Windows XP Booting on Mac Contest Over

[janstett]

NTFS was part of Windows NT 3.1 about 15 years ago.... Anybody who thought that it was new with XP was a few cards short of a full deck.

And even that was an outgrowth of OS/2 1.x's HPFS filesystem that dates back to around 1988.

Early NT trivia: The first versions of NT still supported HPFS filesystems, and Microsoft even had an optional subsystem to run OS/2 1.x programs, including Presentation Manager GUI applications.

 

[janstett]

Especially since games tend to run better on OS X when they are written properly for it and don't have tons of Windows garbage still in the code from being ported.

The hard part is getting devs to write clean game code for OS X.

You did notice that Bungie was bought up by Microsoft around 5 years ago, right?

The Mac game market is dead as far as I'm concerned.

 

[skellener]

Running Win on Mac hardware could very well increase Mac sales. My brother needed a new laptop for work, He really liked the 12" Powerbook he had bought last year for home. When he heard about the possibility he could run XP on a MacBook Pro, he started considering the purchase. He even through in some dough for the contest. When the news about Vista came out about not supporting EFI he was thought that was the end of it and was ready to place an order for a Lenovo. Thank God the contest was won just in time! He just placed an order for the MacBook Pro now that he knows he can run XP on it. He's not too worried about Vista. Someone out there will get it to run as well.

So chalk one business Mac sale up to the contest.

 

[janstett]

Sometimes I have the impression that this forum is full of 15-year olds who are only interested in their individual gaming needs, as they have NO idea about the medium-term or long-term impact of WindowsOnMac; so we see a lot of excited posts regarding "my chances to play Counter Strike Source or Star Wars whatever", paying no attention to the prospective developers out there that will just PULL ALL STOPS in software porting efforts.

And sometimes I think this forum is full of blind zealots who can't see the forest through the trees. Mac OS X is NOT a brand new operating system. It's been around for several years. If the great application push hasn't happened up until now, why would it start now?

Your attitude makes me laugh... "How dare those selfish 15 year olds boot Windows for their greedy gaming needs? Don't they see they're harming The Cause? Don't they see they are betraying my Holy Crusade to evangelize OS X?" Yeah, pretty selfish of people to actually try to use a computer instead of taking part in The Holy War.

I already spent my time as a zealot with OS/2. I did the advocacy thing. I see so much of it in you. I can relate to your zealotry. At some point you have to realize you're fighting a losing battle. In the end, people don't care about theoretical advantages of your OS brand (and OS/2 was in a much superior position vis-a-vie its contemporary Windows than OS X is over XP today). People don't care that Bill Gates has hooves and eats puppies. They just want to use their computers with the applications they want. Is it so evil?

Already responding to another poster, it's NOT about those that have already spent a lot of R&D on Mac software, like MS or Adobe, they will continue with Macs for the time being...

The MS that doesn't even give us a complete Office (no Outlook, no Access, no FrontPage, no Project, no Visio, etc.), and the same Adobe that won't give us Universal Binaries until 2007.... Just checking.

it's about those that thought about creating some new for the Mac, like Autodesk or others...they will NOT port anything if the same software can be run on a Windows partition flawlessly.

And they're tripping over their own feet to get it done now? Sheesh, how long has Autodesk been around, and how long has Mac OS been around? Are you not getting the message? THEY DON'T WANT ANY.

And why? Because you, Windows supporters, prefer to take the easy route and say "Ah, I don't wanna wait, let's run the Winblows version anyway"; and if Windows is just a boot away, why bother? Why hire 10 Mac programmers when the Windows product is already on the shelves for desperate Mac-go-Windows users? It's so clear I cannot even understand how some people disagree with this fact.

You act like OS X just came out 2 months ago. It's not new. Why haven't the applications materialized up until now?

Go figure, y'all...this might be even worse than having OS X on normal PCs. Only blind gamer kids cannot see that (or are not worried anyway); well, soon they will be playing Half-Life 2 on a white box...and they will be happy in a great selfish way...bleargh.

As opposed to the blind zealots who will go down with the ship, like you?

I did that with OS/2. As soon as Windows 95 came out, it was over. Windows 95 was not as good as OS/2, but it was good enough to end the war and send OS/2 on the road to the scrap heap.

OS X is not in this position yet. But you have to realize that your grand dream of having every application ported to OSX just isn't going to happen. You are blind and naive if you think this will happen. I say Apple's only way out is Yellow Box.

 

[tdewey]

So chalk one business Mac sale up to the contest.

Here's my addtional purchase:

Wife needs a new computer - she likes the Macbook. I tell her - sorry dear, I can't get you a Macbook. My wife uses three things daily: Internet browser (OS independent), MS Office (there is a Mac version), MSN Messenger video/audio chat (no Mac version).

But, you cry--there are mac alternatives to Messenger.

Let me (re)introduce you to the concept of the network effect - none of the people that my wife chats/views has a Mac - most of them are not very adept with computers - her only option to chat/view them is MSN Messenger - because that's what they have.

My wife is more than savvy enough to dualboot - and use what she needs - with XP on Mac (once they get the video drivers working) I can buy her a Macbook (well - the new ibook when it is released in April) and she can switch to XP when she wants to chat with her friends.

So there you go - another Mac purchase because of the dualboot possibility.

 

[mrplow]

Here's my addtional purchase:

Wife needs a new computer - she likes the Macbook. I tell her - sorry dear, I can't get you a Macbook. My wife uses three things daily: Internet browser (OS independent), MS Office (there is a Mac version), MSN Messenger video/audio chat (no Mac version).

But, you cry--there are mac alternatives to Messenger.

Let me (re)introduce you to the concept of the network effect - none of the people that my wife chats/views has a Mac - most of them are not very adept with computers - her only option to chat/view them is MSN Messenger - because that's what they have.

My wife is more than savvy enough to dualboot - and use what she needs - with XP on Mac (once they get the video drivers working) I can buy her a Macbook (well - the new ibook when it is released in April) and she can switch to XP when she wants to chat with her friends.

So there you go - another Mac purchase because of the dualboot possibility.

Actually there is MSN Messenger for mac.. it installs with Office for mac.. and it can be downloaded off the internet... and www.adiumx.com triumphs all communication apps, as it supports ALL of them *beautifully* (except skype)

and I don't mean to be insulting, but you said 'mac alternatives dont work' because they use MS Messanger? you just connect to MS through Adium and everyone on MSMes. has NO IDEA whether your using microsoft's own client or not... its exactly the same.. well, no, its better.. because Adium is the balls.

Adium w/ MS Messanger Support:
http://www.adiumx.com

MS Messanger from MS for Mac OS:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=msnmessenger


((dual booting = good thing.. but x1600 drivers would make it a great thing))

 

[janstett]

as for the part about a dual platform development environment, you're totally right... except, can you imagine most Windows apps compiled for OS X, with Aqua buttons instead of Windows grey ones? (think Quicken or MS Office for Mac.) using that kind of stuff would leave me feeling violated.

iTunes?

 

[janstett]

I just can't understand yet, especially given the potential risks to Mac-native software, if the solution turns out too easy in the near future...and NO, I don't see any value in having Winblows on my Mac...VPC and the like are more than enough...and for gaming go buy a PS3, it's much cheaper.

Ha ha ha, the last estimates I saw on the PS3 put it at $700. Keep dreaming. Sony is going to hit at least $500 retail, after the $399 precedence of X-Box, plus the BD-ROM drive, et al.

 

[quicksilver77]

Actually there is MSN Messenger for mac.. it installs with Office for mac.. and it can be downloaded off the internet... and www.adiumx.com triumphs all communication apps, as it supports ALL of them *beautifully* (except skype)

and I don't mean to be insulting, but you said 'mac alternatives dont work' because they use MS Messanger? you just connect to MS through Adium and everyone on MSMes. has NO IDEA whether your using microsoft's own client or not... its exactly the same.. well, no, its better.. because Adium is the balls.

Adium w/ MS Messanger Support:
http://www.adiumx.com

MS Messanger from MS for Mac OS:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=msnmessenger

Msn Messenger for mac is not as good as the windows version. I have been using both for some time. The newer version for the mac is ok but not great. For windows trillian is a good multi chat messenging system.

 

[tdewey]

and I don't mean to be insulting, but you said 'mac alternatives dont work' because they use MS Messanger? you just connect to MS through Adium and everyone on MSMes. has NO IDEA whether your using microsoft's own client or not... its exactly the same.. well, no, its better.. because Adium is the balls.

last time i checked (which wasn't recently) you couldn't video chat b/n Mac and PC. Has that changed?

 

[janstett]

business is important, but computers are paramount. (and if by 'owners' you mean shareholders, there ain't no way in hell they'd oust steve at this point)

I think Steve will be too busy running Big Mouse and will hand the reigns over.

Think about it -- he's brought Apple back from the brink. Turned it around. Revolutionized MP3 players and in the process music distribution. I think he's running out of rabbits to pull out of his hat at Apple. The Mac is never going to break out of its marketshare doldrums and even The Steve knows it. He's beginning to repeat himself. I think a guy like him gets bored once the revolution is over, and he's looking for a new challenge. I can see Steve walking away from Apple in the next few years.

 

[aegisdesign]

Apple will never officially support booting Windows on Mac. Its a personal matter of Jobs and Gates

Hey, people were saying Macs would never go Intel last summer.

And last month, they'd never use integrated graphics.

And they'd not drop firewire on the iPod...

 

[mhunter]

How does the iMac's power management work with XP?

Hello All,

Here's a question:

We know that the iMac's fan will run in top speed if OS X does not boot in a certain amount of time.

This is a safeguard to prevent the system from cooking itself if OS X isn't running to control all the vital parts.

This is particularly noticeable when you boot from a Utility CD such as the hardware test.

So, my question is:

Since Windows XP doesn't know about all the intricate parts of Apple's power management system, the controls for the fans, etc. How do the fans sound?

Are they running at full speed like when you run other software outside of the OS X environment?

Or, does Windows XP somehow control the fans properly, and keep all the heat generating parts under control?

Looking forward to any input here.

Note: I don't have an Intel Mac yet. So, I am just going by what I know about the behavior of the G5 and other Mac systems.

 

[avus]

The Mac is never going to break out of its marketshare doldrums and even The Steve knows it..... I can see Steve walking away from Apple in the next few years.

Yeah, Steve Jobs already said that back in 1996. Why did he even bother to come back, then?

Don't say things like you know the guy.

 

[destroyboredom]

Janstett-

I think you are ignoring the major fact that Macs are now on the Intel platform, and while I'm no developer by any stretch, I would imagine it makes porting applications to OS X a little easier.

That's not to say it will help, but I think you need to consider it.

 

[g.x]

none of the people that my wife chats/views has a Mac - most of them are not very adept with computers - her only option to chat/view them is MSN Messenger - because that's what they have.

Even if her friends only use MSN Messenger, your wife can use any number of OS X chat clients that support MSN Messenger. Adium, Gaim, Fire, etc. They all support MSN.

Her MSN-using friends won't even know what client she's using...to them, she'll just appear on the MSN network.

 

[g.x]

Since Windows XP doesn't know about all the intricate parts of Apple's power management system, the controls for the fans, etc. How do the fans sound?

...

Or, does Windows XP somehow control the fans properly, and keep all the heat generating parts under control?

An excellent question. Curious myself. Since the fan is plugged into the power supply (for juice) and the motherboard (for control), I would think a driver of some sort was required for the OS to talk to.

 

[Todd H]

I think I'm going to wait until they iron out all the problems with the drivers before I give it a try. It would certainly be nice to get rid of my other computer and save some space. Plus, my iMac is a good bit more powerful than my PC.

 

[tdewey]

Even if her friends only use MSN Messenger, your wife can use any number of OS X chat clients that support MSN Messenger. Adium, Gaim, Fire, etc. They all support MSN.

Her MSN-using friends won't even know what client she's using...to them, she'll just appear on the MSN network.

As I commented to the other guy - as far as I know - none of these solutions support video chat with Windows MSN Messenger.

This goes to the heart of the XP on Mac argument - there are simply no substitutes for a large number of windows programs.

Even if you think windows is the worst thing in the world - you have to admit that. It doesn't matter if you don't personally use those applications - you != every other user in the world.

As someone who has owned Apples since the Apple II+ - and as a former Unix administrator - I'm as big a fanboi of MacOSX as the next person - but my primary platform these days is a windows laptop because of the applications I need to use daily.

In addition to purchasing my wife an Intel ibook, I'll migrate to an MBP in a few months.

Frankly, I think the lipstick-on-a-pig folks should be overjoyed at this turn of events - its going to drasticlly bump up the number of Mac purchases over the short and long term. Resulting in more Mac specific products.

 

[mhunter]

An excellent question. Curious myself. Since the fan is plugged into the power supply (for juice) and the motherboard (for control), I would think a driver of some sort was required for the OS to talk to.

That's my thought as well. I would think that a driver of some sort is required to control the fans.

While the normal fan range isn't too obnoxious, they are quite noisy if they are running at their top speed (fail-safe mode).

 

[freeny]

I think Steve will be too busy running Big Mouse and will hand the reigns over.

Steve has already stated that Apple is his true calling and has no intention of leaving any time soon. The sale of Pixar only leaves more time for Apple. The seat at Disney is really just a trophy.

 

[crees!]

Already responding to another poster, it's NOT about those that have already spent a lot of R&D on Mac software, like MS or Adobe, they will continue with Macs for the time being...it's about those that thought about creating some new for the Mac, like Autodesk or others...they will NOT port anything if the same software can be run on a Windows partition flawlessly.

Eventhough you can install Windows on a Mac I believe you're somewhat off on this. Apple said they will not support Windows installations on their machines. That should be enough for developers to continue making Mac versions of their software. If Apple said they would support it then it would be death to the Mac version of that software. Developers also want to reach out to as many people as they can with their software. A lot of people aren't going to put Windows on their Mac.. most won't even know they can. With this developers would still create for the Mac to grow their user base. Also there's nothing to say in an update that Apple will "tweak" the EFI. Heck, they could reinstall the EFI over the hacked one if they wanted.

 

[janstett]

Janstett-

I think you are ignoring the major fact that Macs are now on the Intel platform, and while I'm no developer by any stretch, I would imagine it makes porting applications to OS X a little easier.

That's not to say it will help, but I think you need to consider it.

Well, actually, I am a developer, and it doesn't make porting applications any easier.

The vast majority of applications use C or C++ (or C#) to talk to functions (known as an Application Programming Interface, or API) the operating system provides. On the Mac this is Carbon/Cocoa et al, on Windows this is the Win32 API, MFC, ATL, etc. These things don't really change when the Mac moved to Intel from PPC.

There are SMALL areas where moving to Intel helps -- such as raw buffer manipulation (like Digital Signal Processing, or DSP) or assembly code, which is very rare in high level applications. The big difference at a low level used to be endianness (Intel was little endian, PPC was big endian) and of course assembly.

But in general OS X being on Intel doesn't make anything significantly easier. If anything, being based on BSD was the best thing that could have happened since it opens the Mac up to GPL/Linux projects, but even then, the problem is the lack of seriousness of the GPL projects relative to the major software vendors.

 

[simonrobbie]

Virus

This is the worst virus those Windows propellor heads could have come up with for the Mac.

 

[gnujon]

Misinformation

For those who need/want dual-boot (like me), this is great.

For those who slam this and would prefer virtualization, chill out. It's coming.

But for all those people who are waiting/drooling over "Virtual PC at native speeds," please pull your head out so it can get some air. Plenty of friendly people on this site (obviously not me) have kindly tried to educate you and you are simply ignoring them.

"Virtual" = running withing a software environment, which is essentially a software application.

Therefore "Virtual at native speeds" translates to "Please provide me with software that uses absolutely no system resources, no cpu, no RAM, nothing...please provide this as it is my God-given right as someone who does not understand physics or reality."

Sorry, but it's actually you (and the plenty of others you mention) who don't know what they're talking about. Have you never heard of Wine, Win4Lin or MacOnLinux? Or even using Virtual Real Mode to run DOS applications under Windows for that matter?

You guys need to do some research into virtualisation. Look up 'Vanderpool' and 'Intel Virtualisation Technology' for some interesting reading. 'Virtual' doesn't always mean 'software emulation of everything'.