Windows Vista Beta Running on a PPC Mac

goombah99 writes "Macosxhints is giving a set of tips that let any Mac user boot Windows Vista on a Mac. In this case, it's not a native Intel boot but rather VirtualPC running on a PPC G5 Mac. Thus Vista and Mac OS X can run concurrently. There are no extravagant hacks needed, just a matter of finding the right set of configurations to let VirtualPC present the proper disk images for mounting and BIOS settings to the installer. This bodes well for native installs onto the Intel Mac." Actually, there have been successful (though not glitch-free) installs of beta versions of Vista on Intel Macs for a few months now. Here's a report from Hans Verbeeck (Developer Evangelist for Microsoft EMEA) on putting Vista Beta 2 on a MacBook Pro.

How so?

[gEvil (beta)]

This bodes well for native installs onto the Intel Mac.

How so? I would like goombah99 to clarify this statement. As timothy points out, Vista has been installing on Intel Macs for a while. The thing is that it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Vista can run in an x86 emulation environment for a different processor family. It doesn't bode anything at all because it's irrelevent.

This has nothing to do with Intel Macs

[bsartist]

VPC emulates a traditional PC with a BIOS. An Intel Mac is an entirely different beast. Getting Vista to boot in VPC is no more difficult than getting it to boot on a generic "white box" pc, and has just as much relevance to the Intel Mac. That is, none at all.

Yes it is news

[goombah99]

First,
      Other's have only been able to install Vista by wiping out the EFI boot partition. Here's a way to concurrently run Vista. It shows it can be done without reformating the disk.
Second,
    it shows that Contrary to rumors, Vista is not crippled against running on macs or under virtual systems.
Third,
    it shows macs meet the minumum specs for Vista, so one need not hesitate about buying a mac now if one was worried about running vista.
Fourth,
    it means you can do comparisons of Vista and mac osx.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Microsoft to buy Apple.

[NutscrapeSucks]

The slightly more credible version of this speculation is that Apple is dumping Darwin and will port the OS X user interface frameworks to the Vista kernel, thus allowing perfect side-by-side Windows|Mac compatibility. Of course, that's still not very credible.

Re:How so?

[gEvil (beta)]

Under this vitualized environment the Disk is booting off of a EFI block (holding OSX)...

Except PPC Macs use OpenFirmware, not EFI. The first Macs to use EFI were the Intel Macs. And as others have pointed out (which you repeatedly seem to be ignoring), Apple introduced legacy BIOS support for EFI Macs with BootCamp. Since that came out a few months ago, you haven't had to worry about wiping out your EFI partition.

The bigger news however is headline: vista runs on PPC.

Vista runs on PPC under an x86 virtualization environment. That's not news in the slightest. You really sound like you don't understand what role the different processors play in the whole scheme of things.

Re:Misleading headline...

[mh101]

After RTFA, I have to say that was seriously a waste of my time. x86 OS works in x86 emulator. Wow what a breakthrough (sarcasim).

Since you claim to have read the article, you'd have noticed that the big deal isn't "It works in an emulator" but rather "At first it wouldn't install in VPC, but someone found a neat trick to get it to install." I didn't even know it was possible to get into a BIOS setup screen in VPC.

I agree, it would be extremely slow though. I have a Dual 1.8GHz G5, and the Virtual PC seems to run at ~350 MHZ for me (not a scientific measurement... just a guess based on how it 'feels'). Considering Vista's minimum requirements are at least 800 MHz, I wouldn't want to use it on a regular basis.

That being said, I'm going to try it out anyway, just to take a look at Vista.

Re:Vista will flop

[foamrotreturns]

You really don't understand the consumerist society, do you? People buy new stuff even when the old stuff works just fine. It's about social status and bragging rights. It's got nothing to do with if it works or not. Also, you'd be surprised by the number of people who think that getting a virus means they need to get a new system. There was even a newspaper article around here in my hometown that said something to the effect of "Be careful of viruses. They can delete your data or even destroy your computer so you have to buy a new one." I of course called BS in a letter to the editor but they didn't publish it. People are ignorant when it comes to technology. They don't understand it and don't want to. They just want it to work. And a lot of times, that means buying a new computer. If you think the market is saturated, check out the PC sales numbers. They're higher than ever before. As more people want to get on this "newfangled intarweb thingy" they all buy computers. Then they hook them up. Then they get pwn3d. Then they buy a new one. Rinse, repeat.

Re:How so?

[drinkypoo]

The bigger news however is headline: vista runs on PPC.

Uh, no it doesn't. It runs on emulation of an x86, running on a PPC. It does not, repeat NOT run on the PPC hardware. It's in a 100% emulated environment.

Re:Yes it is news

[Spokehedz]

1. I do not think that word means what you think it means... Concurrently means that you are running both at once, where as you are referring to being able to switch between both of them at boot time through a boot manager. This article says you can run them concurrently, which is clearly possible with an EFI boot partition. Formatting isn't even in the equation, as you have a disk image residing on the HD with whatever filesystem/boot whatever.

2. This is a BETA and most if not all the retail checking mechanisms are not in place, due to the fact that in a year--let alone whenever it gets released--the methods of detection will most likely change significantly.

3. It is a virtual system, therefore it can trick the OS into thinking whatever specs are needed for the OS to run. See the last question about changing specs, and timeframes. by the time it is released, the specs may change significantly.

4. Err... No. Not on a virtual system, that's running on top of another system. The virtual system (unless part of Xen, and even still) will most likely fail all tests. Not to mention it's an apples to oranges-who-are-growing-on-fake-trees-with-artific ial-nutrients-being-fed-to-them comparison in the first place.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

This one comment summarizes this whole discussion. The worst part is that even when being refuted by very knowledgable people, Goombah still sits there telling everyone that they're wrong and that he's right.

This is not news

[PhunkySchtuff]

There's nothing new here. They're running VirtualPC, so Vista isn't really running on Mac hardware. Even installing vista on intel Mac hardware is very straightforward - if you want to dual-boot OS X and Vista, things get a little more difficult (or impossible?) but if you want to run Vista on an intel Mac, just go ahead an install it. It works.

Re:Mac OSX on PCs? THIS is what I am waiting for..

[Sparky9292]

As someone who is a longtime Windows user and now MAC OS X user out of necessity (I'm an IT Director at a sports publishing company and we are ALL MAC OS X), I wonder why any Mac user in their right mind would buy a Mac only to install Windows on it.

Simple reason to put Windows on a Macbook Pro: Games. I'm tired of having reconnect my monitor to a Windows machine for games and one for my PowerMac. The ONLY reason I keep a Windows machine around is to play games. I don't use it for anything else. OSX does everything else (Office, banking, surfing the net, etc) better.

I also don't want two monitors. I want one machine that can run Windows for gaming, and then OSX for everything else. Apple now has a product that does this well. I'm going to purchase this.