With the release of Boot Camp Apple have openly facilitated users running Windows XP on their Intel Macs if they need do. This is a good thing for everybody. Apple gives "switchers" a reason to choose Macs without betting the farm. Microsoft gets to sell copies of Windows to Mac users. Mac fans get to work in OS X and boot into Windows when they must (e.g. I occasionally need to run Access, install PC-only software for hardware configuration, test how my website looks using Internet Explorer, etc.)
Running Windows step-by-step
The installer and instructions provided by Apple are crystal clear: it couldn't be easier—it just takes time. For me the process involved:
- Deauthorizing iTunes on my Mac (It's easy to forget this step, but you might run out of machines authorised to playback your music if you don't!);
- Backing up the entire contents of my Mac to an external hard drive;
- Using the Mac OS X 10.4.5 installation disk to run Disk Utility and erasing the entire hard drive (This was necessary since I had previously had a crack at the OnMac hack which involves partitioning the drive; Boot Camp insists you start with a single HFS partition);
- Reinstalling OS X;
- Reinstalling the Mac OS X 10.4.6 update;
- Applying the Mac mini firmware updater;
- Installing Boot Camp;
- Burning (via Boot Camp) a Macitosh Drivers CD for use by Windows XP;
- Creating (via Boot camp) a partition onto which Windows XP would be installed (It amazes me you don't loose any Mac data when doing this; you can even non-destructively re-size the partition later);
- Installing Windows XP (see Tip);
- Installing Macintosh Drivers for the CD;
- Installing Windows software;
- Installing Windows XP and other software service packs and updates (Office, antivirus, etc.);
- Restoring my Mac OS X software and user data.
Tip: You need Windows XP Pro with SP2 included. My Dell came with Windows ME, then I bought the Windows XP Pro Upgrade, and subsequently applied SP2. I made a slipstreamed Win XP/SP2 disk but this wouldn't do for the OnMac hack. It has been reported that slipstreamed disks will work with Boot Camp, although it is also noted that you can't validate a Windows XP installation if that disk's license has already been used on a computer with a different MAC address (at least not without speaking to Microsoft). I phoned Microsoft and have to credit them by describing them as exceptionally helpful. I explained what I was trying to do (install Windows XP on an Intel Mac legally) and they agreed to send me the full Windows XP Pro with SP2 disk (as that's what I legally own) for just under £17 P&P.
The whole process took the better part of a long day—don't be fooled into thinking it can be accomplished is a spare hour or two if you already have a working OS X installation you want to keep.
Accessing Windows folders from the Mac
I chose to format the Windows partition as FAT32 because I wanted to be able to drag-and-drop files onto my "C drive" from OS X; the default NTFS format is read-only from OS X. As the Windows partition therefore appears on the Mac desktop, it's a simple matter to add shortcuts to your Windows folders to the OS X Finder:
Accessing Mac folders from Windows
I'd previously used MacDrive with an external HFS+ hard drive. MacDrive 5 doesn't allow you to see the Mac OS X partition, but MacDrive 6 does and can be downloaded for a free limited trial:
Beware: Installing MacDrive might make data on your Mac partition vulnerable to the effects of file-deleting Windows viruses.
It "just works"
I can run Windows software at native speeds, pair my Bluetooth devices, burn CDs, fully use my IntelliMouse Explorer (right-click, back, forward—in both OSs), surf via my WiFi network (WEP-enabled, 54 Mbps holding "5 bars" signal strength), listen to music via the mini's "line out", set my iPhoto library to be the Windows screen-saver,... even play PC games.
What did I install?
So far I've not detected a problem running the following software:
- ActiveSync 4.x (with a Dell Axim X50v)
- Adobe Reader 7.x
- AVG 7.x
- Firefox 1.x
- HP d135 driver 7.x (printing via USB only; network driver not downloadable; Mac drivers don't install under Intel OS X)
- IntelliMouse Optical 5.x
- iTunes 6.x
- QuickTime 7.x
- MacDrive 6.x
- Nero 6.x
- Office XP with SP3
- Palm Desktop 4.x (with a Palm T3)
- PrintScreen 3.x
- Skype 2.x
- StuffIt 8.x
- Tomb Raider Legend Demo (see below)
- Windows Defender beta 2
- WinDVD 4.x
Tomb Raider Legend
Tomb Raider Legend is just out for PC, with the following system requirements:
Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Pentium 3 1.0Ghz or Athlon XP Equivalent, 256MB RAM, 100% DirectX 9.0c -compatible 64MB 3D Accelerated Card with TnL (GeForce 3Ti / Radeon 9 series).
I knew the mini wasn't a gamer's machine when I bought it, but we don't play games often. The exception is Tomb Raider, something my wife and I have jointly enjoyed (well, the early games in the series anyway). I was quite surprised to find that TRL is perfectly playable in fullscreen at 1280 x 1024 pixels (the maximum my display can offer; my mini is a Core Duo with 2GB RAM):
Now that I know that the demo works well, am I phased by the 10GB disk space requirement of the full game (I have a total Windows partition of just 10GB)? No; I can create a "bigger' Windows PC of course using Boot Camp, and subsequently reclaim that space for Mac OS X when I'm done playing (but apparently not destroying then re-creating the Windows partition).
Update 16.04.06: It wasn't necessary for me to repartition and reinstall Windows in order to install the full TRL game. I simply ran the installer in Windows, but installed the game files (over 7 GB worth) onto the Mac partition (requires MacDrive). So the lesson seems to be that you don't need to dedicate a big Windows partition—as long as it can hold the OS you can then treat the Mac partition as an "expandable" Windows drive.
Conclusion
For an extra outlay of £17 (single disc version of Win XP + SP2) plus $20 (upgrade to MacDrive 6), I have a (virtually silent) true two-in-one computer. I'm mighty pleased. The only thing bugging me so far is that my keyboard's number keypad doesn't work and " and @ are transposed.
If you could run Windows on your Mac, what would you install and why?
Update 14.04.06: My old Dell laptop is now running the Ubuntu flavour of Linux, after having briefly flirted with the SimplyMEPIS distribution. Microsoft's license does not allow you to install a single seat copy of Windows on more than one computer (my only copy of XP thus has a legal home on my Mac).
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I loathe Windows XP with a passion (use it every day at work) and thankfully have absolutely no need for it at home, so no Boot Camp for me (still only have PPC Macs anyway), but interesting post, Bruce. Microsoft must have been pretty quick in sending your disk out.
BTW, I like the comment verification - is that a WordPress plugin or is it built in (I've done away with WP!)?
Actually Ken I asked for the disk soon after the OnMac hack was published, which I'd tried to implement unsuccessfully with a slipstreamed disk I made following instructions on the Microsoft website.
One of the most useful things about having XP for me is that I can offer remote assistance to my parents, who also use XP. When they have a problem I can "take over" their PC to fix it—from 12,000 miles away. This requires Windows Messenger and thus a PC with XP installed.
The comment verification was something I added this morning! It's a plugin called "Did you pass math?" by Steven Herod. I'm actively trying to integrate it into my template and have applied some CSS to it; the idea is to try and block bots from leaving spam. Askimet seems pretty good, catching over 30 spams in the month this blog has been using WordPress. However, I prefer not to be tempted into looking what it's caught—I'd rather they didn't find their way into the filter in the first place!
You've left WordPress so soon Ken? I don't know what to say... you hardly knew each other ;-)
I know, I'm so fickle! WP is a great blogging tool (and I'm impressed the way you've extended it beyond just that), it just didn't feel right for me, so I'm back to RapidWeaver for the time being. I noticed that you'd linked to Four and Nine - thanks - would you mind changing it to the Digital Art site at http://www.kenjoy.net? Thanks.
I understand why you need XP - have you not been able to "Switch" your folks? I got so fed up with maintaining XP for my Sister and her family, I bought them a Mac mini!
Anyway, for whatever reason, fortunately I don't seem to get any comment spam - my sites are not popular enough I guess :(...but a great plugin.
I like the post, I'm looking to get an intel mini to replace one of my aging ppc's as I need to run windows occaisonally for my software engineering program.
One thing I wanted to mention to you is that you don't need windows to use messenger or to 'take over' their machine!
AdiumX (www.adiumx.com) is a much better messaging client and supports just about ALL (!) the protocols you can imagine.
VNC will allow you to connect to any machine with a vnc server installer or you can just use microsofts remote desktop client to connect to their machine if they have support for it in their version of windows...
Take care,
Ryan
Thanks Ryan. Unfortunately RDC does not support connections to Windows XP Home. But you're right: I could install and configure (initially via Windows Messenger) a VNC server on their machine and gain access to it from a Mac client such as Chicken of the VNC. Previously I've done this the other way around (here).
I have recently bought my self a new MACBook, Intel 2GHz 1 Gig RAM, and following an atricle in MAC Format I read
"Everytime someone buys a new Intel Mac an angle gets his wings, however everytime Windows is loaded on a Mac the same angle gets twanged into a tree"
But that said, it seems in my opinion Windows runs better and more stable on a mac box than it does on a windows box. I think this again shows how much better organised Apple is.
But they did need to tell aspyr that they were bring out the new intels so they could do a patch for my Civilization III!!!
Russell, I don't see why Windows itself should be more stable on a Mac. This impression could merely be because Mac users need to run Windows only from time-to-time, perhaps using one or two key non-Mac programs. So less time in Windows with fewer programs to cause conflicts = apparent stablility? Just a theory...
"So less time in Windows with fewer programs to cause conflicts = apparent stablility? Just a theory"
Agreed, the less you USE windows the less problems you have with it. I can definitely attest to that, my work machine is absolute bare bones, JUST what I need, ONLY major websites (digg, applenova, a blog or two) that I trust and absolutely nothing else. No little haxies, no big bubbly theme crap slowing me down, it's down to the absolute basics and I rarely have any trouble with it.
When I used to use windows at home it would constantly be crapping out on me becuase I'd be installing this and removing that, download this or that, updating this while running that, everything goes straight to hell :)
I am a windows user thinking of moving to mac.
Can you load XP on a external firewire or USB HD and boot from ther when you need to use XP?
If not, can you have only XP on the mac (appart from the OS X and other mac software) and the rest os windows software on a external hd? I don't want to waste mac hd space with windows.
You can apparently boot into Windows from a USB or Firewire external drive: "External FireWire and USB disks will not be recognized by the Startup Disk control panel in Windows XP. If you want to start from a bootable external disk, hold the Option key as the computer starts up, then select the external disk."
As for the second question, see my update above from 16.04.06. I essentially have a small Windows partition for "core" software; anything I need extra can go onto the Mac partition which can be read by Windows using MacDrive. So it follows that you could install Windows apps on a USB 2.0 or Firewire drive and make these visible to Windows via MacDrive if the external drive is HFS (Mac) format. If your external drive is NTFS (Win) format, then you can access it from Windows as normal without any additional software.
Another option is Parallels virtulization software. This would let you shrink or expand a virtual Windows installation at will, and in addition run another OS such as Ubuntu, or even multiple installations of Windows. I had a mini rave about it here.
You have options, and the best of both worlds. Go for it Mario—you won't look back!