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Windows Vista Beta Running on a PPC Mac
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.
That poor mac!
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.
This guy's the limit!
WHY?!?!
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
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.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
So an x86 emulator is capable of running Vista, an x86 operating system? Sweet!
I would not predict such a thing. But I would predict an article by Dvorak and/or Cringeley predicting such a thing.
"You can already run Windows on the Mac. And I'm talking Windows Vista. Microsoft is already doing this internally. Microsoft, given its problems with security, will buy Apple so that it can get its hands on the OS. It will then port the entire Windows API to run on top of the Darwin kernel. With Virtual PC, they're already doing this. The purchase will give Microsoft all the benefits of the Unix security model with the developer base of Windows."
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
VirtualPC for Mac is an existing product that I'm assuming has the requisite number of customers who think it's worth doing.
From a personal standpoint, some of the reasons for wanting to do this are:
1. I like working on Macs but it's a Windows world out there. I need to be able to run some Windows software but don't want to buy and maintain a separate machine just to do that.
2. Running VirtualPC makes it easer for me to share the data between my Mac and the Windows machine I occasionally need to use.
Mmmm.. Donuts
"Virtualization allows you to run an OS that was designed for another type of hardware. This is news. Really."
Even more amazing is that an x86 emulator sold by Microsoft is capable of running Vista, an x86 operating system written by Microsoft. Sweet! Dude! Sweet! Dude! Sweet!
PowerPC-based Macs (you know, what the article is about) don't have EFI partitions. Unless I'm missing something, there's nothing about this that indicates that Vista can be run concurrently with OS X on Intel-based Macs.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Other than the "it's cool, look what I can do!" factor, why would anyone do this? PPC Macs are much more expensive than Intel Macs, so why would you even WANT this on a PPC Mac?
well, some of us already have a PPC mac. I use VPC for 2 reasons; primarily to test how websites look/work in different versions of IE. sure, you could build a cheap x86 machine and pop a bunch of different versions of windows on there, but that can be expensive and requires a lot of rebooting. with VPC, I can see win2k and XP side by side, and when I close the window, it freezes the state, so I don't need to reboot windows every time I fire up VPC.
the other reason is to test how code works in cygwin and occasionally how pygtk apps run in windows.
I tried installing the vista public beta last night, but it failed complaining about the bios thing and I assumed that it wasn't possible to do, but now that this has been shown to be possible, I can actually see how the new version of IE will render my sites. I'm not really looking forward to seeing how it'll perform, though. XP is only usable for webstuff. win2k runs pretty well. my dual 2.7ghz G5 emulates about a 550mhz pentium4, so I'd hate to see what a mess vista will be.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
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.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Did anyone else read that as Masochists "giving a set of tips that let any Mac user boot Windows Vista on a Mac?"
I have been tweaking with getting Vista Beta 2 (5384) working since it was released out in the wild. I have been able to install without a glitch, although slow. It works great. I have poked around and found that by installing Virtual Server 2005 R2 and extracting the files and installing the virtual machine additions that come packed with that, that you can get a significance performance increase (ppc virtual pc 7.0.2), although I have yet to get networking and sound working. anyone here been able to get these two devices working?
u alserver/software/default.mspx for FREE. As a mac user, I booted into a WinXP virtual machine and performed the following commands to extract the new virtual machine additions to be installed in Vista.
/c /t c:\temp
/a "c:\temp\Virtual Server 2005 Install.msi" targetdir=c:\temp\extract /qn
you can download Virtual Server 2005 R2 @ http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virt
Command Prompt type:
-------------------
setup
If you then run the following command, you can unpack the MSI file. And you then you have access to the VS2005 R2 additions ISO, which you can install into your VPC (just use the CD -> Capture ISO Image... option)
msiexec
after doing this, I have been able to install Office 2007 beta on vista's virtual machine with acutally not too bad performance, considering the emulation.
I did this a few days ago on my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. Yes I am insane.
All you need to do is ensure the RAM setting is at 512MB otherwise the installer refuses to work. Then just before booting hit the delete key and enable APCI in the BIOS. Once installed, you can lower the RAM setting to something like 256MB. You also need patience because it took almost four hours to install (although it only asks for information at the beginning and end.)
It's extremely pointless though. For starters the Aero Glass interface won't work because the best graphics card Virtual PC emulates is a 16MB generic VGA card.
The only thing I learnt is that Microsoft have created an installer that requires 512MB to merely display a fake Aero Glass interface, you get seemingly random error codes with less RAM. Vista seems to use about 300MB once booted.
Wow. You can take a machine that has almost a zero chance of getting malware and convert it to giant virus magnet. This is like a Priest having sex with every prostitute in the Caribbean. Repeat after me, "Sweet!"
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Just grabbed a pair of MacBooks for this exact purpose- the *almost* wife and I both need office, and she learned everything on a PC at work. Rather than fight through weeks of "why did they move that button" frusterations, she can just boot into the exact same OS she uses at work (they require IE too...ugh) and get to it.
Better still- when she doesn't need Windows, she can use OSX, which means less support headaches/spyware hunts for me. According to her, OSX is far "cuter" too, so that's a plus (I think?).
This is my first Mac since my Apple IIe. It's not the end-all be-all super box that some are claiming, but I gotta admit, it makes *my* life a heck of a lot easier.
barack to the future?