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

The Vista drivers work fine

[jonbryce]

There is no need to wait. I installed Windows 7 bootcamp on the day it was released on Technet, and it worked fine with the Vista drivers.

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

[PatJensen]

This is not true. I also installed Windows 7 off of TechNet at launch, but a lot of stuff is broken. You will not get external audio jack support with Windows 7 OEM drivers on iMac 2009 machines. You will also not get internal microphone or mixer support with Windows 7 OEM drivers on iMac 2009 machines. If you intend on using any Voice over IP applications, Cisco IP Communicator, Ventrilo, Microsoft OCS - install Vista. And, updated sound drivers will not fix your problem. The Intel chipset drivers that ship native to boot camp are what are needed to map the mixer. Windows 7 driver support on iMac's are a sorry state of affairs.

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.

Re:The Vista drivers work fine

[dissy]

You are correct in that the OEM drivers built into Windows 7 do not support Apple hardware.

Just install the drivers off the OS X DVD into Windows 7 and all that hardware will work.

If your complaint is the drivers are not built into Win7, then you are complaining at the wrong company. Apple does not make Windows 7...

Why bother?

[moderators_are_w*nke]

If you wanted a Windows laptop why would you pay all that money?

Re:Why bother?

[furball]

PC World's fastest Windows laptop in 2007 was a MacBook Pro

Re:Why bother?

[E IS mC(Square)]

WTF? It's like saying somebody should buy an F1 car just because it's fastest, while they actually need something which does not cost them their house and children, not require special fuel and can run on ordinary road. Way to go on a tangent!

Re:Why bother?

[TrancePhreak]

This is 2010, and the MacBook Pro is very behind. Where's the Core i7? Something newer than the NV9600? Where's the lower price?

Re:Why bother?

[mingrassia]

WTF? It's like saying somebody should buy an F1 car just because it's fastest

I agree 100%. People should buy a machine to suit their needs. Anyone who blindly buys the fastest model available is just being egotistical and foolish.

which does not cost them their house and children

A new Mac mini goes for $599 and a MacBook is $999. This is hardly "house and children" figures. Pick a reasonable Mac then go to Dell and spec out a similar machine. The PC prices will be in a close neighborhood.

not require special fuel and can run on ordinary road

This article is not about the iPhone. It is about Apple systems running OS X that can utilize Boot Camp.

Hardly any "special fuel" required on OS X systems. Take your pick from any of the great open source apps available for the platform: Firefox, Thunderbird, Inkscape, Gimp, VLC, Eclipse, the list goes on. Wanna write some code? Xcode comes free with OS X. Don't wanna use Xcode, then use another IDE or directly use make, gcc, gdb, and vim.

As for your "ordinary road" comment ... I'm writing this on a four year old iMac. Over the years I've upgraded the memory (Crucial has great prices) and hard drive (1TB was only $99 at Fry's). My mouse of choice is a five button Logitech scroll mouse. I hardly feel "locked in" or "abused".

Way to go on a tangent!

Way to spread FUD. How about we just let people use the computer that best suits their needs.

Getting back on topic, I've been running Windows 7 in both Boot Camp and Parallels 5 with no problems. I don't know what the damage is with this "article".

Re:Why bother?

[iron-kurton]

Sounds like my parents' daily trip to school

Re:Why bother?

[RedK]

You're comparing a tower PC to a small form factor PC. The only Dell comparable to a Mac Mini is a Studio Hybrid (the Zino and Zino HD use low power processors that aren't up to par with the Core 2 Duo in the Mini). The small form factor PCs are always a bit more expensive due to requiring laptop parts instead of desktop parts. Price out a Studio Hybrid vs a Mac Mini and compare more than just 3 specs (RAM, HD, CPU) and you'll see Apple isn't priced out of the market like you claim. But of course, that would require a good faith effort on your part.

Umm...

[Darkness404]

Um, I was under the impression that it was trivial to install Windows 7 on a Mac even without official boot camp support (per http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/01/15/using-boot-camp-to-install-windows-7-on-your-mac-the-complete-walkthrough/) whats the difference between the tutorial and what you would do normally?

i just posted this comment on my 27" imac

[rizawbone]

running windows 7. what's the issue? everything works great.

Apple haters...

[TimHunter]

...line up here on the left. No need to crowd, there'll be plenty of room for everybody. This is Slashdot, so remember the rules. Only fags and hipsters use Macs. "Fanboys" is spelled "fanbois." Macs are expensive, shiny and there aren't any games worth playing.

Use the Preview button!

Re:Apple haters...

[drmitch]

I dunno. I switched to Mac in September after making fun of them for my entire life. Although I paid more than I would for a PC (just saying I would have purchased a 500 dollar PC laptop that didn't have the same specs as a MBP) I am quite happy with the little things that Apple does in the hardware and software. I do miss a few Windows programs (especially being an engineer and coder and needing the special software/hardware) but 98% of the time, I am perfectly happy with the visuals, lack of viruses, *NIX capability, and user-friendliness of my MBP.

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.

Re:Why do you eschew choice?

[zblack_eagle]

While I consider my aluminium macbook to be of excellent design and hardware quality, the first generation macbook that I had before this was absolutely atrocious. Random reboots, dying batteries, malfunctioning chargers, wireless that wouldn't connect under bootcamp and an optical drive that required prying a second disc half way in to be able to eject the first disc.

On the topic of the article, Vista drivers work fine, but one thing I did not appreciate was having to (though easily) find a work around to Apple's arbitrary restriction on limiting the installation of x64 drivers to the macbook pros. Not sure what the stupid rationale would've been for that as the drivers work fine and nobody would've chosen to buy a macbook pro just to run Windows x64

Re:Why do you eschew choice?

[mfnickster]

If enough people request it, I'm sure Apple will include it.

They already did-- but they call it "safe sleep," and it's not easily accessible from the System Preferences.

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/pmset.1.html
http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html

Re:jesus christ

[PitaBred]

It's still not out by when they promised. That's all there is to it. Sure, give the employees time off. They still didn't do the job.

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

Apple Specific Drivers

[WarpedCore]

From what I heard, OS X uses certain low level functions that control processor speed/voltage within the OS itself versus what conventionally would be done through a BIOS on a normal PC. Apple uses EFI... I know that. Just reading about some of the "dangers" if using a Mac to run Linux... main reason being, you have a likeliness of damaging the CPU if all you run are intensive tasks under Linux. Apple wrote drivers that deal with this stuff under Windows. All in all, Vista drivers will work fine... but I'm just picky about "official bootcamp support" even if it is a gimmick. Apple wouldn't be putting an ounce of elbow grease into it unless there was something important they were writing into it to ensure a smooth experience.

Re:Apple Specific Drivers

[dgatwood]

Windows 7 supports EFI natively. You apparently do need Apple drivers to use the internal keyboard and trackpad on laptops, though.

Regarding power management, AFAIK, the worst case scenario would be if the SMC drivers didn't load, in which case after the SMC's watchdog timer fires, the SMC should bring all the fans up to full blast. You're not going to overheat the CPU by failing to load the drivers. You can verify this if you'd like. With your computer idle, unload the fan control KEXT. Thirty seconds or a minute later, the fans should ramp up. When you reload the KEXT, they should spin immediately back down to what you'd expect with the machine idle. At least this is what happens in the G5 towers. I'm assuming the Intel laptops behave the same way.

CPU power management is handled by the CPU, not by any special bits in the chipset, AFAIK, so that should be unaffected no matter what. And the hardware is designed to protect against getting too hot, so at some point, the CPU starts putting itself to sleep to keep the temperature within bounds, and if even that isn't enough, the computer shuts down. AFAIK, most of that happens in hardware, so even a really broken OS shouldn't be able to damage hardware. At the very least, it's pretty unlikely.

Re:Virtualbox

[BrentH]

Graphic cards arent virtualized. So if you want games, you gotta go to the Bootcamp!

Stop with the "Better quality hardware"

[IANAAC]

It's readily available in non-Apple form.

Re:Stop with the "Better quality hardware"

[nabsltd]

Not even close, at least not for the Mac Pro (which I considered for a while until the price realization came).

The 8-core Mac Pro base sells for $3299. I tried to duplicate the hardware, but unfortunately you can't buy some of it at most stores any more as it's older (i.e., nobody sells it anymore because it's junk compared to current hardware).

• $420 motherboard that is considerably better than that on the Mac Pro, as it includes SAS 2.0 RAID and IPMI (similar to HP's ILO). There are many other similar motherboards in the same price range with slightly different feature sets (SLI support, etc.), so you can pick and choose to get exactly what you might need.
• $770 for 2x Xeon 5520, the same CPU as on the base Mac Pro
• $417 for 12 GB DDR3 RAM, twice that of the base Mac Pro
• $75 Caviar Black 640GB hard drive, which is likely better than what is in the Mac Pro
• $30 24x DVD writer, faster and more fully featured than the Apple "SuperDrive"
• $70 GT 220 video card, which is better than the GT 120 included with the Mac Pro (the GT 120 is basically not available for sale any more because it's about 3 generations behind current tech)
• $300 for case and power supply (a generous allowance, for sure)

So, for less than $2100, you can far exceed the specs on the $3300 Mac Pro, and these are nowhere near the lowest prices on this hardware...it's just that Newegg carries everything and their search is very good.

Re:Stop with the "Better quality hardware"

[PixetaledPikachu]

The list of complete models must be limited, or you get the chaos of half-assed support and conflicting drivers which exists in the Windows world. Apple has a reputation for ease of use, and part of the reason for that is having very specific models with very specific parts designed to work together. Once you open the gates to allow anyone to put just anything they want in the machine, you have support issues. It's a closed product with limited options. If Apple products don't suit you, don't use them. Simple as that. But you come across as a maligned Apple-hater when you could just say "Meh, not for me" instead. I would expect better from someone with a low ID.

the grand parent post purpose is to specifically shows that "better quality" as in "apple form" does not have to be as expensive as apple hardware. To that extent, the post is extremely spot-on

Re:Virtualbox

[binarylarry]

Not entirely correct.

Virtualizing the graphics card already has support for all the major VMs (VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels, etc) and it's being actively worked on with support from the big GPU ISVs.

Re:Virtualbox

[TheRaven64]

Don't see any Linux vendors bragging about what a big extra "feature" GRUB is, and it does the same thing. Often more transparently.

Really? I admit I haven't used GRUB for a couple of years and it may have improved since I last did, but I don't remember it letting me pop in a Windows CD, helping me resize my existing partitions, then installing Windows and setting up the correct third-party drivers for my hardware. Does it really do all of that now?

uhhh...

[FatdogHaiku]

Maybe they're waiting for iSlate?

iGuess...

Its Very Doable now

[anethema]

Here is some info not provided in the rest of the 'I'm posting from Win7" posts here is some helpful information.

First, the Snow Leopard DVD includes boot camp 3.0, which VASTLY improves the use of the touchpad under Windows XP or Vista. It also mostly works under Windows 7.

If you don't have a Snow Leopard DVD, here is a link to the drivers on TPB:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5054638/Bootcamp_Driver_3.0_for_Windows_32bit__amp__64bit_%28from_Snow_Leopard

After installing this updating the sound drivers and video drivers would be advisable since the ones that come in boot camp suck and/or cause crashes.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us for video drivers. Select windows-7 then 32 or 64 bit depending on which you've chosen.
ac
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false

After this it should be reasonably stable.

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.

No, actually, they're not

[ifwm]

"The PC prices will be in a close neighborhood."

This hasn't been true for 5 years, and gets less true every day.

It fun to watch you people get modded up for something that is, essentially, an easily disproven lie.