Apple Fails To Deliver On Windows 7 Boot Camp Promise

SkydiverFL writes "For those fans of Apple's Boot Camp package, it looks like you might be waiting on the next 'end of year' to use Windows 7 on your shiny silver boxes. Back in October of this year, Apple published a rather short, but affirmative promise stating quite simply that, 'Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.' The support page has no updates regarding the new version. Maybe they're waiting for iSlate?"

Comments

Why do you eschew choice?

[SuperKendall]

If you buy a Mac Laptop, you can run Windows, Linux or OS X, all fully supported.

If you buy a Windows laptop, you can't officially run OS X - and of course it comes pre-loaded with Windows, not OS X.

Considering you also get better quality hardware, it seems reasonable to pay a little more for more choice.

Bootcamp a gimmick

[fermion]

I always saw bootcamp as a gimmick to encourage MS Windows users to switch to Apple Hardware. If one buys a mac, and really can't stand OS X, one can always go back to MS Windows. Or if MS Windows must be run occasionally, then Bootcamp is an effective way to do so.

While it is valid to complain that Apple missed a deadline, I am kind of surprised that Apple even made the effort to create a deadline. I cannot imagine people paying Apple prices to run MS Windows on an exclusive basis. I can imagine them paying such prices to run virtual machines with other OS.

I would rather see Apple point customers toward Parallels or Fusion rather than working on trying to get MS Windows to work as the base OS. What would be even more cool is a kernal that could then be used to run any number of OS in virtual mode.

Re:Bootcamp a gimmick

[stokessd]

I always saw bootcamp as a gimmick to encourage MS Windows users to switch to Apple Hardware. If one buys a mac, and really can't stand OS X, one can always go back to MS Windows. Or if MS Windows must be run occasionally, then Bootcamp is an effective way to do so.

I use BootCamp for playing games (I still play a lot of UT2004) and for doing CAD (Autodesk Inventor and PCB design). All those really benefit from direct booting into windows. Plus the fascist copy protection in the CAD programs makes it difficult to run in parallels. I do use parallels for light CAD work and such, and I just boot from the BootCamp partition using parallels. IT's the best of both worlds.

I need windows around to do things like PCB design, because there are no viable Mac alternatives. There is a lot of scientific packages are just plain don't exist on the Mac. With the Mac I have OS X for my daily stuff and much of my engineering design work, and occasionally use Windows for the few things I can't do on the mac. All on one quiet machine.

Windows 7 works fine on my mid 2009 17" MBP using the vista drivers. I run XP though, as I don't need or want the extra features of "7" and the smaller footprint of XP makes it nicer for my needs.

Sheldon

Lost a little of my soul, but no other issues

[RunzWithScissors]

Oddly, Windows 7 works just fine on my MacBook Pro 15".

There was a Firmware update about 2 weeks ago, which may have been what we were waiting for; but I had no problems with it when I installed it today.

-Runz

Wait,

[Movi]

So, the version i am running from Snow Leopard, that says "compatible with Windows 7" right there on the setup screen is actually NOT compatible with windows 7.

FTFA:

You cannot run your Mac applications simultaneously

No one notified me of this! Ive been running it like that since I installed it!

You cannot safely resize the Mac or Windows partitions

Got me again! Next time i'll try it, i'll make sure to do it as unsafely as i can.

You cannot easily transfer files between the two partitions (without third-party support)

I'll stop using the hfs driver in boot camp right away (once i learn to disable it. Damn apple making stuff just work).

Seriously, anyone reading CNet for legitimate stories should have his head checked.

Re:The Vista drivers work fine

[Z_A_Commando]

I have a friend with a 2008 MacBook Pro that absolutely could not, for whatever reason, get Windows 7 to run correctly on Bootcamp. He would start it up and be able to get to the login screen, but his MBP would report the keyboard and touchpad as something non-generic and require a driver that doesn't yet exist for Window 7. He could force-install a generic driver but the exact same thing would happen the next time Windows restarted because it detects a less than ideal driver and replaces it.

Last I checked he was running 7 inside VMware instead, but he'd rather run it without a host OS under Bootcamp. As has been said lower here, it's not about the ability to run Windows 7 on Bootcamp, it's Apple's support of it. What's disappointing is they've had a lot longer than the GA of Windows 7 to put together this "update" and still haven't done it.

Re:The Vista drivers work fine

[Fussen]

I have had similar issues with the keyboard drivers myself. I have a 2007 Macbook Pro and when I tried to install the 64-bit version of Windows, I couldn't initialize the install because after EFI boot, I couldn't hit "Any key" to start the installer..

The 32-bit version of Windows 7 was a success.. for some reason, that installer allowed me to press any key and begin the process. I am writing from Windows 7 on my mac right now, and I used the snow leopard disc to install my drivers. All went fine as such.. but the ATI x1600 video card driver sucks.. and the Omega ATI drivers are not ready for Vista/7 yet, so I have done some driver updates myself after the snow leopard package.