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Windows Vista Beta Running on a PPC Mac

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sideways-approaches dept.

goombah99 writes "Macosxhints is giving a set of tips that let any Mac user boot Windows Vista on a Mac. In this case, it's not a native Intel boot but rather VirtualPC running on a PPC G5 Mac. Thus Vista and Mac OS X can run concurrently. There are no extravagant hacks needed, just a matter of finding the right set of configurations to let VirtualPC present the proper disk images for mounting and BIOS settings to the installer. This bodes well for native installs onto the Intel Mac." Actually, there have been successful (though not glitch-free) installs of beta versions of Vista on Intel Macs for a few months now. Here's a report from Hans Verbeeck (Developer Evangelist for Microsoft EMEA) on putting Vista Beta 2 on a MacBook Pro.

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. How so? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This bodes well for native installs onto the Intel Mac.

    How so? I would like goombah99 to clarify this statement. As timothy points out, Vista has been installing on Intel Macs for a while. The thing is that it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Vista can run in an x86 emulation environment for a different processor family. It doesn't bode anything at all because it's irrelevent.

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  2. This has nothing to do with Intel Macs by bsartist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    VPC emulates a traditional PC with a BIOS. An Intel Mac is an entirely different beast. Getting Vista to boot in VPC is no more difficult than getting it to boot on a generic "white box" pc, and has just as much relevance to the Intel Mac. That is, none at all.

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  3. The even shorter summary: by ABoerma · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Virtualization allows you to run an OS that was designed for another type of hardware. This is news. Really."

  4. Re:Misleading headline... by mh101 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After RTFA, I have to say that was seriously a waste of my time. x86 OS works in x86 emulator. Wow what a breakthrough (sarcasim).

    Since you claim to have read the article, you'd have noticed that the big deal isn't "It works in an emulator" but rather "At first it wouldn't install in VPC, but someone found a neat trick to get it to install." I didn't even know it was possible to get into a BIOS setup screen in VPC.

    I agree, it would be extremely slow though. I have a Dual 1.8GHz G5, and the Virtual PC seems to run at ~350 MHZ for me (not a scientific measurement... just a guess based on how it 'feels'). Considering Vista's minimum requirements are at least 800 MHz, I wouldn't want to use it on a regular basis.

    That being said, I'm going to try it out anyway, just to take a look at Vista.

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