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But, some notes:

- Even the existing http://onmac.net/ solution wasn't "illegal" or against any Apple or Microsoft license agreement - not saying the summary said that, but it kind of implied it might be

- The HUGE difference with Boot Camp is that it includes Windows XP driver profiles for Apple-specific hardware - including video drivers! Hello games and video intensive Windows software!

- Another big difference is that it includes a live repartitioning tool so the drive doesn't have to be reformatted to install Windows as the current solution requires

- And, it wraps everything up in a nice "setup assistant"-like interface

- It does burn a custom Windows XP installation disc (no, this does not violate any Microsoft or Windows license agreement, as making custom Windows installation discs has been routine in IT shops for years)

- Currently, it looks like it supports only Windows XP SP2, not any multi-disc XP-based installations (or other non-Windows OSes), but since Media Center is already working with the other solution by making a custom installation disc, I have no doubts that it could work with this as well

It's pretty incredible that Apple has decided to do this, to say the least.

However, the true benefit for many people won't come from dual-booting, but from running Windows (or any other x86 OS) in a virtualization environment alongside OS X with no dual booting or rebooting needed.

Virtualization company Parallels announced that it will be bringing its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs. Parallels is a hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". It's also only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes, and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. So either way, we'll have a nice dual boot solution AND a nice virtualization solution!

So Boot Camp will be standard with Leopard...great. What about the thing that a lot of us actually want, virtualization from Apple, rumored to be in Leopard? And not just virtualization to run x86 OSes, but to also run multiple instances of Intel-variants of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server (*as well* as any other x86 OS)? Now THAT would be the holy grail. Desktop virtualization for things like Windows and Linux/BSD environments, and server virtualization for multiple Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server instances on a single box.

Since Apple has shown it's been officially willing to acknowledge the alternate OS/Windows universe on Intel-based Macs, I actually have a lot more hope for native, integrated virtualization in Leopard as well!

Hey, I had the same issue as you (Linux User trying to boot a Windows machine in order to use MS Office applications). I actually found a relatively new virtualization program called Parallels Workstation. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money since I wasn't going to be running Windows too often, so I was hesitant to buy VMware's version, since it costs close to $200! Parallels only costs $49, and you can download a fully functional 45-day trial version from the website (http://www.parallels.com./ After using it for like two days, I just went ahead and bought it. Best 50 bucks I've ever spent: it's simple to use, quick, and does exactly what I need it to do. Highly recommended. Good luck!

...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:

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). There is also another solution from "narf2006", described here and shown in this flickr set of photos. narf2006's solution is awaiting verification by Colin for the $12,000 pot. Time to get that MacBook Pro you've been waiting on for the best of both worlds, everyone...

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.

This will be great news for people interested in Windows gaming on an Intel-based Mac (who really need the direct video access) and/or people who just want to do it NOW; however, a virtualization solution running under Mac OS X, such as VMware or Parallels, will be the real holy grail for most users. Most people don't want/need/care about the highest graphics and I/O performance; just the ability to run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X at a speed that is more than usable, and to also have some capability to seamlessly share things like clipboards and files between the environments (as a nice VM environment would most certainly do). Not to mention not having to reboot.

In any case, even dual booting will be a welcome capability. It remains to be seen how convoluted the process is...

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...

Also Parallels supports OS/2 for VM'ing.

http://www.parallels.com/

I've been playing with Solaris, FreeBSD, and Windows 2000 under VMWare Server (host OS is SuSE 9.3). Not bad. (One caveat: For Sol-10 be sure to allocate at 512MB to the VM before doing the install, else your kids will have graduated school by the time it's done. But then, if you've installed Solaris before, you probably already figured that one out.) Last time I tried VMWare Workstation, it seemed to be suffering from the "Linux = Red Hat" mindset and they wanted me to recompile my stock SuSE 9.2 kernel just to install the thing. That wasn't necessary this time round, which is a big plus.

Has anyone else tried Parallels? It seems to be lots quicker than VMWare, and the installation is much less of a pain. The Workstation version is only 49 bucks. (Of course, now that you can get VMWare Server for free...) The only other drawback is that (last time I checked at least) it doesn't seem to support Solaris as a guest OS.

If you're like me and it would be useful to able to to test software on multiple platforms (company I work for supports about a dozen, including all the common ones running on x86), then the VMWare Server seems like a viable option.

I would still consider forking out for Parallels, however, if they added Solaris to their list of supported guest OSes.

Wonder if/when we'll see VMWare support for Mac/x86...?

I found it amazing that it's got to 2.0 since being initially announced only a couple of weeks ago. There also isn't a "buy now" section (or even a price) on it's buy page: http://www.parallels.com/en/buyonline (found from the docs)

As for seeing what you're missing - I didn't see anything particularly unique about it. All I could think was... woo. I did notice that there wasn't mention of DirectX support, so it isn't exactly brimming with features.

Lastly - why buy from these guys since I can just buy an established product *that is known to work well* from VMware, or something that may be ok soon from Microsoft. Or wait for Xen and get it for free.