Windows XP on Intel Mac Confirmed

niemassacre writes "According to winxponmac.com, the contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. A thread on osx86project.org has confirmations from several testers that the procedure works on the 17" iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook Pro. Many sets of pictures and videos (such as this installation video) are floating around (and mentioned in the thread). The solution itself should be posted soon." Poit! Congratulations to narf.

Re:Why?

[Rob T Firefly]

Because it's there!

Aaaargh

[BeardsmoreA]

Every time there's anything on this the first comments are along these lines. Fine! You don't want to play games or do any Windows devlopment - other people do! And this lets them. The end.

Re:Why?

[gEvil (beta)]

Remember that you gotta start somewhere. Being able to successfully natively boot the OS you want to run in a VM is the first step here...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Three words to describe why.
Really cool cases. (Can't remember password at the moment, sorry for the anonymous Coward).

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

A crap OS on an overpriced machine - surely OSX on a commodity PC is what we're all waiting for??!

I hope ...

[Luscious868]

I hope everybody who dragged this guy's reputation through the mud offers him a huge apology! Maybe it's just because I'm growing older, but the older I get the more cynical I feel like people are becoming. Maybe it's always been this way and when I was a kid I either didn't notice or just shrugged it off....

this is all well and good but...

[turlingdrome]

what we really need is for vmware for to produce an intel mac version of their product. Imagine being able to vm any linux distro or windows under osx...

Re:Why?

[Ford Prefect]

Why?

Games.

Stuff like VMWare will do a great job of running applications, but for stuff that requires access to modern hardware, dual-booting is probably the only real answer.

I've been doing it for years on my PC, after all - serious stuff gets done in Linux, but when I want to mess around with modding Half-Life 2 then I quickly reboot into Windows XP, and instantly get 100% software compatibility. If something gave me the ability to dual-boot my new MacBook in a similar manner, then that would be great - I'd essentially have both a Mac and a PC in one shiny laptop case.

This latest news makes me happy - it's like I bought a very fast Mac, then just over two weeks later I received a very fast PC of equivalent specs for free. What is there to complain about?

I'd prefer a VPC-like solution

[illtron]

It seems to me that native hardware will mean that we're not far from seeing a lot of really great "not-emulation VPC-like products." This is nice, but it seems that being able to have the two up side-by side would be more useful. Wouldn't native hardware also mean that a VPC could run at nearly full speed, only taking a hit due to whatever resources were already being used by the Mac OS and applications? Still, this is a nice achievement.

Re:I hope ...

[mzieg]

I'm thinking $14 grand would stand-in for an outpouring of apologies. It would for me :-)

Re:Lawsuit?

[slantyyz]

Apple is happy. Now all those Windows users who want a Mac (more market share, yippee!) will buy a Mac and dual boot, yet they can still "try" to protect their OS from running a white box.

Microsoft is happy. They didn't have to spend any of their own money to get compatibility, and if they're lucky, maybe more than 30% of the dual booters will actually pay for a Windows license.

Re:Why?

[Heian-794]

Why? Because of the huge number of applications that are only produced for Windows -- these are small enough that the makers can't be bothered to, or don't have the expertise to, make a Mac version, yet aren't essential enough to make me go out and buy a Windows machine just to run them.

One example would be the PC interface software for my cell phone. Nice to have, but I only use it every few months to back stuff up and am not about to go buy a PC just to run it. Same story for game hacking utilities.

Congratulations to Narf. I'm anxiously awaiting booting WinXP on my Intel iMac.

Re:Lawsuite?

[gurutc]

I'd think Apple would love it. They played no part in working out the solution, but now their hardware is the most versatile around for running the two desktop OSes I've wanted to have on one machine. Done deal, buying a mac.

Re:Why?

[torpor]

me, i switched to Apple because their hardware/Darwin[linux-ppc] was interesting .. for a while .. and i felt that the fact of their survival as a 'different computing platform' company in the face of the intel x86 tyranny was a worthwhile hedge towards new hardware of interest. x86 doesn't really 'interest me', though it certainly has an equally infinite # of uses as, say, ARM or MIPS still do..

but of course, i used to think it was cool to have gone from a stack of Indy's to a single powerbook, and still be able to take all the 'good' software (unix) with me .. now i'm far more interested in just getting as many cheap, little, ecologically sound computers, than i am in having my own halon setup, and consequently: Apple is dead to me now.

why put XP on Apple?

because it proves the point: software is mobile, a liquid substance of little bounds.

and thus: hardware always comes first. all thought starts first with lines in the sand.

point 1 is maybe poignant, and geeks like poignancy perhaps, in this case, because it is proven by crossing the hijinx of one exploiter-of-the-mob computer manufacture, guilty of all its own culting, with another equally cult'ed mass-control monster, and produces a seething snake pit of sexiness. XP on bochs, and thus PPC .. and now XP on x86, where it already was living just fine, anyway.. on Apple hardware.

point 2, hardware, is what you need to tame all beasts of nefariously infinite nature.

with XP on Apple, the reason to switch is dead. XP is the wrong end of the computerized commodity curve for my liking, so.. neither of these points i'm trying to make may, indeed, have weight ..

Irony

[Fahrvergnuugen]

I find this kind of funny and ironic...

Apple announces that they are moving to intel. OSX is DRM'd and bound to Macs so that it cannot be run on commodity hardware. Senior execs at Apple also state that they will not do anything to prevent Windows from running on their hardware.

Intel Macs come out.

Hackers get OSX86 up and running on Dells with relative ease, despite Apple's best efforts to prevent them from doing so. However, they have such a hard time getting Windows to run on a Mac that a contest is started and 13,000 dollars worth of prize money is offered.

Oh the irony. :-)

Why? Because it's there.

[Marbleless]

There are people who want climb mountains and people who want to run XP on MacIntels, and both groups do it just for 'fun'!

Big deal

[brunes69]

Wake me up when someone lets me run Windows binaries *inside* Intel OSX. That is the achievement.

Re:Irony

[mzieg]

In Apple's defense (and I do appreciate the irony you point out), OS-X was, from the start, a far more "portable" operating system, vastly more suitable to loading on strange hardware. From it's NeXTSTEP heritage, OS-X could build on Motorola 68K systems. From it's OpenSTEP heritage, OX-X could already build on Intel x86 architectures. From it's Apple heritage, it could build on PPC systems. From it's BSD heritage, it could build on pretty much anything else. OS-X had been ported so much that it had developed a fairly flexible hardware abstraction layer.

In contrast, consider Windows, which has been successfully ported to...Alpha? Once, many years ago? Windows is far more intransigent about porting to new hardware platforms, because they've never needed to, never wanted to, and never put any friendly handles in to smooth the transition.

Re:Lawsuite?

[matr0x_x]

I disagree. I think Microsoft is not at all happy about this. Knowing that a mac can run Windows eliminates a major reason a lot of people (including myself) don't use a Mac - I need Windows for certain tasks that I cannot otherwise do. This will increase the Mac marketshare and ultimate, Microsoft will lose out!

Re:A lot more useful! Excellent!

[cgenman]

A hack must have been expected, even desired, by Apple. Being able to run both OSX and Win XP (and Linux) on a single notebook would be massive. If you need Wintel, you can buy anything, but if you want OSXP, you have to buy from Apple.

I, for one, am desperately trying to restrain myself from running out and picking up a Mac Book.

Re:an end to speculation

[thelost]

well to compare, how many people do you think have bought an xbox because they could mod it, stick an emulator or backed up games onto it and play away (to back up my point I can say I know at least 5 people who have, it's pretty popular). Hacks start of as hacks, and then someone puts in the hard work simplifying them, making them more accessible to everyone and then we no longer need to play around with bootloaders etc. This is already big news and will be appearing on all the apple news sites, it's certainly gonna get the apple fanboi zealots riled. It will also get a lot of interest from people who don't just want to play games on their macs, but do a few of the things they still can't do on their macs - admittedly very little now - in windows. On another note, I feel that the mac populaces face has changed since OS X came along. Mac users have become much more homebrew, hacker friendly and do frequently get down and dirty with their darwin innards. People with that kind of attitude - which seems widespread in the community now - might well relish getting their machine to dual boot xp, just because.

Let's hear it for peer review

[murderlegendre]

Did you really read the original (yesterday's) commentary on this? It looked like a basic peer-review process to me, albeit in true /. style. A person steps up, makes an extraordinary claim, and the community of peers does its best to suggest every possibility for falsification.

It took a while, but the truly hare-brained ideas (like a photoshopped image of a MacBook) were discredited leaving only a couple of reasonable possibilities (like a full-screen display of an XP screengrab image).

So honestly, would you really prefer that a peer-review process work from the premise that the proposal is true, as opposed to false? While the former is certainly much "nicer", the latter is more in keeping with scientific modes of thought. I'd have expected nothing less, had I presented the same claims + shaky evidence.

How can you knock flexibility and choice?

[_Pablo]

Excellent work by Narf2006 and Blanka.

I don't understand why some people are so negative about something which gives the user greater flexibility and choice. I love using OS X for my personal needs, but my job requires Windows and CounterStrike:Source requires DirectX, so it's made my MacBook Pro even more flexible and that can only be a good thing.

Whilst I can imagine that some software producers will look at the situation and say "The Mac now runs Windows so we don't need to produce a Mac native version", I think the ability to boot Windows tears down one barrier to buying a Mac...if you have to run Windows then you don't need to compromise and buy a Windows only machine.

Finally, I know you can buy a regular PC and dual-boot with a hacked copy of OS X, but it's illegal, whereas dual booting a genuine retail copy of XP on a Mac is legal and that makes it a real option for the workplace. I look forward to taking my MacBook everywhere and leaving that chunky Dell on the table...someone needs to start producing 200GB+ 2.5" 7200rpm drives fast!

Re:Why?

[Basehart]

"May i be damned if i let m$ anywhere near a mac."

For me it's not about running Microsoft products on a Mac, it's about being able to run Quickbooks Pro 2006 for Windows so I can process client credit cards without having to boot up the PC or rely on emulation software.

Now, if Intuit could get it together at some point to make a version of Quickbooks Pro 2006 for Mac that can do everything the Windows version can do, that would be even better :-)

Re:Lawsuite?

[mwvdlee]

I must disagree for atleast 50% with the other reactions to the parent.

Surely Apple will think this is great; they've got the profit on the hardware and needn't make expenses on OS-X support.

For Microsoft, on the other hand, this might not be so great.
For the first time ever, there is an efficient way to migrate to OS-X:
- Cheaper than buying both a Mac and a PC; my next PC upgrade might just be a Mac.
- Fit both OS-X and WinXP worlds in the same desk space.
- Keep WinXP compatibility as long as you like.
Even if everyone buys a WinXP license, it might be a bad thing for Microsoft in the long run.
And there's nothing they can do about it.

Re:So when are we going to see...

[Dan Ost]

Because I like the hardware but don't care for GUI. Yes, I realize that I can run the WM of my choice under X11, but if I'm going to do that, what's the point of keeping OSX?

Re:Why?

[PFI_Optix]

Why? Because the new iMac looks good, and now it's available to Windows users.

I not a fan of Mac OS. I can't find software for it (I would have to drive 100+ miles to purchase software at a store), and I'm not particularly fond of the UI. I've spent enough time on OSX to know that it still behaves a lot like older versions of Mac OS in some ways that I never liked. So, I'll stick with XP for my general-purpose PCs and Linux for my specialize stuff like file servers.

Now, my wife would love to move her PC into the living room. Problem is, she doesn't like the way it looks. She practically salivated over the new iMac ("oh pretty!") when she saw it in a copy of MacMall last month, and it will likely wind up being a gift for her some time this year since I now have the option of using XP on it.

Aside from that, this means that people who have to work in both XP and OSX can now dual boot and no longer need to have two systems to do their work.

Re:Lawsuite?

[MBGMorden]

Microsoft is most wholeheartedly not gonna care. They sell you an OS to install on whatever machine you want. As long as it's not a pirated copy (which is a seperate issue), then they don't care.

As to Apple, I doubt they would care either. They primarily sell hardware. OS X is just something to set their hardware apart from other computer makers. Nobody is gonna NOT buy a Mac because it can run Windows, but somepeople might now buy a Mac (who otherwise wouldn't) because now it can.

It benefits both companies.

Re:Dual booting is unpractical

[PFI_Optix]

Dual booting is impractical under a lot of applications, but for some people (those constrained by budget, space, or the desire to not tote around two notebooks) it makes the most sense.

As for data exchange, unless you're packing a notebook, I'd probably just put together a lightweight file server with Linux so that you're not trying to juggle partitions on your local machine any more than is necessary.

Re:Phew!

[JerryP]

I don't know. Initially only Vista was supposed to have a chance to boot on an iMac due to lack of EFI support in XP. This would have been an incentive for iMac-Owners to get Vista. Now that XP runs on an iMac, those people can use an XP they might already have. And I think it will be a long time before Vista-only software becomes an issue. So this might cost M$ some Vista sales.

Re:Dude, Speak for your self.

[visionsofmcskill]

that makes you.... an idiot. ;) i think the money is humiliation enough for the nay-sayers.

Re:Why?

[CastrTroy]

Here's the scenario. I would like to try out Mac OS, and maybe even use it 75% of the time. However, I wouldn't buy a Mac because I would still need to use windows for the other 25%. If it was possible to run both on the same hardware, I could buy a Mac, run MacOS whenever I can, and then boot into windows for the 25% of the time that I need to run windows. Sounds a lot like how I run Linux right now. Although its close to 90% linux, 10% windows. If running Linux meant that I couldn't run windows, I probably never would have tried linux to begin with.

Re:Dual booting is unpractical

[Mike Savior]

Dual booting is impractical, yes. But there is hope. I believe there is some kind of HFS driver for windows? Or am I wrong? And I don't see how if someone went so far to create a whole bootloader just to get XP on the mac, someone else can say, "Hey, let's port captive-ntfs over to OS X" if it doesn't install fine right out of the box. Provided that's probably only a little better for interop, but it's a start. Who knows, maybe someone will find this profitable and make a 2-way driver for OS X and XP to write on each others' FS in a user-friendly manner.

Re:The dark times are upon us

[simong]

Because this isn't a solution for a casual user. People who buy Macs buy them because they like Macs. The people who have risen to this challenge have done this because they like a challenge.

Re:Dual booting is unpractical

[mrchaotica]

The only reason I'd have for running windows would be Half-Life 2.

Exactly.

My iMac has a 2.0 Ghz Intel Core Duo and a Radeon X1600. My fastest non-Mac has a single Athlon XP 2100+ and a GeForce 3 Ti 500. You do the math.

no

[xmodem_and_rommon]

no, apple could have made it easy. EFI includes something called the CSM. This is a system designed to allow legacy operating systems to boot. An EFI with this should be able to boot windows no problem.

Except Apple's version of EFI doesn't support CSM. I get what you're saying about them not wanting legacy hardware, but how hard would it be for them to include a CSM? If they thought that allowing windows to run on intel macs would have been beneficial, they would have.

Re:A lot more useful! Excellent!

[jdray]

Using virtualization is about the only way I'd want to pursue Windows on a Mac (or any computer, for that matter). I want the option to switch to a Windows LPAR running concurrently on the box, but not have to shut down the main OS to do so. VMWare or VirtualPC get part of the way there, but, as you say, some sort of hypervisor would be the way to go.

Re:Why?

[Basehart]

"Wouldn't a VM be better for this?"

I'm kinda loathed to give msft $ for a VM when I can just install WindowsXP from my installer disk.

I need a new laptop anyway, so may as well go with an Intel based Mac and be able to run pretty much anything i want.

Re:Let's hear it for peer review

[Anonymous Coward]

The pictures were just for showing progress for the interested and narf/blanka had no interest in submitting any unquestionable proof at that point.

The real Peer-review process was when the 10 enlisted testers verified that the solution works on their machines.

It was completely unnecessary to come up with a zillion ways the pictures/video could've been faked when it was obvious to anyone that was easily achievable.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:A lot more useful! Excellent!

[Lifyre]

It's not just apple who should have been hoping for this but Intel as well. This is a market that if it grows AMD has absolutely no foothold or way to gain a foothold in for the immediate future.

Re:Mirror of the movie

[codemachine]

I believe that was done on purpose, to show that he wasn't just replacing the frames in his video. Plus he could move around and show us the back of the machine. That video left little room for forgery, especially since it showed a change in resolution on the screen, and a return from sleep mode, that would be very hard to fake.

Or it could just be the coffee, as another poster has already metioned.

Re:Not at all

[Anonymous Coward]

If being killed results in ending up like IBM then I'd like to sign up.

Re:Why?

[trixy_1086]

Did you expect a complete solution right out of the gate? Of course there is alot of unknown hardware, XP has been running on iMacs for like a week now, tops. You can't play games now, but this is clearly a step in the direction of playing games.
I think Homer Simpson could best describe how I understand your opinion:

"You tried your best, and you failed miserabley. The lesson is 'never try' "

Re:Let's hear it for peer review

[ultramk]

While I appreciate your point, I respectfully disagree. The tone of yesterday's discussion was vitrolic, mean-spirited and crass.

There's a big difference between saying "What an obvious fake! What a lousy photoshop job! What an idiot to think that we would believe this!" and something like "While there's no reason that this couldn't be faked, there's no evidence that it has been. Let's wait and evaluate the proof when it becomes available before passing judgement."

Where I come from, the scientific process of peer-review doesn't include name-calling and obviously premature pronouncements of fakery by armchair image analysts with a copy of the GIMP and no knowledge of things like light bleed in cheap CCDs.

Of course, this is slashdot, where making instant pronouncements about things you don't understand is practically the official sport.

M-

Wait for it, wait for it. . .

[kimvette]

. . . wait for it. . . DMCA to be misused by Apple in 3, 2, 1

You have now been sued by Apple in their nightly bid to take over the world. Troz!!

Seriously though, I wonder if Apple would consider taking action? They've already taken action against folks who run OS/X on Wintel boxes. If I were to run OS/X I'd want to run it on a whitebox PC, not an Applefied proprietary box that I can't select better hardware for.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you shouldn't look at the mac mini you tool, WoW runs very well on my MBP.

Re:Irony

[drinkypoo]

In contrast, consider Windows, which has been successfully ported to...Alpha? Once, many years ago? Windows is far more intransigent about porting to new hardware platforms, because they've never needed to, never wanted to, and never put any friendly handles in to smooth the transition.

It's too bad you got modded insightful, because you don't know what you're talking about. NT was originally on the intel i860 (N-Ten [winsupersite.com]) processor - the original source of the name NT - and NT4 was not only ported to DEC Alpha, but also PowerPC. I don't remember if it ran on CHRP or PREP but IIRC there was even a model of Macintosh that would boot it, probably a workgroup server. The PPC port was mostly meant for Power-PC based RS/6000 systems.