camp site:'Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries.'And under the heading 'Word to the Wise':'Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.'Oh, Apple, you clever minx. You openly mock Window while at the same time enable it to run on Macs. This is why I am such a big fan of Apple.Thanks to those who pointed this out.
TUAW Poll: Will you dual-boot your Mac?
Now that it's easier than ever, will you dual-boot your Mac? By the time Leopard is available, this will be a piece of cake (can you imagine hopping from OS to OS as easily as Fast User Switching? A guy can dream). I know that it all depends on things like compatibility, ease etc. But all things being equal: What's your decision? Cast your vote in our poll below and check back tomorrow for the results.
