MP 1,1-5,1 Installing ONLY WINDOWS on a 4,1 / 5,1...?

[Rico Muerte]

I've got a few "spare" 4,1 cMPs & I was thinking of installing ONLY Windows on one of them for some light gaming & other Windows "only" applications.
1 - Should I/do I need to update the firmware to 5,1 before continuing?
2 - Are there any special/specific processes that needs to be done in order to install ONLY Windows on one of these machines?
3 - Any tips/tricks?

Thanks in advance!

 

[h9826790]

1) IMO, it depends on if you care about the gaming performance.

The weakest part of the cMP (for gaming) is the CPU single thread performance. If you want to minimise that, you should flash it to 5,1, then install X5677 / W3690. [N.B. If that's the dual processor 4,1. The CPU upgrade process may be much more complicated than your expectation]

2) Again, depends.

You can install Windows onto cMP natively. Intel Mac is just a sub set of Intel PC, all cMP can install / run Windows natively.

However, if you want to install Windows in UEFI mode, then you better do that via OpenCore. Otherwise, the cMP's BootROM will be corrupted by the MS digital security cert.

3) Nothing special, but if you want to play safe, you can just create the Windows installation CD, then hold C to boot, and install Windows natively. This should install Windows in legacy mode, and avoid that BootROM corruption issue.

 

[Macschrauber]

As always I recommend to backup the bootrom before messing with any flavour of Windows on a classic Mac Pro.