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Intel Macs May Boot Windows XP After All
mister_tim writes "While we'll have to wait till someone actually tries it to get absolute confirmation, news coming from Intel in Australia, reported here by Dan Warne in the Australian Personal Computer magazine, is that the new Intel-based Macs may be able to load and boot Windows XP after all. Several of the early stories after the announcement of the MacBook Pro and the Intel-based iMac assumed that Windows XP would not boot on Intel Macs, since XP doesn't support EFI (replacing BIOS in the new Macs), and Apple's statement that they wouldn't prevent the use of XP on Apple hardware didn't really give people much assurance either way. This statement from Intel implies that there is really no issue."
From the artricle:
However, Intel Australia, while being careful not to comment on Apple's hardware specifically, says motherboards based on the Intel 945 chipset already support EFI and can boot Windows with no problems.
This cryptic statement can't be taken as full reassurance though: it may be that 945 boards support EFI but do not come with it installed by default.
[...]
"For IA 32 systems, the Framework loads itself above the 1MB real-mode memory boundary to accommodate an optional Compatibility Support Module (CSM). CSM implementations can be tailored to platform requirements. A typical CSM is approximately 60KB (~38KB compressed) of firmware that is specific to each Participating Vendor and is based on that Vendor's latest BIOS code base. A contemporary implementation of the Framework on a PC includes a CSM for supplying services to operating systems that do not boot using EFI and for supporting legacy option ROMs on add-in cards. For legacy boot the Framework initialises the platform's silicon and executes EFI drivers. Then control is transferred to the CSM, which supports the legacy OS boot."
So, as long as Apple has included a Compatibility Support Module, Intel-based Macs should be able to boot XP.
It seems unlikely that Apple would have left this out. It has already said it isn't doing anything to prevent Windows from booting on a Mac.
Yes, it's true that EFI has BIOS backward compatibility layer, but it is optional for the vendor to use and provide this. And Apple has no need for legacy BIOS support.
Some further discussion of the general topic of windows booting can be found here: Will an Intel-based Mac run Windows?
The more interesting possibility for many users will not be directly booting or dual-booting Windows XP, but rather running Windows XP at essentially the full speed of the underlying hardware in a virtual machine, right alongside Mac OS X. Sure, for some game and direct hardware access applications, you would want to - or you may have to - boot Windows directly. But for the vast majority of access to Windows productivity and/or other software not available on Mac OS X, running Windows alongside Mac OS X is likely more desirable than dual-booting anyway.
As has been noted, however, it is indeed extremely likely that Windows Vista will directly boot on Intel-based Macs with EFI.
Yes it does, ELILO supports booting from EFI.
"Apple is finding a way to provide lower prices by jumping on the most popular PC processor company's ability to consistently make quality products are reasonable prices."
No they aren't. They switched processors but are keeping the same prices.
"New Intel iMac: Same models 17 and 20, same prices"
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I've owned laptops for years, know lots of people with laptops, work with lots of people with laptops... Don't know a single person who has used infrared on a laptop in my entire life.
Dunno if this has any statistical significants... Just wanted to say that.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
Games and work.
Individuals would love to be able to play any windows-only game without having to shell out an additional $1000 for a gaming rig.
Work-stuff is more likely to be covered by a vmware-like os-inside-an-os solution, but it could still be handy to boot natively into XP for some work-related activities.
Basically, you'd dual-boot OS X with Windows for the same reasons you'd dual-boot Linux and Windows. It's just that OS X windows aren't quite as hardcore in their geekiness as the Linux dual-booters.
Of course for those of us who use all three OSes regularly, the ability for one box to run all of them is a bit of a dream come true.
for an attempt to have "eternal internet glory" for being the first to get a Production Macintosh to run Window
Supposedly that was already done ten years ago for some Macs, when there was a PPC port of Windows NT.
Linux already supports EFI, and the chipset in these things. I believe there is no contest. Linux probably works on them already, and has for a long while.
Someome please, for the love of all that is holy explain to me why you would spend that kind of money to get intel hardware and then boot Windows XP?
I'll buy one for consolidating functionality onto fewer machines. Not all applications will run well in a virtual machine. VMware has no OS X client. It is still being developed. VirtualPC would be Intel emulating PPC emulating Intel. That is to say, slow as a dead monkey. No word yet on a timetable for a new version. So for today, Dual booting is the only option available.
If you want to boot windows XP, AMD is your friend. Price AND Performance crowns are with AMD.
This is true on desktops and servers, but not on laptops right now. The Intel Duo blows away any AMD offering I have seen for performance/power consumption. AMDs are cheap and fast, but they suck power like mad compared to the 65nm Intel CPUs and the AMD competitor is not due till Q4.
Supposedly that was already done ten years ago for some Macs, when there was a PPC port of Windows NT.
Yes, I've got one of those boxes in my office (the one on the far left, next to my 128K Mac and NeXT Cube). And indeed, it could run Windows NT for PowerPC. It was a Motorola Viper, a prototype of one of the Mac "clones", and was to be the first shipping Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) machine. In theory, it could run Mac OS, Linux, AIX, Solaris, NetWare, and Windows NT. For various reasons, Solaris and NetWare on PowerPC were killed, as was Windows, eventually. Apple killed cloning (for Motorola's part, Apple bought back their Mac OS license for $100M), and the CHRP machines - or the first clone with the G3, the Motorola StarMax 6000 - never shipped.
"Doesn't anyone feel we'll see better Windows emulation on the Mac OS if there is an Intel processor to fall back on?"
Well, yes. In fact on a PPC every instruction needs to be emulated, whereas on the new systems the Windows emulation can just run natively until it does something requiring privileged instructions (such as I/O).
This is, in fact, the ONLY advantage I can see for this switch. Post after post people are wallowing in the mythology of Intel chips being cheaper, faster, cooler and no doubt are perpetual motion machines too.
Of COURSE the new machines are faster. They have slightly faster processors than the previous generation PPCs, they used memory that was twice as fast and there are two processors rather than one. I suspect they are getting favorable pricing from Intel as well for the PR alone. But of course they could have achieved all of this with the newest crop of PPC chips too.
My guess is that the big news of Job's presentation, namely that Microsoft will commit to providing Office for the Mac for another 5 years, will be just about the right amount of time for there to be program level emulation of Windows. Just like OS/2 used to do, instead of running an entirely separate Windows emulation, you can just launch individual Windows programs that will run "transparently" side by side with OS X programs. At that point there will be no need for a special port of Office at all.
Just as OS/2 people thought this was a great convenience feature, Apple users will love it too. But mostly, Microsoft will love it, because it will have the same effect now as it did then. Transparently portable applications will convince even more people to just develop for Windows. There will be no incentive for Apple, or anyone else, to design a truly innovative replacement for Office, and the notion that Windows is "good enough" will gradually work its way into the Apple consciousness. After all, by comparison with Windows of the mid 90s, today's Windows is rock solid, fast, and has pretty icons.
Oh, and the elephant in the closet is that many malware applications now being designed for Windows will run just great on the new Apple equipment too.
Anybody want to place a bet on whether the Linux community will drop support for the old PPC Macs before Apple does? I just ran the update on Linux for my old iBook and it is slicker than ever and runs circles around my much newer Powerbook. Once Apple support starts to wane, which looks like it could be any day now, I'll do my own "switch" and still be using this baby 10 years from now (if the hard drive lasts that long).
What people in general seems to be disregarding is the partitioning-style that the new Intel-Macs are using.
Old Macs use a clean, simple, nice and flexible partitioning-system called Apple Partition Table. PPC-Mac OS can read those disks and boot from them. Intel-Mac OS can read them, but not boot from them (EFI does not like APT). Windows XP can neither read not do anything else with it.
New Intel-style Macs use Intel/Microsofts new GPT, GUID Partition Table. It is a clean, simple and flexible way of partitioning the disks. Intel-Mac OS can read and boot from drives partitioned with GPT. PPC-Mac OS can not boot from them (but it might be able to read them with an update, although Apple says to use APT on all external drives to avoid such issues). Windows XP can read and boot them, but only the 64-bit version of Windows XP.
Intel-PCs of today use MBR-partitioning. The MBR-way of booting and partitioning is a general pain in the butt, but it is what Windows XP (32bit) can understand and boot from.
Of course, there might be a way to make Mac OS boot from MBR-disks, since it did in the developer-intel-version, and so it would be possible to runt Windows XP and Mac OS from the same MBR-partitioned disk, but I would not really feel at ease running my Mac-partition as one of the four primary partitions on the weird old legacy MBR-disk-system.
Anyway. The iMacs with Intel CPUs have been out a couple of days now. Kodawarisan has even posted images of the insides of it, so if it was all that easy to run Windows, why have no one posted any pictures yet?
Of course, there may be a way to get 32-bit windows to boot from GPT-drives. Please correct me if I am wrong.
You'll likely want to put Windows (Fat32) as the first partition since it has issues booting up from a different partition. OS X can boot from anywhere, so you'd put the HFS+ partition second. Assuming the Intel Macs support Windows, then this should work fine.
In Windows, you'll see only a C drive and will not be able to access the OS X partition because Windows can't handle any file system other than it's own native format. When you boot into OS X, you'll see the Mac partition as well as the Windows partition with read and write access.
I'm more hoping for a solution like WINE or VM/Ware that will let me run OS X and boot Windows inside of it for the one application that I actually would need from it.
The Windows NT kernel (for Windows 2000, XP, etc.) has supported EFI for many years. NT systems that boot on Itanium use EFI. There are even some vendor-specific platforms that boot NT using EFI on x86 systems.
So please get the facts straight. The "mainstream" version of Windows that people buy don't support EFI because the machines it is intended for don't support EFI, either. But Microsoft has supported and pushed EFI for many years. So it's not like EFI is magic, and Microsoft doesn't understand it. Microsoft has even contributed to the EFI standard.
Not on a Mac, per se, but it did, IIRC, run on Apple hardware - the Apple Network Server 500/700 (shiner), which shipped with AIX. I had two 500's and they were excellent servers with some really nice Mac-based admin tools. Excellent, that is, until they were orphaned by Apple's decision not to support a Y2K compliant version of AIX... With much reluctance they went in the dumpster a few years back.
start with getting in to efi. i dont know if its the same key-combo as open firmware (command-option-o-f) or something new (any apple/efi docs anywhere? i couldn't find anything on the apple site). this intel tutorial is the best thing i've found regarding efi from an end-user standpoint yet - and ive been reading through it for the past half hour to get myself up to speed... http://www.intel.com/software/products/college/efi shell/
some people with macintel imacs on the macnn forums (currently down) are trying to boot off of the vista 5270 build with no success yet - but i have a feeling they are clueless about getting into/using efi.
everyone was saying 'hold down C! hold down C!' until someone mentioned that the key to boot off of optical media has now switched to D. people have tried that and it doesn't appear to boot.
i don't have access to vista 5270, but people mentioned a hidden 'BOOT' folder on their hard drive root with Microsoft/EFI boot files. are these same files available on the installation media?
regardless, once knowledgable people can get in to efi and start querying it about boot media can progress be made...
oh, and to all of the people complaining/questioning why people want to dual boot windows on a macintel i have one word for you:
steam
actually i could rant on about all kinds of other windows-only software. for me, windows has the best emulators around. having tested a few mac emulators/ports, it appears most of them are rubbish - especially from the input (controller) support as well as the display output support (monitor resolutions, scaling filters, etc).
Mac OS X has three distinct personalities at the kernel level: Mach, BSD, and the I/O Kit. All three live in the same address space. You can communicate with all three from user space (no wrapping involved), and BSD does substantially more than providing interfaces to Mach. The BSD portion provides interfaces to the I/O Kit, the networking core, the filesystem core, various IPC mechanisms... probably other stuff I'm not thinking about right now.
Mach pretty much provides a scheduler, some IPC mechanisms, and a VM system. Out of those, last time I checked, FreeBSD uses Mach VM, and IIRC, NetBSD contains (or at least was working on) an implementation of Mach IPC. :-)
It's fair to say that the core of Mac OS X is BSD, IMHO. It's a stretch to say that the core is a particular implementation of BSD (other than Darwin), but it definitely has a BSD flavor on the whole, IMHO.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I know that some PPC Linux distros had trouble controlling the fan speed on G5 PowerMacs, causing the fans to run at full-speed continuously. If cooling is maintained by OS X on these machines, would one really want to bother installing Windows on them?
As far as I understand, with any Mac System that has an SMU (Systems Management Unit) instead of a PMU (Power Management Unit) the optimization of the cooling system is indeed controlled by OS X (this includes most G5 based systems). If the SMU does not receive the expected commands from the OS within a couple of minutes, it defaults into fail-safe mode where the fans would all run at high speed to ensure the system does not overheat. The benefit is that if the system was ever left unattended and the OS locked up, the SMU would keep the machine from being fried. Running the machine for an extended period of time (several months or even weeks) outside of OS X could severely shorten the overall life-span of the system (the mechanical aspects of the cooling system would wear out faster than expected through typical use.)
Worst case scenario is that if someone chose to run Linux or Windows on such a machine and the machine has heat issues two years into the life, and through repair it was noted that the fans were excessively worn out and there was evidence of another bootable OS being installed on the system, the owner may be liable for repair costs, even if they had purchased APP. Sure, the owner may yell and scream that's it's a hardware issue but it would be a hardware issue caused by running a nonstandard OS on the system that did not provided complete support for the underlying hardware, voiding any sort of warranty. Not a likely scenario but that is the risk anyone that wants to run an alternative OS should account for.
Now, that's a worst case scenario that's applicable to existing PPC systems, the new intel macs use an SMC (Systems Management Controller) and EFI and so the cooling system may be handled differently and may actually controlled by EFI instead of the OS. There's a lot of speculation about what EFI can and cannot do so who knows?
One other interesting tidbit to know about the new Intel-based Macs is that Classic (OS 9 legacy support that runs within OS X) is no longer shipping with the systems or supported and supposedly is not Rosetta compatible. Yeah, it's off-topic but I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else so I thought I'd throw it in since it is slightly OS related.
And now that I think about it, I guess Word was running on Rosetta. Holy shit! I didn't even notice.
Nope, when they announced the switch Apple said that Office has been a universal binary for a while. There were a couple other apps that had been universal for a while, but I do remember Office being one.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Office is not a univeral binary. Just watch the latest keynote for that where ros ho from microsoft even says so.
When I ran linux as my primary system and decided to dual boot Windows, it usually was to get software I had to run rather than a game. For mac users at home, being able to boot Windows on your $2k mac for something you have to use windows for would be a lot cheaper than buying two computers. For companies, it's another story.
Yeah, I'm looking at the .app right now. It says: Application (PowerPC)
From that Intel link:
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...