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Tsurisuto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 13, 2007
345
7
I know the Mac Pros ship with x64 driver support for Vista, but do the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros support the 64bit version of Vista as well?
 

brkirch

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2001
191
1
I would like to know this as well. There must be someone here with a new MacBook or MacBook Pro that has tried using Vista x64!
 

izibo

macrumors 6502
Oct 6, 2004
265
0
Has nothing to do with the "NEW" MB or MBP's.

It has to do with Leopard and Bootcamp.

Actually, it has everything to do with it. All computers shipped before the 2008 Mac Pro's didn't include full x64 drivers. This includes the Leopard retail discs. Therefore, it is completely understandable for people to wonder if the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros will include x64 drivers on their restore DVDs.

It might we worthwhile to check on the facts before condescendingly instructing people to do a google search.
 

kkat69

macrumors 68020
Aug 30, 2007
2,013
2
Atlanta, Ga
Actually, it has everything to do with it. All computers shipped before the 2008 Mac Pro's didn't include full x64 drivers. This includes the Leopard retail discs. Therefore, it is completely understandable for people to wonder if the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros will include x64 drivers on their restore DVDs.

It might we worthwhile to check on the facts before condescendingly instructing people to do a google search.

It might be worthwhile to check if the drivers are COMPUTER related.

THEY ARE NOT! It's the Leopard disks. The COMPUTERS do not provide the drivers. The Leopard installation disks do. You CAN, although I might have to check, get the leopard installation disks without the NEW computers right?

Please Mr, help me out here, Can you obtain Leopard without the computers?

Hmmm, lemme check the Apple store................... YES It sure does seem that you can.

So before YOU berate someone make sure YOU check your common sense facts.

It has nothing to do with the "NEW" computers. It has to do with the OS Disks that you CAN obtain without them.
 

brkirch

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2001
191
1
It might be worthwhile to check if the drivers are COMPUTER related.

THEY ARE NOT! It's the Leopard disks. The COMPUTERS do not provide the drivers. The Leopard installation disks do. You CAN, although I might have to check, get the leopard installation disks without the NEW computers right?

Please Mr, help me out here, Can you obtain Leopard without the computers?

Hmmm, lemme check the Apple store................... YES It sure does seem that you can.

So before YOU berate someone make sure YOU check your common sense facts.

It has nothing to do with the "NEW" computers. It has to do with the OS Disks that you CAN obtain without them.

The drivers are computer specific, I guarantee that if you buy a Leopard disc today that it will NOT have drivers for 64 bit Vista. Currently only the Mac Pro restore discs have been confirmed to include 64 bit Vista drivers, and since there has been no official announcement about 64 bit drivers being added to Boot Camp, we are simply asking if the MacBook and MacBook Pro updates are continuing that trend.
 

izibo

macrumors 6502
Oct 6, 2004
265
0
It might be worthwhile to check if the drivers are COMPUTER related.

THEY ARE NOT! It's the Leopard disks. The COMPUTERS do not provide the drivers. The Leopard installation disks do. You CAN, although I might have to check, get the leopard installation disks without the NEW computers right?

Please Mr, help me out here, Can you obtain Leopard without the computers?

Hmmm, lemme check the Apple store................... YES It sure does seem that you can.

So before YOU berate someone make sure YOU check your common sense facts.

It has nothing to do with the "NEW" computers. It has to do with the OS Disks that you CAN obtain without them.

Swing and a miss. As I said, Leopard retail discs and any other restore disks shipped with machines other than the 2008 Mac Pros (pending confirmation of these new machines) ship with only 32bit XP and Vista drivers.
 

kkat69

macrumors 68020
Aug 30, 2007
2,013
2
Atlanta, Ga
The drivers are computer specific, I guarantee that if you buy a Leopard disc today that it will NOT have drivers for 64 bit Vista. Currently only the Mac Pro restore discs have been confirmed to include 64 bit Vista drivers, and since there has been no official announcement about 64 bit drivers being added to Boot Camp, we are simply asking if the MacBook and MacBook Pro updates are continuing that trend.

Thank you for correcting me. I read further and did come up with this as well via googling, which I stop since I asked "why am I doing the legwork to answer someone else's question?" As my original post wasn't meant to be condecending (but I did provide a quicker means of finding out the answer to the Op), yet some immaturity reared it's ugly head by another poster, I got slight defensive. Although if truth be told, I'm sure the disks that shipped are one thing, but to defend my previous comment to the 'other' poster, Vista drivers are not stored in the ROM or RAM of a computer but on the OS Disks that they came with. Still it's the OS Disk.

But thank you. You are correct sir, nothing has been confirmed. However I installed x64 Vista (for giggles and grins when I got this iMac last year) and it ran just fine. Curious eh?
 

Czechmac

macrumors regular
Oct 22, 2007
112
0
London, UK
I will check this on thursday with my new MBP Penryn and a copy of windows vista ultimate 64 bit.

I will check the following:

1) Availability of 64 bit drivers for macbook pro on the restore disks
2) Compatibility of drivers in windows vista ultimate 64 bit

I will probably post a new thread about this on thursday or friday.
 

Mr. Zarniwoop

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2005
751
139
I will check this on thursday with my new MBP Penryn and a copy of windows vista ultimate 64 bit.

I will check the following:

1) Availability of 64 bit drivers for macbook pro on the restore disks
2) Compatibility of drivers in windows vista ultimate 64 bit

I will probably post a new thread about this on thursday or friday.
You will find your new MacBook Pro ships with Boot Camp 2.0.3 on the restore DVD and supports Microsoft Vista 64-bit editions with an "early 2008" Mac Pro or MacBook Pro.
 

wgilles

macrumors 6502
Feb 21, 2008
315
0
Just read in another post on the MBP forum that batman or something got it working, check the first couple threads in there if you read this today, he says it works great...I'm still waiting for full confirmation.
 

Mr. Zarniwoop

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2005
751
139
Just read in another post on the MBP forum that batman or something got it working, check the first couple threads in there if you read this today, he says it works great...I'm still waiting for full confirmation.
Good luck. It's an officially supported configuration by Apple in Boot Camp 2.0.3, so you should be ok.
 

Stridder44

macrumors 68040
Mar 24, 2003
3,973
198
California
I will check this on thursday with my new MBP Penryn and a copy of windows vista ultimate 64 bit.

I will check the following:

1) Availability of 64 bit drivers for macbook pro on the restore disks
2) Compatibility of drivers in windows vista ultimate 64 bit

I will probably post a new thread about this on thursday or friday.

Post a link to your thread in this one. I have a new MBP and am very curious about this too. 32-bit sucks, 64-bit is where it's at.
 

Mr. Zarniwoop

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2005
751
139
32-bit sucks, 64-bit is where it's at.
I think you might be expecting a bit too much from 64-bitness.

64-bit means more memory accessible, which is good, although the same data takes up more space in memory due to "swollen" pointers, 64-bit data types, and alignment padding. This means increased memory requirements, which means decreased effectiveness of processor cache utilization. That performance hit is at least partly why Mac OS X is a blend of 32-bit (the kernel, device drivers, and Carbon) and 64-bit parts (pretty much the rest), giving the best of both worlds.

With 64-bit Windows, they're dropping bits of the operating system that cause problems, particularly the compatibility layer for 16-bit Windows applications (you will likely not notice this is missing) and the ability to run unsigned drivers. Some at Microsoft argue the perceived instability of Windows comes from poorly written device drivers, and by enforcing signed drivers they can keep the quality up. We shall see. This means the 64-bit editions may be a little bit faster than 32-bit editions for certain tasks, but it's not because it's 64-bit, it's because they got to "do over" the kernel for Windows. You can also find things that are slower, just recompile your 32-bit application to 64-bit and watch it run just a touch slower!

I think you'll find the same application on XP 32-bit is just a bit faster than Vista, 32-bit or 64-bit. There's just a lot less there... there, although that speed difference is hardly day and night; a few FPS in games, a little faster compilation times, a few seconds shaved in Excel macros. Vista is big, with way more going on than XP, and much like if you compare an application on Windows 2000 vs. XP, odds are it'll work just a bit faster than Windows 2000. There are exceptions, particularly over time as people figure out how to optimally use Vista and take advantage of components that simply never exist on XP.

Here's my advice:

If you'll be in Windows a lot, I mean it's your primary OS and Vista's goodies matter to you, or you just like the latest and shiniest, go with Vista. It's pretty. (Pretty ugly compared to Mac OS X if you ask me, but that's in the eye of the beholder.) If you have more than 2GB of RAM, the limit of Boot Camp for 32-bit Windows, and a recent Mac Pro or MacBook Pro, then use the 64-bit version of Vista so you can at least use all that RAM you paid for.

If you're in every now and then, like to boot into a game that just ain't happen' in OS X or CrossOver Mac, go with XP. You'll only see 2GB, but do you care? You just want to shoot some bad guys. You won't notice, and for right now, you'll have an OS leaner than Vista, with way less features, that will let you squeeze out that last FPS.

There's a reason Vista's price is getting cut, and it's sitting stale on shelves, and the New York Times wrote an article about it this weekend. It's providing no benefit to most PC users, and we actually started to like XP when it finally got stable. Oh, and if you look around you can see you can see people have extracted and repackaged the Vista eye candy for XP, if that's important to you.
 

Stridder44

macrumors 68040
Mar 24, 2003
3,973
198
California
I think you might be expecting a bit too much from 64-bitness.

64-bit means more memory accessible, which is good, although the same data takes up more space in memory due to "swollen" pointers, 64-bit data types, and alignment padding. This means increased memory requirements, which means decreased effectiveness of processor cache utilization. That performance hit is at least partly why Mac OS X is a blend of 32-bit (the kernel, device drivers, and Carbon) and 64-bit parts (pretty much the rest), giving the best of both worlds.

With 64-bit Windows, they're dropping bits of the operating system that cause problems, particularly the compatibility layer for 16-bit Windows applications (you will likely not notice this is missing) and the ability to run unsigned drivers. Some at Microsoft argue the perceived instability of Windows comes from poorly written device drivers, and by enforcing signed drivers they can keep the quality up. We shall see. This means the 64-bit editions may be a little bit faster than 32-bit editions for certain tasks, but it's not because it's 64-bit, it's because they got to "do over" the kernel for Windows. You can also find things that are slower, just recompile your 32-bit application to 64-bit and watch it run just a touch slower!

I think you'll find the same application on XP 32-bit is just a bit faster than Vista, 32-bit or 64-bit. There's just a lot less there... there, although that speed difference is hardly day and night; a few FPS in games, a little faster compilation times, a few seconds shaved in Excel macros. Vista is big, with way more going on than XP, and much like if you compare an application on Windows 2000 vs. XP, odds are it'll work just a bit faster than Windows 2000. There are exceptions, particularly over time as people figure out how to optimally use Vista and take advantage of components that simply never exist on XP.

Here's my advice:

If you'll be in Windows a lot, I mean it's your primary OS and Vista's goodies matter to you, or you just like the latest and shiniest, go with Vista. It's pretty. (Pretty ugly compared to Mac OS X if you ask me, but that's in the eye of the beholder.) If you have more than 2GB of RAM, the limit of Boot Camp for 32-bit Windows, and a recent Mac Pro or MacBook Pro, then use the 64-bit version of Vista so you can at least use all that RAM you paid for.

If you're in every now and then, like to boot into a game that just ain't happen' in OS X or CrossOver Mac, go with XP. You'll only see 2GB, but do you care? You just want to shoot some bad guys. You won't notice, and for right now, you'll have an OS leaner than Vista, with way less features, that will let you squeeze out that last FPS.

There's a reason Vista's price is getting cut, and it's sitting stale on shelves, and the New York Times wrote an article about it this weekend. It's providing no benefit to most PC users, and we actually started to like XP when it finally got stable. Oh, and if you look around you can see you can see people have extracted and repackaged the Vista eye candy for XP, if that's important to you.

Haha, funny you mention that last part. ;) Yes I am aware of it.

What you posted makes much more sense. It just sucks though, I can see Vista does have a lot of improvements under the hood, and I want it to kick-ass, but it just doesn't (yet?). I suppose I'll stick to XP Pro (SP3) x86 for now. Thank you again for the detailed explanation.
 
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