WinXP on a Mac, Hoax?

Brill writes "Ars Technica is reporting that a member of the 'WinXP on Mac' forums called narf2006 may have succeeded at the impossible. He's submitted his solution to get XP on an Intel Mac, for the $12,000 prize, but for now the only proof available is a blurry Flickr collection of photos that could be faked with virtual PC. His reputation on the forums however is strong, and he's already calling for testers." We've had people write in to say this has been announced a hoax on the contest page. The contest page is, of course, down due to bandwidth reasons. Engadget's conversation about this announcement has several theories on how this may have been faked. What's the verdict? Real or Fake?

Is it Real or fake??

[roe-roe]

simple answer.... YES

Re:Explain how?

[Kjuib]

You are missing out on a GREAT OS running on some AWESOME HARDWARE... get with the program... everyone runs Windows XP on their Mac... come on!

Re:obivous!

[Jesus_666]

It was not obvious that something like this would happen.

Old news

[Compunerd]

Just see http://karlsbakk.net/fun/windowsxpbootsonamac.jpg [karlsbakk.net]

Re:Maybe interesting as an exercise...

[Maïdjeurtam]

Not so secretely.

Q [kberg.ch], an emulator based on QEMU [qemu.org] is already working on MacIntels. From their News [kberg.ch] page :

This is just a very first test on universal binaries for Q. Expect flaws! No virtualization yet, but it's way faster than on PPC never the less.

As I understand it, virtualization IS planned in Q, and is already a reality in QEMU, albeit it is a closed-source add-on.

Re:I thought Apple didn't care ?

[Greyfox]

It's pretty much inevitable that someone will call them wanting support for the Apple machine they screwed up by trying to install Windows. Just answering the phone probably costs them $20-$30, so even if the users are forthcoming that they tried to install Windows and Apple tells them they can't be helped until they reinstall OSX off the restore DVDs, those calls will eat into Apple's profit margin. If a lot of people start doing that, Apple might have to hire another support person. That would double the cost of their support center and Steve will never get to finish his game of solitaire (Or whatever the Apple equivalent is.) All that engineering up front to discourage installing Windows on their hardware was probably just an attempt to avoid those support calls.

I have a life

[kcurtis]

I'm a level 60 Warrior on WoW. I battle those nasty night elves and live the high life in Orgrimmar.

Oh, you mean real life?

But seriously, and related to the first part of my post...

I would love to have a Mac for browsing, mail and multimedia editing, and to also dual-boot into XP for gaming. (Yes, I know WoW comes on Mac, but many games do not).

Re:Explain the fricken 12,000 bucks for this...

[eno2001]

Is it THAT important to buy Mac hardware to put Windows on?

But of course... As soon as the number of Macs running Windows to do real work outnumbers the number of Macs running Mac OS, can you imagine the reaction of the die hard Mac fanboys? Just that alone is worth $12,000 x 100. ;P (JOKE ALERT!!! JOKE ALERT!!! JOKE ALERT!!!)

And here's the picture confirming ...

[Dr.Sweety]

... that this is not a hoax! Windows XP boots on a Mac! http://www.mathcaddy.com/windowsxpbootsonamac!!!!1 / [mathcaddy.com]

SCNR :)

Re:I thought Apple didn't care ?

[Ford Prefect]

You forgot the Tile Game! [apple.com]

Windows XP on a mac?

[Bitwaba]

I'm still having trouble getting winXP to install on my pc sata drive... maybe narf2006 can give me a hand.

Re:This shot in particular

[pete_norm]

From the Flickr website:

_________
Hold your clicks a moment please...
Flickr has the hiccups. We're looking into the problem right now, so please check back later.
_________

It seems Flickr has a Slashdot caught in its throat...

Hypothesis

[MrNougat]

This "XP on a Mac" thing is currently a hypothesis. It is something that has been reasoned as possible, and now has been tested one time. Provided that the tester kept meticulous notes, others should be able to follow those notes to reproduce the experiment, and report their results to the media. The more times the experiment is successful, the more it can be described as a theory or law.

However, since the current state of knowledge on this subject is thin, it is just as likely that the way to get Windows XP running on a Mac requires divine intervention. One could then describe a Mac running XP as "Intelligently Designed."

Re:And here's the picture confirming ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dual boot, no less.

I installed XP on my mac...

[utexaspunk]

...and then I installed FlyAKiteOSX [portraitofakite.com]. Now I'm really confused :(

"His reputation on the forums"

[xant]

How does he sleep at night? On a huge pile of money. [penny-arcade.com]

Re:Of course it's a fake

[Milton Waddams]

I was talking to someone in my class the other week and he was saying that his TINY laptop was better than my iBook because the CPU in his was IBM (it was AMD but I got that he was talking about x86 versus PPC). I then said that Macs actually had IBM chips in them and newer Macs had Intel chips in them but my iBook had Motorola chips in them. He was utterly confused.

Re:Is it Real or fake??

[mortonda]

I can't seem to find my cat... have you seen it?

Re:Maybe interesting as an exercise...

[PIBM]

Rest assured that the tank would win on the racetrack. No way is he gonna miss the porshe ;)

Re:Explain the fricken 12,000 bucks for this...

[KUHurdler]

"Who would put up 12,000 bucks?"

Microsoft

Re:Is it Real or fake??

[c_forq]

Be careful, once someone observes it it may be dead.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[tpgp]

Well than! Ill try to remember that in future.

Re:Even if this one isn't real...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the DRMed pr0n... :-)

Re:obivous!

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you have a big enough tebuchet.

Re:Is it Real or fake??

[Creepy]

heh - it's a plant to keep the meta-mods on their toes. Weeds out the incompetent meta moderators that don't check the context.

Re:Explain the fricken 12,000 bucks for this...

[MayorDefacto]

So, what you're really saying is, "Once you go Mac, you never go back"

That's like...

[Kaenneth]

like hiring a Supermodel to wash the dishes.
like buying a BMW and filling up at ARCO.
like renting out a Mansion for your cats.