New Apple Bootcamp Released

eebra82 writes "Apple just updated their Bootcamp website with the release of Bootcamp 1.1 beta. It adds extended hardware support, including the ability to install XP on any internal disk, built-in iSight camera support, built-in microphone, right clicks with Apple key, more keyboard buttons such as Delete, NumLock, PrintScreen and ScrollLock. Numerous annoyances are no more thanks to motherboard updates, too. This release is 200 MB or so over the previous 90 MB install, which is due to heavier driver support such as included Nvidia video drivers."

Comments

vista

[raffe]

Any news of vista suport? Now, I am really thinking about getting a mac.....

Re:vista

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

vista wants to be on PC hardware you insensitive clod.

Re:vista

[mrxak]

I'm sure they'll be able to get Vista working on BootCamp when Vista comes out. BootCamp is still just beta software, and Vista is still just beta software. Give it time.

Re:vista

[ironwill96]

Vista Beta 2 runs just fine under BootCamp with a few minor annoyances such as very little power management so battery life is quite poor. I'm running it on my Macbook Pro that I use at work and haven't had any major issues as of yet.

Re:vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Macintels *are* PC hardware you insensitive clod!

Re:vista

[ecorona]

You run Vista Beta 2? You have my sympathy you brave brave man.

Re:vista

[Midnight Thunder]

If Vista supports EFI, then Boot Camp is not needed. The reason Boot Camp is needed is because Windows XP needs BIOS to boot.

Tell you the truth, I would be very surprised if Vista does not support EFI, since this is clearly the direction Intel wants new hardware going.

Re:vista

[jdb8167]

If Vista supports EFI, then Boot Camp is not needed. The reason Boot Camp is needed is because Windows XP needs BIOS to boot.

This isn't exactly right. Boot Camp is also the boot loader and device drivers. Even if Vista does support EFI, OS X still needs a boot loader and under windows, you still need device drivers to make the Mac hardware work.

Re:vista

[PygmySurfer]

Actually, Boot Camp is only the drivers and the pretty little partitioning wizard. You don't need it, it just makes things a little easier.

The firmware updates that were released along with Boot Camp are what enabled Windows XP to boot on the Mac. EFI can contain a legacy BIOS mode, which Apple hadn't enabled on the first Intel Macs. The firmware updates enabled it.

Re:vista

[AgentSmith]

Insensitive Clod are Soviet Russia you fool. . .no . . . wait. That's not right.
Lemme try again.

In Soviet Russia, insensitive clods are . . .CUT!

OK, AgentSmith you're fired. The corporate heads decided to outsource you anyway.
Allright people! That's a wrap! We'll get it in postedit.

i AM in being Soviet Russia fools with hardware are clod.

Solid!

They recommend an upgrade

[Frequency Domain]

The web page says you don't need to repartition or re-install if you're already running BootCamp, but they strongly advise that you do an upgrade to get the new driver support.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[Crayon Kid]

You know, I really have to wonder why Apple doesn't do what Cringely suggests here: perfectly transparent XP emulation, on OS X.

I'm told Apple has long had this running in the Cupertino lab -- Intel Macs running OS X while mixing Apple and XP applications. This is not a guess or a rumor, this something that has been demonstrated and observed by people who have since reported to me.

Think of the implications. A souped-up OS X kernel with native Windows API support and the prospect of mixing and matching Windows and Mac applications would be, for many users, the best of both worlds. There would be no copy of Windows XP to buy, no large overhead of emulation or compatibility middleware, no chance for Microsoft to accidentally screw things up, substantially better security, and no need to even take a chance on Windows Vista.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because Cringely is a moron?

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[drinkypoo]

You know, I really have to wonder why Apple doesn't do what Cringely suggests here: perfectly transparent XP emulation, on OS X.

Probably because it's a bunch of bullshit. It's probably Wine, and the people only saw applications that work properly being run, and until I hear something more reliable than Cringely telling me some guy saw it running when they would have no way to know that they're not looking at a canned demo, I'm not going to believe it. Lots of smart people have been working on Windows compatibility for a long time and it's an amazingly hard problem, which is why you can't run (for example) Alpha Centauri for Windows on Wine. (Yes, I know it's available for Linux.)

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[mrxak]

How is it all that better for security? Don't all the viruses and spyware just run natively in that situation?

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[IAmTheDave]

Right, because what I really want is my OSX installation to have a registry, installers that put files in 40 different paths, APIs that enable viruses and trojans, and of course, no real .NET support, even though more and more software for Windows is being written in .NET.

Na, I'm good, but thanks.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[HTH NE1]

What if the Windows programs only think they have a shared registry, only think they have put files in 40 different paths, but in reality it is all sitting in a pkg file that is only temporarily merged with a virtual and disposable Windows API environment and can be trashed by the user at any time with no repercussions?

Oh, and fix the vulnerabilities of the API so the viruses and trojans can't run (or at least alert the user), and add (similarly protected) .NET support.

Basically, put Windows applications in a sandbox that only appears to be integrated to the OS (from both the user's and Windows application's perspectives).

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[allenw]

You know, I really have to wonder why Apple doesn't do what Cringely suggests here: perfectly transparent XP emulation, on OS X.

... because efforts are probably better spent on adding support for something like Xen. Why bother supporting one OS when you can support many? Besides, users have already shown via the purchasing of Soft PC, Virtual PC, Parallels, etc, that they are willing to use "OS in a window"-type software.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[mabhatter654]

except Apple has the NDAs to use the REAL windows APIs directly. I believe they got those in a lawsuit when MS tried to renig on their deal to co-develop quicktime. They wouldn't be able to mix the code with Wine, but they could do it on their own... They have access to information the Wine people could never, ever see for legal reasons.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[Crayon Kid]

Why bother supporting one OS when you can support many?

This is not just "one OS". This is Windows XP we're talking about, arguably the most widespread desktop operating system on the planet, with the most hyped up application base and the most popular Windows OS to date.

Mac OS X security and desktop environment, on a real Mac, plus all the XP applications you want, minus the cost of the XP license. Dunno, seems like a steal to me.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[sickofthisshit]

put Windows applications in a sandbox that only appears to be integrated to the OS (from both the user's and Windows application's perspectives).

If this were possible (i.e., support all Win XP apps with such improvements in the infrastructure) with a small engineering effort, why would MS not have already done so?

Apple does not have software engineers with mystical powers compared to MS engineers. What allows their greater agility is that they don't need to support legacy decisions made long ago in Redmond and a wide range of existing apps with all of the matching cruft.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[drinkypoo]

"Has the NDAs" means that you're more restricted, not less. It doesn't help unless they also have the sources and documentation... And the APIs don't follow the documentation, anyway. It might be more of a hindrance than a help.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[himself]

>
> If this were possible (i.e., support all Win XP apps with such improvements
> in the infrastructure) with a small engineering effort, why would MS not
> have already done so?
>
      Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! ...

      Wait, you mean that?

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

except Apple has the NDAs to use the REAL windows APIs directly.

Maybe you hadn't noticed, but Apple develops Windows applications, too. You know, like QuickTime, iTunes, and Boot Camp's drivers. You're crazy if you think simply having access to Windows source means they can clone it.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[cirisme]

If this were possible (i.e., support all Win XP apps with such improvements in the infrastructure) with a small engineering effort, why would MS not have already done so?

There's lots of things that other companies have done and do that Microsoft doesn't. This doesn't imply those tasks are impossible.

And the ability to isolate software is regularly practiced in computer science and real IT. Chroot jails are an example of this. It's not even that difficult, and now there is software that brings this same basic technology to general consumers.

Just because Microsoft doesn't do something because of business reasons (or whyever they decide not to implement such a thing) doesn't mean that it's impossible. To do what the grandparent suggested would only take Wine + similar chroot technology. This is all basic stuff.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[DECS]

Here's an actual rundown of why Cringely's "Red Box" or "magical transparent emulation/virtualization/compatibility layer" isn't at all practical:

Unraveling the Red Box Myth
According to proponents of the Red Box Myth, Mac OS X will supposedly soon run Windows software natively, perhaps as soon as Leopard 10.5. They're wrong; here's why.

Here's why the idea behind running various different types of software doesn't really work in the real world:

Unraveling the Utopian System that Runs All Software Imaginable Myth
The Utopian System that Runs All Software Imaginable Myth speaks of a hardware or software solution that... does it all. It seems like such a great idea, but is it?

And here's an article explaining why pundits' ideas for "copying and pasting together various technologies" does not usually mean such ideas make any sense.

Unraveling The Copy/Paste Development Myth
According to proponents of this myth, complex software development is a something like making funny madlibs from refrigerator magnets. Pick out features, line them up appropriately, and voila: an operating system! They're wrong, here's why.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[Carthag]

Why bother supporting one OS when you can support many?

Do you even know what support means?

For those not in the know, support basically means, "we will make sure your shit works". How the hell is Apple going to make sure Windows works on their hardware? Honest question. Do you not think that is why they do not support it? The less commitment Apple makes to enabling users to run Windows on their hardware, the less problems they will have as a result of their users running windows on their hardware. This is not an argument pro or con the running of windows on Apple hardware, it's just fact.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[allenw]

How the hell is Apple going to make sure Windows works on their hardware? Honest question.

Even from the summary, Apple is already providing drivers for Windows as part of Boot Camp...so they must be doing some sort of qualification already.

I was looking at it from a different viewpoint, though. Why spend the time building support for APIs that are guaranteed to change with little-to-no warning (just ask IBM!) when you can leverage off of the open source community to provide you with a virtualization layer that not only supports one OS but supports other OSes as well? This gets you in the door with power users and also ensures that users who do want to use Windows will also have access--and a much easier time switching--to the Mac OS side of the platform due to it all running concurrently.

From a cost perspective, you basically move the engineering resources tied to Boot Camp over to Xen. So whether you're talking about "little s" support (does it run?) to "big s" Support (does it run well with the full backing of Apple), it is all do-able. [Would Apple support anything beyond the current version of Windows in a big s model? Probably not, especially given Apple's track record of supporting their own legacy products. Would Apple support anything else besides Windows? Again, unlikely, but they know those folks are fairly self reliant already.]

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[hcdejong]

Apple doesn't want it to be perfectly transparent. They want running Windows applications to be possible, but enough of a hassle that most people will prefer to run a real Mac application instead. Also, adding native Windows API support to OS X would require a major effort when it's much simpler just to offer virtualisation.

Remember how much time Microsoft spends updating their OS? Apple would basically have to duplicate this. Worse, they'd have to do a significant amount of reverse engineering as well, to keep up with all the unpublished crap in Windows.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[Crayon Kid]

Both you (the article you linked at) and a couple of other posters in this thread have mentioned the difficulty of Apple keeping up with Windows XP updates.

What XP updates?

First of all, XP SP2 is fairly stable right now. They can take the API and freeze it. (Yes, Apple has the code to XP, including SP2. Read the Cringely article.) No need to upgrade it any further. Most of Microsoft's upgrades are for security reasons anyway, and since Windows apps would presumably run sandboxed in some manner, even a big security flaw would be of no concern to the surrounding OS X.

Second, Microsoft themselves is preparing to ditch XP and shove Vista down everybody's throat. There's very little chance, IMHO, there's going to be a SP3 for XP.

So, hipothetically speaking, if Apple would sync this feature with the nearing launch of Vista, people would have two choices: (1) take a chance on Vista, with all the added extra spending on hardware upgrades, put up with the misery until SP1 and get used to all the new quirks. Or (2) buy an Apple, enjoy OS X and keep on running all the apps for XP they liked, already payed for, and no need to put up with any surprises.

That's what Cringely meant by "no chance for Microsoft to screw it up by accident". Of course that, given the opportunity, Microsoft would fuck up the API in some way to rain on Apple's parade. And it would be very hard for Apple to reverse engineer any post-SP2 changes anyway. No, if Apple does this is will be the SP2 API and that's it, final.

Re:They recommend an upgrade

[DECS]

Microsoft does plan a Service Pack 3 for XP, which is suposed to be released around the time of Vista. However, SP's are bug fixes & minor updates (similar to Apple's 10.4.n releases). As such, they don't really pose the problem.

XP isn't difficult to emulate as an "API" because Microsoft is doing updates, but rather because XP is a huge, monolithic, closed uber platform that even Microsoft has lots of trouble updating in a way that does not break somebody's existing code.

Clearly you didn't read about why copy paste development is a fanciful notion in the minds of tech writers with no experience in development or project management. Cringely is fine as a an industry gossip columnist, but as an engineer, he's only as good at imagineering products as a market droid or Pointy Head Boss.

Since you don't have a grasp of the issues involved in actually pulling this off technically (one clue: WINE has been working on this for a decade), let me bypass the technical difficulty by just dropping a ton of bricks upon the supposed advantage this would have for Apple in the marketplace:

It would convert Apple from being a progressive, alternative platform into a languishing copycat of Windows.

I vote no.

External drives

[Superblargo]

How about support for installing XP on an external drive so that you can use it on more than one Intel Mac or even other PCs? You would think that you could do that already, even though it would most likely have a niche use.

Re:External drives

[Rude Turnip]

I can already here Bill Gates saying "Let's 'buy them out' boys!!!!"

Re:External drives

[truthsearch]

That would be so useful! My web development company uses Macs. Obviously we need Windows for testing, so we keep one or two machines running just Windows. It would be so convenient to instead have one or two external drives that we could each bring into our offices as needed. I imagine it's biggest niche would be testers.

Re:External drives

[avalys]

What you need is a virtualization product, like Parallels Workstation or VMWare, that lets you run Windows in a window under OS X.

You can move and copy the virtual machines to however many machines you want.

Re:External drives

[gEvil (beta)]

You can move and copy the virtual machines to however many machines you want.

Or better yet, just leave the VM image file sitting on a file server somewhere so there'll be absolutely no worries about licensing issues (assuming you've licensed the software in that image file).

Re:External drives

[freedumb2000]

I havn'ttried this myslef, but: http://www.dualbootguru.com/bc%20-%20booting%20ext ernal%20hdd.shtml Only bummer is that you have to create a small NTFS partition on your internal drive. It seems like it is not necessary, but apperantly Windows won't create a pagingfile on an external drive.

Re:External drives

[drinkypoo]

Windows will create a paging file on any non-networked volume that can be recognized at boot time. However, last time I looked you couldn't turn off the one on the system volume, only reduce it to a megabyte or something. Older versions of windows will let you disable all paging files, but they can't actually run without one. (Hooray for Microsoft.)

Re:External drives

[mrspikersworth]

The way windows handles almost everything makes it non-portable across systems. Unlike our friend linux, is simply makes the (reasonable)assumption that the hardware it was installed on is the hardware it will be on permanently(plug n play excluded). A month or two ago I was at an IBM lab in New York and one of the guys had created a portable windows install on his ipod. The catch was first using Damn Small Linux to boot, and then making a virtual machine for windows to boot into. That way the windows install saw the same' 'machine' every time, and worked without a hitch.

Re:External drives

[Amouth]

if you have ram do what you do for a live cd.. disable page file.

Re:External drives

[engagebot]

You've got it mixed up. Boot Camp allows you to boot your Mac from a Windows installation natively. Therefore, its hardware dependant, just like a windows installation on regular windows pc. Transplanting one to the other won't work because of the driver differences between the two macs (assuming their not identical macs) Parallels (or some other virtualization) is what you're thinking of. *Virtual machines* can be trasplanted, but not Boot Camp installations of Windows. Interesting to note however, that Mac OSX installations have been fully 'transplantable' for a while. in other words, i could clone the hard drive from a G3 iBook to a quad G5 tower, and it'll boot just fine. No drivers to re-install or any of that stuff like you'd have in Windows. Our corporate network is mostly Mac here, and we routinely do this instead of having to jump through the hoops of Ghost and all the driver/authentication stuff on Windows.

Re:External drives

[engagebot]

Crap. Sorry about the formatting guys, in my mac-evangelistic frenzy I must have forgotten about the breaks...

Re:External drives

[Seq]

Don't forget Product Activation. Assuming you had like hardware that would not cause issues when moving between computers, the activation would prevent this functionality. Unless you had a specially-licensed version of Windows, in which case you are better off buying parallels for your testers and passing a single windows virtual machine around on the external hard disk as you suggested.

Re:External drives

[Senjaz]

Yes. Virtualisation is the best solution to this problem. Remember Internet Exploder is tied to Windows so you can only have one version of it installed at a time. Being able to run multiple copies of Windows each with it's own version of IE is very useful.

If you want to run multiple versions of Safari on Mac OS look here: http://www.michelf.com/projects/multi-safari/
There is hosted self-contained builds of Safari using all the released variants of the rendering engine. Credit to Michel Fortin for doing this.

Re:External drives

[JPFitting]

Agreed; but I think that the whole goal of BootCamp is to lure more people to purchase Apple products by giving them a chance to use the OS that they are used to and to slowly explore OSX in the process.

Re:External drives

[tag]

However, last time I looked you couldn't turn off the one on the system volume, only reduce it to a megabyte or something.
XP gives you three radio buttons in th Virtual Memory settings: Custom size, System managed size, or No paging file. So yes, you can turn it off. It may complain that you won't get debugging info, but I just tried it on my test PC.

Older versions of windows will let you disable all paging files, but they can't actually run without one.
98SE can. I've disabled the page file, rebooted, defragged, enabled it & rebooted. No sweat.

So as long as you have enough real memory, there should be no problem running XP on an Intel-based Mac with no page file. But I can't test it since I don't have one yet.

Re:External drives

[drinkypoo]

Older versions of windows will let you disable all paging files, but they can't actually run without one.

98SE can. I've disabled the page file, rebooted, defragged, enabled it & rebooted. No sweat.

Sorry, I made a serious omission, I meant Windows NT.

Re:First Post?

[Listen Up]

Oh well, apparently not, but at least it was close :-)

One more sale for Apple today :)

[Rude Turnip]

Well, the enhanced keyboard support will seal the deal for one of my co-workers who has been asking me about my experiences with XP on my Macbook Pro and about the computer in general. That will be three sales under my belt!

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[musikit]

you try installing XP without any SP or with SP1? i have an XP CD not sure if it includes SP1 or not but i dont want to upgrade to SP2 and get the WGA tool. i only use windows for 1 game anyway everything else i use OSS or free software for. their website says SP2 only however i was wondering if that was just "we support sp2 only" or if it was "install will fail unless you have sp2"

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[Anonymous Coward]

i have an XP CD not sure if it includes SP1 or not but i dont want to upgrade to SP2 and get the WGA tool.

SP2 doesn't include WGA. If you update through Automatic Updates with the "Notify me before downloading and installing" option you'll be given the opportunity to clear the checkbox for WGA.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[MaestroRC]

It's more of a "we don't support this at all" and "install will fail unless it's SP2".

I'm not sure what makes the difference, but something does. You can slipstream SP2 into a SP or SP1 disk and reburn it using a program like nLite (http://www.nliteos.com/).

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[tverbeek]

The lack of way to right-click using the trackpad, and the lack of a standard Delete key, were my main misgivings about Windows on Mac, and I figured Apple would fix that before final release of Boot Camp. We're buying laptops for all of our full-time faculty next month, and a bunch of the Windows-using folks have already requested MacBook Pros. Now if Apple can just add an Insert key somewhere...

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[musikit]

"we don't support this at all" - may or may not work. we cant give details. we cant release any information stating we are working on this or have worked on this or tried to see if it works

"install will fail unless its sp2" - we tried SP1 and if does not work at all. or we made a decision in our design process which stops sp1 from working.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[drinkypoo]

SP2 doesn't include WGA. If you update through Automatic Updates with the "Notify me before downloading and installing" option you'll be given the opportunity to clear the checkbox for WGA.

This is true, but with the caveat that only automatic updates will work if you don't have WGA; you can't use the windows update website. Thus if you want any updates you have to set it to download and notify or only notify and then disable installing WGA every time - or you will end up with WGA.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus if you want any updates you have to set it to download and notify or only notify and then disable installing WGA every time - or you will end up with WGA.

It should pop up a dialog after rejecting WGA the first time to remember your selection. The last round of updates didn't prompt me for WGA. Although if M$ releases a new, updated WGA maybe that remembered choice is nullified.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[rikkards]

I believe you can check off Updates to not ask you to install WGA (until MS decides to change it) as I recall doing that a while back.

Additionally, you can have your swap file on any partition and it doesn't have to be on your System partition with XP. You just have to set it to No Paging file for the C: drive (assuming XP is on C:)

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[Rude Turnip]

A word of caution on using an XP disc that is slipstreamed to SP2...this is what I initially did with my old Dell XP (pre SP) disc...not a "recovery" disc, but an actual XP installation disc that Dell provided. I used Nlite to create an SP2 slipstreamed disc to install Windows XP on my Mac. The installation would only go so far on the Mac and then freeze up, even after updating various components based upon numerous message boards. It's possible that the problem arose since Dell may have rearranged some files, but I have no way to verify this. Since this was for work and had to work, period, I ended up shelling out for a new retail copy of XP with SP2 already built-in. My $0.02.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[mabhatter654]

Boot camp is only "guaranteed" to work with RETAIL XP + SP2, no other version is supported by Apple.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Wait...someone please explain to me what's Evil about WGA. I understand that it has a false positive and false negative rate, and I understand that even though this should be expected of all tools, in the case of WGA any false results is a Bad Thing, but why, if I run WGA and it considers my install legitimate, should I worry about it?

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[drinkypoo]

why, if I run WGA and it considers my install legitimate, should I worry about it?

Because WGA phones home to Microsoft with your information, to which they have no right.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[HTH NE1]

Now if Apple can just add an Insert key somewhere...

Can I toggle Insert functionality if my keyboard has no Insert key?

Yes, you can toggle Insert functionality on or off with the Help key if your keyboard doesn't have an "Insert" key.

I instead would like to disable the Help key when under Mac OS X. I keep hitting it when I want to backspace or delete, but I don't want to pop the keycap off.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[DECS]

Well not specifically "retail," but it does not work with non-SP2, Media Center Editions, or upgrades.

It does work with corporate XP SP2 CDs, which have no register/authorization system.

Re:One more sale for Apple today :)

[Anonymous Coward]

The lack of way to right-click using the trackpad...

Is this good enough?

Re:Attention drooling Mac dumbasses:

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

I guess selling more macs than they never did is part of dying..

Wait till the next release!

[192939495969798999]

I can't wait for the next release, it will be 2 gigs large, crash all the time, and infect your machine with tons of spyware/malware! Just like the real thing! (dux)

Re:Wait till the next release!

[krakelohm]

So your saying they will be INCLUDING Windows with Boot Camp? Sweet.

Re:Wait till the next release!

[aliquis]

Uhm, it is the real thing. Or well, drivers for the real thing, but anyway.

Windows 2000 support?

[MMC Monster]

Any word on better support for Windows 2000?

I would love to support Win2K and downgrade from WinXP. Something to be said for stability at end-of-life. :-)

Re:Windows 2000 support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is that apple switched to SATA, which is the reason why SP2 specifically is needed, that was the first version to ship with sata drivers and without a floppy drive, you have no other way to get the thing on there.

I suspect that if you got win2k installed on there with all the appropriate drivers (pull drive, use sata-to-pata convertor, install, install sata driver), then it should at least boot, though the mac driver disk may not.

Re:Windows 2000 support?

[ioErr]

Boot Camp is only intended for Windows XP. At least officially, and at least for now. While I'd expect Apple to support Windows Vista once it's left beta I don't expect them to put much effort into supporting Windows 2000.

Re:Windows 2000 support?

[drinkypoo]

I suspect that if you got win2k installed on there with all the appropriate drivers (pull drive, use sata-to-pata convertor, install, install sata driver), then it should at least boot, though the mac driver disk may not.

If you used a SATA-PATA bridge, then the drive would be in a different location, and you would get INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE when you switched back because NT is stupid like that.

On the other hand, if you hit F6 right after setup loads, and install a "third-party driver", then I don't see why you couldn't use win2k, or nt4 for that matter - assuming drivers even exist for either one for your hardware.

Re:Windows 2000 support?

[Amouth]

you can always add driver support into the 2k install cd.. it isn't that hard

iSight camera support

[jeffphil]

Presumably, iSight camera support means that there are windows drivers now.

Anyone tried an external iSight camera plugged into any old windows machine with the bootcamp driver to see if that works, as well? Previously, the external iSight cameras were OSX only. This may open more sales of iSight for Apple on these items, too.

Re: iSight camera support

[ip_fired]

I used an external iSight on my PC. It's just a firewire camera, and it worked pretty well. The software I was using didn't handle the color balance very well, but the camera automatically focused and was okay. It did work much better on my powerbook though.

Re: iSight camera support

[demon]

Strangely, I have an iSight plugged into my (x86, non-Apple) Linux box, and it works just fine...

Re: iSight camera support

[Anonymous Coward]

The camera worked under windows, but not the microphone part.

Drivers are a big change in 1.1B

[amichalo]

It appears that support for some Mac specific hardware - like the built in iSight cameras in Mac Books, and right-mouse-click functionality with the track pad are big usability improvements in this release.

Since you won't have to repartition or reinstall to upgrade, this looks like a great update for Mac laptop users

Re:Drivers are a big change in 1.1B

[Foo2rama]

So we got right click functionality with the track pad now? So I can 2 finger tap on macbooks and 2 of the 3 macbook pro's and get right click?

Re:Drivers are a big change in 1.1B

[amichalo]

I haven't tested this. I am sure Apple covers the specifics in the release notes.

Apple Boot Camp FAQ updated

[swid27]

The Apple Boot Camp FAQ has also been updated; it has a list of drivers included in 1.1 and notes that several miscellaneous quirks have been fixed (most notably for me, Windows now remembers the correct time settings).

Re:Apple Boot Camp FAQ updated

[Bruce McBruce]

Oh awesome. Now we don't need to run time resyncs on Windows startup. I'd say that trumps built-in iSight support.

Boot Camp for Linux? Others?

[HTH NE1]

Has anyone tried using Boot Camp to multiboot a Mac between Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Linux or other options?

My new Mac Pro should be arriving this week. I plan to use both Boot Camp and Parallels with it. I'd like as much flexibility to run different OSes as possible.

Speaking of Windows XP Support

[Rude Turnip]

Can anyone comment on XP still working fine on the upcoming 64-bit Intel (Merom?) chips that Apple is due to put in their Macbook Pros soon?

Re:Speaking of Windows XP Support

[FuturePastNow]

Still working? Why would XP stop working on Core 2 processors?

Re:Speaking of Windows XP Support

[Rude Turnip]

I'm wondering about the issue of Windows XP working on a 64-bit processor. Would you need to get 64-bit XP or would the regular one run just fine? I'm talking about a machine that would be used in a professional environment among otherwise standardized Dell desktops--so it would have to "just work".

Re:Speaking of Windows XP Support

[Westacular]

The regular WinXP should run just fine, as it has on the wide variety of EMT64/AMD64 processors Intel and AMD have released over the past several years. Core 2 is backwards compatible with IA32 just like every Athlon 64 is. Programs running under standard WinXP aren't be able to use the 64-bit extensions or the additional registers (doing so requires "Windows XP x64 Edition").

Looks like Insert is supported

[UnknownSoldier]

BootCamp FAQ

Can I toggle Insert functionality if my keyboard has no Insert key?

Yes, you can toggle Insert functionality on or off with the Help key if your keyboard doesn't have an "Insert" key.

Now if only OSX would support the insert toggle in native editors...

Now really

[Udo Schmitz]

"Now, I am really thinking about getting a mac....."

One dollar for everytime I have to read that line on /. and I could quit work.

Re:Boot Camp for Linux? Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux (tried with Ubuntu) runs fine, but you can only have three partitions total.

Re:Boot Camp for Linux? Others?

[Grim Grepper]

Boot camp is nothing more than a set of Windows drivers. The BIOS emulation layer, which allows other operating systems to boot, is part of a firmware update. Newer machines like the Mac Pro most likely come from the factory with this firmware. So your ability to run Linux or other operating systems will depend on the drivers available for them.

My Macs work just fine...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Macs work just fine without Windows installed, thank you very much. They don't crash, get viruses, or take 10 minutes to boot up...

Re:My Macs work just fine...

[stormen81]

WinXP Pro boots just as fast as Mac OSX does on my MacBook Pro.

Re:My Macs work just fine...

[chrisxkelley]

yeah, until you actually start to install software- then you'll see. my mbp takes at least two minutes to boot xp, whereas it takes just over 30 seconds to boot osx

32GB FAT partitions?

[HTH NE1]

From the same FAQ:

During installation, the Windows XP installer asks me to format the Windows partition using NTFS or FAT. Which should I use?

If the partition is 32 GB or smaller, you can use either FAT or NTFS. If it's larger than 32 GB, then you can only format it using NTFS. Mac OS X can read and write FAT volumes, but only read NTFS volumes. Refer to the Windows XP documentation if you are not sure which best suits your needs.

Another source says that while Windows XP won't format a volume larger than 32 GiB as FAT, it can in fact read and write FAT volumes formatted up to 2 TiB when formatted by another operating system:

The FastFAT driver can mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file system, such as those created locally by Windows 98 or ME in dual boot configuration, (subject to other limits listed here for Windows 98, ME and 2000 and here for Windows XP), but you cannot CREATE one using the Format tool from within either Windows 2000 Professional or XP Professional. If you attempt to format a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB, the format fails near the end of the process with the following error message: Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big.

So, is there a tool for Mac OS X that will pre-format this partition as a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GiB, and will Mac OS X still be able to read and write to it?

My Mac Pro will be used primarily for video editing and I'd like to be able to put my captured video on a partition that can be read and written by both Mac OS X and Windows XP, but it'll have to be and support files much bigger than 32 GiB. (Unfortunately FAT32, even when breaking the 32 GiB volume barrier, still has a 4 GiB filesize limit.)

Is MacDrive 6 the only solution for Windows XP being able to read/write the varieties of HFS volumes? Well, other than CrossStripe, a special version of MacDrive 5. I may be OK with a solution that denies XP's ability to modify HFS volumes/partitions (safer that way).

Re:32GB FAT partitions?

[FishWithAHammer]

Here's a partial solution (note I have no Macintosh, so my struggles are Windows Linux):

IFS ext2/3 drivers

It's free, it's solid (I also have another driver that I use to convert my Linux swap partition into a usable partition under Windows, where its swap is stored too), and it stores files up to, what, 2 TiB?

If there's a Mac ext2/3 driver (and there's gotta be, eh?), this might help you out.

HTH

-Ed

No, you can't

[oboeaaron]

You cannot boot a G5 from a G3/G4 boot volume, or vice versa. There are different, incompatible files that are installed by the OS installer depending on the CPU in use. For the most part, however, your point that a Mac OS X boot volume will boot several different hardware sets without difficulty is correct, and one of the nicest facets of the Mac from the tech support POV. The only gotchas I have run into are the G4/G5 divide mentioned above, and the occasional new devices which require drivers not included in the older OS X installer media (but which are obviously included on the media that ship with the newer Mac). One example is the scrolling trackpad.

XP doesn't support booting off USB

[SuperBanana]

How about support for installing XP on an external drive so that you can use it on more than one Intel Mac or even other PCs?

XP doesn't support booting off USB, because swap can't be on USB. There are some hacks to do it, but it isn't pretty. Firewire is better, but still not ideal. Also, XP is liable to be extremely unhappy (licensing-wise) with switching to completely new hardware all the time, unless it is the 'corporate' version...so your bit about switching between different intel macs is mostly pointless. As for switching between intel macs and other PCs, not going to happen- drivers are almost all different.

The closest solution, most likely, is a eSATA adapter card and external drive; there's at least one Expresscard for MB/MBPs now. Other options include waiting for the next beta of Parallels (which reportedly will feature full 3D hardware use/acceleration, supposedly good enough for gaming- I'm highly skeptical and will believe it when I see it) or using a small C: partition on the internal drive, and a larger external firewire/USB drive (or a file server!) for all your programs and data.

Aside from the functionality...

[Bruce McBruce]

My Macbook Pro's running quite a lot cooler while in XP... hm.

What's "right clicks with the apple key" mean?

[argent]

Is it "hold the right apple key and click the trackpad button", which sounds awkward?

Or is it "tap the right apple key for a click", which sounds, well, why the hell won't they let us do that in OS X? The "two finger tap" trick on the trackpad is cute but, like the Mighty Mouse, it feels like a kind of passive-aggressive assault on people who are still resisting the cult of the single button mouse.

(STEVE: IT'S OK, PEOPLE DON'T HATE YOU FOR HAVING TWO BUTTONS ON THE NEXT)

Parallel's Desktop!

[argent]

Windows 2000 runs beautifully in Parallels, and the MUCH smaller footprint is a big advantage there. Parallels is quite efficient, why reboot when you can run both concurrently?

Windows for Testing

[argent]

Parallels Desktop is the logical way to do that.

Boot Camp Doesn't like multipartition machines

[xbill]

I have tried multiple versions of bootcamp-
and they all have the same flaw.

Just because I have a linux partition doesn't mean that I SHOULDN'T
be able to burn an updated win XP drivers CD...

The multiple partition check in Bootcamp is REALLY REALLY BROKEN!!!

It should allow burning of winxp update drivers CD even *if* there are
multiple partitions (ie triple boot mac/win/linux)....