Bootcamp Questions

[hkriffraff]

I was all geared up to install Bootcamp and XP, then I read that there is no iSight driver included. And what's with the Apple disclaimer saying that Bootcamp is available to use for a "limited time"? Will this version stop working at some point?

Would I have to manually install additional drivers as they become available?
Is it easy to remove the XP partition (and reallocate the hard disk space to OS X) if necessary?

 

[yippy]

You just found about all of the downsides of BootCamp.

iSight doesn't work with it yet as there are no drivers for it. However, all the drivers you need except for the iSight are included in BootCamp. If drivers became available for the iSight you would have to manually install them yourself.

The limited time means that you can only download it during that time but no one knows if it will stop working or not. However, even if it does stop working it will not affect an existing Windows install. BootCamp is actually only used to set up Windows running on your Mac (it partitions the drive correctly and provides the drivers needed) and is not needed or used when booting from Windows.

Unfortunately it seems that people are having a lot of problems removing the partition, as is always the case when partitioning a drive. Essentially, the only way to do it is to back everything up, completely erase the drive and then partition it as one drive.

 

[Chundles]

Yeah, Boot Camp is a beta program but you only ever run it once. When it's all done and the Windows install is complete you never actually run it again unless you want to delete the partition.

 

[2ndPath]

Unfortunately it seems that people are having a lot of problems removing the partition, as is always the case when partitioning a drive. Essentially, the only way to do it is to back everything up, completely erase the drive and then partition it as one drive.

For me removing the additional partition using bootcamp worked fine a couple of times. However after I changed something to the partition table with another program, bootcamp was no longer able to remove the windows partition. In that case I had to reinstall to get back my drive as one single partition.

 

[Bern]

30 seconds to remove the partition using Bootcamp... 2 hours reinstalling XP and it's updates.

Agree with everyone above. Once you've installed XP Bootcamp serves no useful purpose except to delete the partition it created or establish a new one.

 

[hkriffraff]

So basically the only downside to installing Bootcamp/XP now rather than later is that I'll need to manually install drivers for iSight later?

Is there currently any way to get iSight working in XP?

 

[Chundles]

So basically the only downside to installing Bootcamp/XP now rather than later is that I'll need to manually install drivers for iSight later?

Is there currently any way to get iSight working in XP?

If Apple ever release drivers for the iSight - at the moment the only drivers they released are the ones that make the computer usable in Windows (video, keyboard, bluetooth, airport), I doubt they're going to add iSight support until 10.5 comes out and Boot Camp becomes what it is meant to be. I think it will function like a hybrid between what's available now and Parallels Desktop - you can run Windows within OSX but you also have the option of booting into Windows for games and stuff that Parallels can't handle.

 

[hkriffraff]

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