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Windows on Intel Macs - Yes or No?
With the announcement of the Intel chip based MacBook, the door is now open for running the Windows OS on Macintosh hardware, right? jaypatrick writes "BetaNews reports that along with the announcement of the first Intel based Macs yesterday, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems." I guess not. But, wait... Big Z writes "Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview Tuesday that the company won't sell or support Windows itself, but also hasn't done anything to preclude people from loading Windows onto the machines themselves." I think someone actually trying it out is the only way this is going to get straightened out.
When something like Linux is ported to anything, it's because there is a cult following in the community and this is what they specialize in. Window's has a cult following, it's just not specialized in this sort of development.
The benefits of a port might be because of cheaper or easier to find hardware capable of running something that it wasn't meant to but is very useful to users. I don't think this is the case in putting Windows on an Intel Mac because Intel Macs are cheaper than what I can piece together in PC x86 form. Don't get me wrong, Macs are nice machines but they're not exactly easy to upgrade or fix on your own.
I'm sure someone will port the extended firmware interface to run Windows through a virtual layer (if it needs it) but this can only introduce Windows running as fast or slower than the speed it could run at without EFI.
For this reason, I doubt people are going to find much use using the port since it's a) cheaper to piece their own machine together and leave the specs up to themselves and b) Windows will probably run slower.
Yeah, there might be someone out there bragging about running Windows on an Intel Mac but he's probably the rare Window's equivalent to the guy with a penguin displayed on his microwave's LCD.
My work here is dung.
I think it's in Apples best interest to allow Windows on their hardware for two reasons. 1st, people who are apprehensive about switching to Mac could do so slowly with a dual boot setup. 2nd, Apple could sell more hardware this way as it would appeal to Windows users.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Not worried about Linux much, I'm sure that one is already ported.
But unless I can tri-boot the big-3 (or more to the point, VM them), we're all gonna have to keep the Windows XP boxen around for Development (read: games). This is not acceptable, PC's are just too loud and power hungry.
Apple knows this, so does everyone else. By the time they ship, the "problem" will be solved.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Dual booting is nice for a play thing, and in some very specific instances, but not as a general practice. There's a lot of hardware you could get that's nearly as nice, for cheaper.
Honestly, what's the draw to this? Back in the mid 90's I understood it completely with windows/linux. Linux didn't provide what most people needed to be productive back then, and costs were prohibitive to have dual machines for most of the people that were interested in linux at the time.
Now we have a high end (and high priced) peice of hardware, that runs an operating system that provides everything you need to be productive, and it's polished as heck. So why would you want to dual boot to anything? You can get the performance out of many other peices of hardware for cheaper if you want to run windows.
What is the purpose of dual booting? In my college days, sure I had 5 OSs booting off the same drive, but that had nothing to do with needing to get work done.
OS X is superior for Web surfing, Document creation, Multimedia and personal file and web serving.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
Get a KVM switch and you've got two dedicated machines you can use at the same time.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Let's face it, one reason people "buy" Windows is that the cost is hidden in the cost of the machine. This is also generally true of OS X (the cost is hidden) but the hardware is "cooler." Your average consumer who buys an Apple does so because of design or ease of use.
In order to run Windows on Mac hardware, it would first be necessary to buy Mac hardware, which isn't cheap. (The value proposition of Macs is a separate issue). Then, you have to look at the OSX interface goodness and decide that you want Windows instead. After that, you have to do whatever porting is necessary and install Windows. All this to get cool hardware running a not-so-cool OS. I mean, Apple is the BMW of computers and Wintel is the Ford. Are you really going to buy a 3 series and stick an Escort engine in it?
If and when Windows supports booting without a BIOS, I can see some folks having dual-boot Apple hardware. Especially folks who want Apple's nicely designed hardware but still want to run Windows games.
But an out-and-out port seems unlikely.
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Yes, the Apple tax is part of buying hardware from Apple. Makes sense to me. Of course if you actually bought a Mac just to run Windows on it exclusively, that would be horribly sad... I can't imagine you actually doing it once you got used to OS X.
That's one of the transitional kits, provided to developers to test that they've ported the code to Intel processors correctly. They were a hack job, featuring a standard PC motherboard fitted into a G5 PowerMac case, and still featured the normal PC BIOS. Many standard operating system features were missing or incomplete.
They were only designed for testing that software compiled for the Intel processors would run successfully without any endian or data-type related errors, and nothing else. They were NOT intended to show off the finally released platform.
Apple are now recalling these machines from developers, and replacing them with proper machines.
Microsoft should make a version for Mac hardware just to sell more copies of Windows. Is there going to be enough Mac hardware out there to make it worth it?
Have you ever considered the possibility that Virtual PC runs Windows VMs slowly because the CPU is being emulated? That will no longer be the case with Intel-based Macs.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
So many people are looking at this as "Why would a Mac user want to run Windows?" Try looking at it the other way. There are a lot of Windows users who drool over the design of Mac hardware. Now they can buy the slick-looking hardware without having to change their OS and replace their software.
Remember, Apple is a hardware company. The more boxes they sell, the more profitable they'll be. They don't really care which OS the user is on. Hopefully this move will allow them to have iPod-like success with the desktop systems.
The mere existance of a device like a KVM just indicates the degree to which the wIntel guys just don't get it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'd much rather have a laptop running OSX than running Windows and I can only run OSX on Apple hardware. Besides, Apple does make some very nice hardware.
The issue with dual booting is that I have some software that simply does not exist for OSX and likely never will. The software is rather performance intensive and so virtualization is not a viable solution. Thus the need to dual boot. Eventually I hope to move completely away from using Windows at all, but for now, sometimes I have to use it.
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MacOS on PC's - that is going to be a tectonic event. Apple may, enthusiastically or reluctantly - go in that direction as the hardware difference between the two platforms starts to narrow. Imagine Apple salivating at even 10% of Microsoft's revenues vs. 4% of personal computer market. Expect before 2010. Once the gush of profits from iPod starts waning as it gets commoditized, Apple will be compelled to reinvent itself as a software company.
Will OS X for Intel Mac's run on a generic PC well enough that it's accessible to a fair number of people. That will cause developers to target OS X more, and make it viable. Otherwise people are going to have some pretty overpriced Windows Mac's.
The issue is dumbasses writing games in direct3d instead of opengl. You don't have to rewrite your game to take advantage of PPC, that's why we have compilers. Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs.
I don't comfortably have the room for two computers, and wouldn't enjoy the noise or power bills of two of them running at the same time. Nor would I enjoy having to maintain a network to access my files from both machines.
And I'm not even in the majority of computer users who use portables.
Different issue. The "Microsoft tax" involved Microsoft using its market power to force the OEM's to pay a license fee for any machine they sold, regardless of whether there was an operating system installed on that machine. Supposedly, many years ago, Apple approached Dell about producing Apple clones. Dell told Apple that they would have to provide the Mac OS for free since Dell had to pay Microsoft's fee.
Why should you pay for something you will not use? Good question. I don't really want all those channels I get with my cable subscription, but the cable company won't let me pay a la carte. When I bought a new car, I had to buy a whole package of options rather than just the options I wanted. And, damn it, when I buy a package of jelly beans, they won't let me return just the black ones.
It's the market. If you don't want the company offers you, don't buy it.
Microsoft doesn't care about the move over to Vista- when it starts selling it, it'll buy it. Why not just have XP over now, so that people buy it... and then people buy it again when Vista comes out? Make twice the money, half the time... (and it sounds like the Apple approach to OS... make a new one every year and have everyone shell out $100 for it)
There must be 100 people asking this question, with varying degrees of politeness, so here is the answer. It will seem extraordinary to many, but some people prefer XP. On the other hand, they like a nice shiny Apple laptop. So what they want is the OS they want, and they have a host of good and bad reasons for wanting it, on the hardware they want.
If you are a Mac user, this will seem stupid or worse to you. It seems stupid in the days of OSX, and it would have seemed stupid in the days of OS9. But it is not people like you who want to run Windows on that nice shiny hardware.
Its other people, not at all stupid, who just, believe it or not, feel differently. Not think differently, feel differently. Just like there are people who want to drink, I don't know, Coors, out of those shiny Budweiser glasses.
You all need to be more tolerant, and realise there is nothing wrong with this, and that there is no reason they should feel like you.
Or you like them, for that matter.