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Windows XP on Intel Mac Confirmed
niemassacre writes "According to winxponmac.com, the contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. A thread on osx86project.org has confirmations from several testers that the procedure works on the 17" iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook Pro. Many sets of pictures and videos (such as this installation video) are floating around (and mentioned in the thread). The solution itself should be posted soon." Poit! Congratulations to narf.
But does it run Linux?
Now I can dual boot a good and bad OS. (I am not saying which is which!)
Because it's there!
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Yeah this is great news! I'm a mac freak, but this makes an intel mac a great proposition as all my work stuff is Windows based!
Now all we need is for someone to make a hypervisor, or allow booting XP from within mac os without emulation, and we'll have a great system!
Does this version dual boot fully with Mac OS?
I'm sooo tempted to buy a Mac Book Pro now - my poor wallet.
Every time there's anything on this the first comments are along these lines. Fine! You don't want to play games or do any Windows devlopment - other people do! And this lets them. The end.
Where can I get this? I haven't found any details or downloads yet...
I'd almost be tempted to buy a MacBook Pro if this works without any issues. It'd be nice to boot into Windows for my day job and OSX for home usage. The only thing really stopping me is the lack of a right-click button under the trackpad. I'm sure somebody can/has come up with a software hack to use two fingers to right-click, but I don't know how annoying that would actually be without using it.
I hope everybody who dragged this guy's reputation through the mud offers him a huge apology! Maybe it's just because I'm growing older, but the older I get the more cynical I feel like people are becoming. Maybe it's always been this way and when I was a kid I either didn't notice or just shrugged it off....
and a amssive congratulation to Narf. This was an exciting contest to watch develop and definately brought out a lot of talent. Now the question in my mind is will this have any affect on the new intel-mac sales; Will people be keen to buy them because they can dual boot windows/mac os x on the same machine? Recently I bought a mac-mini (before the intel ones went live sadly) and I have to say, having used winxp for years after two weeks of my mac-mini on a KVM I'm just about ready to move over. I can't actually imagine many reasons for me wanting a PC any more. I'm not into gaming like I used to be, and mac os x is such a lovely user experience. I admit it, i'm a born again apple fan-boi! What exactly is the situation on driver support for someone booting winxp on a mac? That's what I am interested in, anyone got a clue?
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Why?
Games.
Stuff like VMWare will do a great job of running applications, but for stuff that requires access to modern hardware, dual-booting is probably the only real answer.
I've been doing it for years on my PC, after all - serious stuff gets done in Linux, but when I want to mess around with modding Half-Life 2 then I quickly reboot into Windows XP, and instantly get 100% software compatibility. If something gave me the ability to dual-boot my new MacBook in a similar manner, then that would be great - I'd essentially have both a Mac and a PC in one shiny laptop case.
This latest news makes me happy - it's like I bought a very fast Mac, then just over two weeks later I received a very fast PC of equivalent specs for free. What is there to complain about?
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
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It seems to me that native hardware will mean that we're not far from seeing a lot of really great "not-emulation VPC-like products." This is nice, but it seems that being able to have the two up side-by side would be more useful. Wouldn't native hardware also mean that a VPC could run at nearly full speed, only taking a hit due to whatever resources were already being used by the Mac OS and applications? Still, this is a nice achievement.
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Because you're not a Mac user who lives in the Windows world. Some of us who make our money in the Windows world need to run applications that don't run on Mac... yet. I do Cognos development, and I have to provide my own notebook at work. Outside of work, I'm all Mac. Why have two notebooks when I can have my cake and eat it too? Yes, I could get a whitebox x86 notebook and run a hacked version of OSX, as the PC zealots would have it, but seeing how my PC is used for business, I'd like to stay above board. Which I can't do with an illegal version of Mac OSX running on a whitebox notebook.
Apple is happy. Now all those Windows users who want a Mac (more market share, yippee!) will buy a Mac and dual boot, yet they can still "try" to protect their OS from running a white box.
Microsoft is happy. They didn't have to spend any of their own money to get compatibility, and if they're lucky, maybe more than 30% of the dual booters will actually pay for a Windows license.
if you can run Windows on a Mac now, will game developers stop porting games to Mac, since Mac users can run Windows?
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Why? Because of the huge number of applications that are only produced for Windows -- these are small enough that the makers can't be bothered to, or don't have the expertise to, make a Mac version, yet aren't essential enough to make me go out and buy a Windows machine just to run them.
One example would be the PC interface software for my cell phone. Nice to have, but I only use it every few months to back stuff up and am not about to go buy a PC just to run it. Same story for game hacking utilities.
Congratulations to Narf. I'm anxiously awaiting booting WinXP on my Intel iMac.
What's stopping you? There are tons of people who are already booting OS X 10.5.5 on cheap commodity hardware. There's even a wiki that tells you what cheapo hardware to buy to get the best Mac experience.
Here's link to the XP on MAC video from a site which can handle a /.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nzH6OFpXgzI
I'd think Apple would love it. They played no part in working out the solution, but now their hardware is the most versatile around for running the two desktop OSes I've wanted to have on one machine. Done deal, buying a mac.
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
use the coral caches. I can't believe they weren't coralised in the main post
. php?showtopic=11731c .mov
forum
http://forum.osx86project.org.nyud.net:8080/index
Video:
http://www.projectosx86.org.nyud.net:8080/winonma
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If now somebody figures out how to triple boot and add Linux then I will be able to boot a good, a bad and an ugly OS (and I'm not saying either which is which!).
ipods adapted so all audio output is in mono. Graphics on imacs converted to 16 color. Mac mouse to only have one button... oops.
I find this kind of funny and ironic...
Apple announces that they are moving to intel. OSX is DRM'd and bound to Macs so that it cannot be run on commodity hardware. Senior execs at Apple also state that they will not do anything to prevent Windows from running on their hardware.
Intel Macs come out.
Hackers get OSX86 up and running on Dells with relative ease, despite Apple's best efforts to prevent them from doing so. However, they have such a hard time getting Windows to run on a Mac that a contest is started and 13,000 dollars worth of prize money is offered.
Oh the irony. :-)
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Now that the public has done the work Bill's engineers should have done for Vista, he'll be able to sleep much better at night. /sarcasm
It's actually called DarWINE and it's not quite at the level of maturity you see in the Linux world. Codeweavers says they're working on a version of Crossover Office for the Mac, but they haven't posted any news about it recently.
Crossover Office is pretty good on Linux. I'd rather use something like Wine (provided it worked on 100% of the stuff I need -- wishful thinking) than VMWare. Having said that, I'd rather use VMWare than dual boot.
Wake me up when someone lets me run Windows binaries *inside* Intel OSX. That is the achievement.
Well shit is there too, but you don't step into it just because of the fact that it's possible to do it, or do you ?
May i be damned if i let m$ anywhere near a mac.
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
Using the Quick Time player on Windows XP it says required compressor not available (1st time I tried it also said not available on server)... what do I need?
An Intel Mac, obviously.
I disagree. I think Microsoft is not at all happy about this. Knowing that a mac can run Windows eliminates a major reason a lot of people (including myself) don't use a Mac - I need Windows for certain tasks that I cannot otherwise do. This will increase the Mac marketshare and ultimate, Microsoft will lose out!
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I'm thinking of writing a book about a Windows guy who disguises himself as a Mac user to see what it's like.
I call it: "Mac Like Me".
Sounds cool, huh?
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Did you really read the original (yesterday's) commentary on this? It looked like a basic peer-review process to me, albeit in true /. style. A person steps up, makes an extraordinary claim, and the community of peers does its best to suggest every possibility for falsification.
It took a while, but the truly hare-brained ideas (like a photoshopped image of a MacBook) were discredited leaving only a couple of reasonable possibilities (like a full-screen display of an XP screengrab image).
So honestly, would you really prefer that a peer-review process work from the premise that the proposal is true, as opposed to false? While the former is certainly much "nicer", the latter is more in keeping with scientific modes of thought. I'd have expected nothing less, had I presented the same claims + shaky evidence.
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Excellent work by Narf2006 and Blanka.
I don't understand why some people are so negative about something which gives the user greater flexibility and choice. I love using OS X for my personal needs, but my job requires Windows and CounterStrike:Source requires DirectX, so it's made my MacBook Pro even more flexible and that can only be a good thing.
Whilst I can imagine that some software producers will look at the situation and say "The Mac now runs Windows so we don't need to produce a Mac native version", I think the ability to boot Windows tears down one barrier to buying a Mac...if you have to run Windows then you don't need to compromise and buy a Windows only machine.
Finally, I know you can buy a regular PC and dual-boot with a hacked copy of OS X, but it's illegal, whereas dual booting a genuine retail copy of XP on a Mac is legal and that makes it a real option for the workplace. I look forward to taking my MacBook everywhere and leaving that chunky Dell on the table...someone needs to start producing 200GB+ 2.5" 7200rpm drives fast!
$2B OR NOT $2B = $FF
1. The first guy to do something gets lots of points
:-)
2. Anybody who does a lot of work so I don't have to gets points
3. The definition of hard has less to do whith whether the technology looks challenging and more to do with how long it actually takes people to accomplish. This was not instantaneous with a bunch of people piling on working solutions at the same time. This guy stands alone after a significant period of time. That makes this "hard" in a defacto sense of the word and is definately worth some points.
4. I'm not a Mac user. I'm a Windows user. Of course Mac users love their OS. I don't. After supporting several Mac people and trying to make use of it myself, I've decided I actually dislike it quite a lot (no flames, please, this is just a personal preference). However, I _love_ Mac hardware. I've lusted after the clean, light notebooks and the "cheese grater" G5 desktops are shear design elegance. As a current Mac user, judging this by the fact that you wouldn't want to run Windows is missing the fundimental point that Windows users might like the option of buying great hardware from Apple. From my perspective, this is worth lots of points.
Add em all up and this guy can redeem his points for several rounds of beer should I ever meet him
TW
it's like I bought a very fast Mac, then just over two weeks later I received a very fast PC of equivalent specs for free.
Not quite free, since you have to buy a copy of XP.
Um...
You *did* pay for that copy of XP, right?
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Dual booting is unpractical
- You have to stop everything on Mac OS (Linux, BSD, whatever) to get into Windows and vice versa.
- Data exchange between systems is horrible (common FAT32/ext2 partition? yikes!)
Being a fulltime Linux user, I know the pain. Now I have two machines sharing data over the network. That's the proper solution, unless you lack funds for a small x86 system. So, in conclusion, I don't understand what all this fuss is all about.
my 2 cents, of course.
Windows NT was built from the beginning to run on multiple processors, it had a very advanced hardware abstraction layer built in. The other versions never sold very well and there were problems with application support (e.g. people targetting multiple processor arch's). Apple has clevery overcome this obstacle by including "Rosetta" from the start, something similar existed for NT Alpha called FX!32 but I suspect by the time it was released it was too little too late to save the OS.
I'm sure that the HAL is in place in NT derived operating systems to this day and if MS were so inclined they could do another port. However, there's no real business need (as there is for Apple with their transition) so it's never been done. They target the largest installed hardware base.
The issue with getting Windows on Macintel to work is that EFI is so fundamentally different to the traditional BIOS XP expects that you require either the source code of the OS kernel to make it work or have to, as has been done here, provide essentially a bios emulator. This is nothing to do with portability or HAL's, it's about having access to the fundamentally low-level parts of the operating system, something people outside MS don't have.
I am NaN
Rather than talk about what Microsoft and Apple think, I'd love to see the marketing department at Dell today.
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
Apple would never want to support this or even make it easy. But this is a boon. Many people such as myself who wouldn't switch previously will now consider it. In fact I am certain, my next computer will be a Conroe Mac. I predict the cool machine next year will be dual booting Mac with Conroe. Reminds of the old days when hackers liked the Amigas with x86 module that could run Dos/Amiga/Mac software all at full speed.
Why this won't negatively affect SW developers view of mac sales:
The average Mac user is never going to set up a dual boot (especially given no support, difficulties involved) so this really won't impact software developer plans (ie they won't stop making Mac software). Even those who dual boot will probably prefer to have native Mac versions of software. In the end all Macs sold will be potential buyers of Mac software. That is why this is a perfect solution, no official support and difficulties make it something only those who MUST have it will do, so it will not have any significant percentage of people using a Mac, but buying Windows software for it.
Why this is better than booting OSX on a whitebox:
Booting windows on a Mac, is a legal solution. Apple has said they are not doing anything to stop it. So you can have legal OSX and legal WinXP on the mac and keep them both updated with ease. Also the Mac which has less HW support will be running on it's intended platform. Windows should have no problem running on the same hardware. Contrast running pirate/hacked OSX on the whitebox (the only way to do it) which will always be of questionable stability and a fight to upgrade without breaking it.
Way to go guys!
Microsoft is most wholeheartedly not gonna care. They sell you an OS to install on whatever machine you want. As long as it's not a pirated copy (which is a seperate issue), then they don't care.
As to Apple, I doubt they would care either. They primarily sell hardware. OS X is just something to set their hardware apart from other computer makers. Nobody is gonna NOT buy a Mac because it can run Windows, but somepeople might now buy a Mac (who otherwise wouldn't) because now it can.
It benefits both companies.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
He said PC, not "license of Windows XP".
If you have a retail license of XP, it can be transferred to the Mac. If you have an OEM copy, you have to tell MS "I just had to replace the motherboard, CPU, and RAM"
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
According to Intel documentation, using a CSM that plugs into the EFI framework should allow for booting BIOS-based operating systems:In the words of Jim Cramer, "booyah."
that makes you.... an idiot. ;)
i think the money is humiliation enough for the nay-sayers.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
The good, the bad, the ugly, and the OH GOD MAKE IT STOP!?
(And yes, I too leave matching the categories to the OS as an exercise to the reader...)
Here's the scenario. I would like to try out Mac OS, and maybe even use it 75% of the time. However, I wouldn't buy a Mac because I would still need to use windows for the other 25%. If it was possible to run both on the same hardware, I could buy a Mac, run MacOS whenever I can, and then boot into windows for the 25% of the time that I need to run windows. Sounds a lot like how I run Linux right now. Although its close to 90% linux, 10% windows. If running Linux meant that I couldn't run windows, I probably never would have tried linux to begin with.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It is very possible to setup a 3-boot situation seeing how Linux Beat Windows to Intel iMac.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
maybe more than 30% of the dual booters will actually pay for a Windows license
;o)
A percent (%) character seems to have slipped in there.
OEM copies are not boxed, and come with absolutely no support from Microsoft; they're also supposedly tied to the machine that they came with, although I've had no problems with that. Full Retail are boxed, come with some period of free support from Microsoft (90 days?) and are not tied to the machine.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
You can d/l quicktime separate from iTunes...you just need to look a little harder for the link. Try this: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone .html . the other option that I have used if you don't want iTunes, is to open the iTunes installer with Winrar, and just extract the quicktime installer from it. The quicktime installer is called separately from the iTunes installer, so extracting/running it separate from the rest of the app works just fine.
"Wouldn't a VM be better for this?"
I'm kinda loathed to give msft $ for a VM when I can just install WindowsXP from my installer disk.
I need a new laptop anyway, so may as well go with an Intel based Mac and be able to run pretty much anything i want.
Considering the fact that the Device Manager screenshot from the iMac Core Duo shows an abudance of "Unknown devices" (including the display adapter), and considering the drivers for these devices probably do not exist for Windows, I don't see people playing games anytime soon.
Now that the directions are out, it looks like it requires doing a little slipstreaming to the Windows XP CD (and apparently one that has SP2 in it already).
For those of us who work in IT, like me, and have already created a slipstreamed XP CD with the latest security updates (and storage drivers--thank god for that! no more F6 during an install), I want to know how to add the XP on Mac fixes to that already-prepared CD. Oh, and I want to know how to do that without having to go and actually figure it out myself (mostly because I don't yet have an Intel Mac of my own to play with). WINNT.SIF I can handle, but I'd rather leave TXTSETUP.SIF to someone more knowledgeable (hopefully that will work with the iastor drivers that are already inserted into my CD).
From a quick glance at the patch provided, it looks like it provides the iaStor drivers for the Windows installer to be able to access the hard drive (since the Intel Macs appear to use an Intel 945 chipset with ICH7 storage, this makes sense, since you can't exactly hit "F6" during boot to load the drivers from a floppy. It also looks like it adds a custom framebuffer driver, since the X1600 is apparently one of the few things that doesn't have working drivers yet (everything else seems to be supported by the generic Intel Chipset drivers, the generic Marvell Yukon Gig-E drivers, the generic Broadcom WiFi card drivers, etc). I guess the X1600 issue isn't an issue on the Mac Minis, since those have Intel 950 integrated graphics.
In any case, this is the greatest news I have heard in a long time. I really want to get a MacBook Pro to replace my aging Power Mac G4/500 DP and my crappy eMachines laptop, and I want to dual-boot Windows XP just so I can play games at LAN parties without having to drag my desktop system around (and run a few bits of Windows-only software). For day to day use, nothing beats Mac OS X.
It seems that one might well be able to subvert the 'standby' or 'sleep' modes of both OS's to provide fast OS switching; hit a key to get the system to slumber (i.e. save system state) then add a 'system state swap' hack where you can switch over into the slumber mode of the other OS and reawaken.
AFAIK both OS's have both 'light standby' and sleep modes, presumably sleep involves swapping the ram out to disk and even reinitialising hardware on wake, so may just be the ticket.
If this can be made to work and tweaked for speed it would seem that you'd be able to ALT-TAB between OS's with a sub-10 second delay. That'd do for me.
Hope so!
FL
[FrLz]