Windows XP on OSx

DingleBerry · 24 Jan 2006 at 14:11

How well does it work? I might be getting a new mac laptop but i would need to run at least a few windows aplications. They might be a bit processor intensive but then again I would have my desktop for doing such things seriously.

It would most probably be a macbook pro. I'm not buying a pc laptop directly because I've found the quality of mac laptops to be much higher.

matja · 24 Jan 2006 at 20:06

In an interesting move, Apple have opted to use a CPU with VT (Virtualisation Technology, 'vanderpool') extensions, potentially allowing the user to run multiple operating systems simultaneously with virtually no overheads (unlike the overheads imposed by software-based virtualisation in VMware, et al). It remains to be seen if Apple will release a special version of VirtualPC, or an integrated VM hypervisor in OS X itself, but they'd be stupid to not take advantage of this upperhand.

Berserker · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:06

No further discussion of running Windows natively on an Intel Mac please (VMWare et al. is fine). This is a legal minefield and I'm expecting to see droves of Apple lawyers deployed at any moment. Apple didn't like it when people figured out how to run OSX on any old Intel box, and I doubt they will like this any more.

DingleBerry · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:18

After a bit of reading aroudn it seams the ms virtual pc won't work on the intel machines...apart from maybe through rosetta which means it will be emulating twice...which can only be rubish lets be honest.

I supposed that gives me the option of buying a power book or just hoping that something else to do the job comes out fast (which it won't judging by the speed of development of wine).

I would normaly just ignore the lack of win32 apps but I'm going to be needing to use specialist apps which cost about 20k a year

might just have to swallow my pride and get a cruddy pc laptop

E1mo · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:34

Berserker, Apple have said on the record that they will do nothing to stop people running Windows on their mac laptops and that they 'understand' that people will need to use both.

http://bink.nu/Article5818.bink

Unfortunately there is no 32-bit version of Windows that will run on the Mac's EFI boot system. Expect superb 'vanderpool' emulation within the next few months I reckon, but maybe no native Windows until Vista is released.

OllyM · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:19

Berserker said:
No further discussion of running Windows natively on an Intel Mac please (VMWare et al. is fine). This is a legal minefield and I'm expecting to see droves of Apple lawyers deployed at any moment. Apple didn't like it when people figured out how to run OSX on any old Intel box, and I doubt they will like this any more.

Don't want to argue with you Berserker, but as E1mo said, Apple don't mind people running Windows on a Mac - it's the other way round that's the problem as obviously it's illegal...

Berserker · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:19

OK, if that's Apple's position then so be it. Sorry for the overreaction and deleting people's posts.

OllyM · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:21

Personally, I don't blame you - Apple lawyers aren't nice people to be on the wrong end of (remember the Tiger betas etc.).

Berserker · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:44

Indeed. Protection from litigious behaviour has to be a high priority.

28ten · 25 Jan 2006 at 17:00

Berserker said:
OK, if that's Apple's position then so be it. Sorry for the overreaction and deleting people's posts.

Ok Sorry. It's posted on Macrumors so i assumed it was ok. XP on macintel is not frowned on by Apple, Don't know what the MS position is?!
Obviously Apple would not want anybody running OSX on any old PC, and it would be breaking user agreement

uchuff · 25 Jan 2006 at 21:42

28ten said:
Ok Sorry. It's posted on Macrumors so i assumed it was ok. XP on macintel is not frowned on by Apple, Don't know what the MS position is?!
Obviously Apple would not want anybody running OSX on any old PC, and it would be breaking user agreement

I think MS would be more than happy to see Windows running on absolutely everything

Psyk · 26 Jan 2006 at 09:49

I wonder if MS will bring out a mac version of windows. It wouldn't be much work (I guess getting it to work with this EFI thing) but there also wouldn't be much demand for it. Who would buy a mac to put windows on? Of course there will be a few people in the same position as the OP but it'll still be a minority.

E1mo · 26 Jan 2006 at 10:28

IMO, its unlikely they'll bring out a mac version which you can buy retail/OEM. I guess there's a possibility of some kind of upgraded bootloader for Windows which is EFI compatible however. I wouldn't count on it though.