Anyone with a dual-core Intel Apple had a chance to download "bootcamp" just released by Apple.

If you haven't seen, it looks like Apple is setting up their future mac's to run both Os-X and Win XP in a dual boot configuration.

I'm about to buy a new laptop. This could tilt the equation towards Apple.

Bob

I got a big kick out of this. Here's the official page.

The people who sponsored the $12K contest to hack a dual-boot Mac must be banging their heads on their desk right now.

Im going to give it a try tonight, I am thinking CS2 should scream running natively on XP with the 2.0 MBP

My only question is there going to be a way to share files between the two OS's as long as I partition with FAT32?

Please let us know how it works. I have a 20" Intel iMac and could use a trip into Windows once or twice a year. I've had it with Virtual PC.

I will let you guys know how it goes

I don't see why not. OS X can read/write FAT32 partitions (It can read NTFS, but can't write to it) so the Windows partition should appear just like another hard drive on the desktop.

So what good is that? I can't imagine dual booting to a WinXP OS if you can't write to NTFS. Apples website says



32GB... that's it. Hummm. Unless I'm missing something (which wouldn't be the first... at least most days I remember to take the lens cap off).

For me I'd rather have two boxes with a KVM switch so I can have one monitor, mouse, keyboard hooked up to both. Then switching batch & forth is a breeze.

Anyway I'll be curious to hear of peoples experiences here.

Kelly

Just finished installing XP, the installation was easy and slick, the drivers disk also works without a problem, just make sure you install SP2 and not SP1 or the drivers disk will not work

I am now installing CS2 now so I can do some performace tests with my MBP

And yet another option:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/04/06/parallels/index.php

I'll bet it's a bit slower (maybe a lot) but no need to dual boot. Not sure which I should try first.

Anybody know if the OE version of Windows XP that sites like newegg sell would work with Boot Camp? Is that considered to be the full version? Given that the price of the OE version here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16837102059

is more than $110 cheaper than the retail version here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16837116193

I'm guessing that the OE version won't work. Also, is there any reason to get XP Pro assuming I want to use XP only for CS2, Qimage, and Downloader Plus (accessing files off of my home network)?

Thanks,

Steve

Pretty much any XP SP2 will work, heck I used a Dell OEM disk that was laying around the office but I can only use it for 30 days, but I am going to order a retail version from Newegg today

I'm very interested if the dual book intel/mac can run PC games seamlessly. Kind of off the LL subject matter, but would appreciate some feedback.


Bob

Why to used windows in a mac? what about all the virus the came with?. I just don't understand why to do that.. I have pc because of my web side and extra hard drive a guess, but i don't think the mac user will really dawnload windows intu they mac.

BlasR

Some people (well, lots of people) need to access some windows-only stuff from time-to-time and emulation software such as VPC is dog-slow. Being able to boot fully into Windows offers performance you won't get otherwise. Even with virtualizeation software like what was mentioned above, both operating systems are sharing the hardware. Being able to boot into windows itself will let Win have the full systems power to do more intensive things (such as play games-w00t!1).

Viruses are a concern (I got a kick out of Apple's warning) but common sense and some maintenance and you will be fine. Besides, any viruses that attack the Windows partition won't be able to do anything to the OS X system since Windows can't recognize HTFS+. If you are really concerned, then you can ghost the windows partition. This way if anything major does happen, you can just wipe it clean and start fresh with the ghosted copy.

BTW, Bob: Games work well on the iMac. There are videos popping up all over the net of people playing games like Half-Life 2 on the iMacs. I don't know how well the laptops fair due to the lesser video card though.

The MBP 2.0 and 2.1 have the upgraded 256 card
I know it has been confirmed that BF2 works well on a MBP

Looking at the Apple store, can't find a dock. Can the Apple run the screen, keyboard, mouse w/o a dock?

My vaio can't FWIW

Bob

Yes it can. No dock needed.

I'm going over to my local Apple store today to take a look. The only question is :just how fast is it, compared to a native PC running the same software (or PC equivalent).

Can anybody point me to a link where this has been tested realistically.

Bob

They say the MBP is the fastest XP laptop http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/22/ma...ore_duo_laptop/

I did an install of both Boot Camp/XP and Parallel's Workstation 2.1/XP on a dual core iMac and my experience so far has been very positive with both products vs. Microsoft VPC that I run (crawl?) against my quad proc G5.

Native XP on an iMac seems to run just as I would expect a PC to run but in a much nicer box :-)

Performance of the Parallel's product is a LOT LOT better than Microsoft VPC on a PPC based machine. I have 2gb ram in the iMac and configured XP to run with 1gb. XP boots in ~25 seconds on a 1.83Ghz box - ignore the video going around the web showing ~10sec boot time - on a virgin OS X install with virgin XP (i.e. no apps loaded) it takes longer than that to boot.

I haven't had a chance to try PS in the virtual PC but things like Visio work perfectly and are responsive. One limitation for PS might be sorting out the colour management as it only runs in a window under OS X and not full screen yet (Parallel's product is still in beta).

If you want to share information between a Boot Camp/XP install and the rest of the OS X environment then you need Mac Drive 6.1 - it works perfectly and will allow XP to see the OS X disk as a mounted drive. When you are booted into OS X you can see the NTFS partition without any other software needed.

After seeing how well both of these approaches work I'm now much more inclined to consider a MacBook Pro for my next laptop.

And for those wondering why you'd want to do this stuff with a Mac ... OS X software gives me 95% of everything I need but occasionally, just occasionally, I need to run some windows apps or visit a web site that only supports IE on Intel.

Well I broke down and purchased a mac laptop with a 23 Apple monitor. I am about to add in the dual boot option and would appreciate any help I can get, doing it the correct way.

I'm a PC guy and the Apple thing is a little confusing so I being cautious. I am running all the windows apps like PSII, etc. I need office for my work as I live in Word, Powerpoint and Outlook.

I put all the memory the machine can handle (2 gig) and I expect it to be OK, not exceptional at running PS.

I have hooked up to the machine a Nikon 5000 scanner, Epson 4990 scanner and a HP DJ 90. I'm out of ports. Went with a mightly mouse to save a usb port.

Plan to add a external HD (firewire as I'm out of usb ports).

I have ton's of questions, such as,

how to best format windows partition (fat32 or)?,

can I install the windows on the external drive?,

can I partition the external drive?,

should I leave PSII on the windows side?,

other editing software on mac side?.

I calibrated the screen (x-rite Optix pro), 23" screen first, then I drug the dialog over to the laptop screen and calibrated it but it wanted me to overwrite the monitor profile file (a big no-no in windows). I don't understand haw to calibrate both monitors?

Lost in the Mac - Windows divide!!!!

Bob

There is no difference between the OEM version and the retail version of XP, other than the licencing conditions. The OEM version can only legally be sold with a brand-new computer as a "bundle".

On the subject of 32Gb partitions and FAT32: it is not a technical limitation of FAT32, but a policy issue of Microsoft. You can format a much larger drive to use FAT32, it is just that the Microsoft utilities in XP won't let you.

Once a big drive has been formatted, XP will deal with it quite happily.

The trick used to be that we booted a system from an old Windows 98 boot diskette and formatted the drive from there. W98 supported FAT32 but not NTFS.

Last time I had to do this (to prep a notebook hard disk for a USB storage device), I grabbed a free tool from http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

Alternatively, if you can format the drive as FAT32 from the Mac OS, then install XP under whatever dual-boot arrangements.

Andrew
(Last serious use of a mac in 1987)

Bob,
You may to get this article from O'Reilly (read the customers reviews to see if it fits the bill). Macintouch website also has some valuable information. Personally, I've only little experience with Boot Camp and can't really help you much.

Thought for archiving purposes, I would add in my comments having completed the transformation. The installing of boot camp was very straightforward and in the final result almost perfectly seamless. The got-cha's are so minor to be a non event. In the end I kept the PC side fairly intact and a mirror of my desktop PC that I've decided to retire. All network both wireless and hardwired work as before. Having used emulators before with significant annoyances I was prepared for the worse. I can say that this was very different.



Minor issues are limited to clocks didn't want to sync on Mac and PC side. And I haven't figured how to make the track ball on the wireless Mightly Mouse to act like the scroll wheel n the PC side only. Works fine on Mac side.

5 Stars

Bob

Glad to see that Boot Camp works for you and thanks for sharing your experience!