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

[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

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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?

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.

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!

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)

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.

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).