Run Windows XP on your Intel Mac

As soon as the Intel-based Macs were revealed, people started to find ways to run Windows XP on them. The most spoken about resulted in a contest where the winner would get the money that a lot of people had contributed with. Naturally, it succeeded. To get down and dirty with the result, please visit OnMac.net.

I guess some people’s desire to run Windows XP on a Mac was to finally have a lean good looking computer with the OS they prefer; for some people it was about having it all, being able to dual-boot Windows and Mac OS X on the same machine. Some prefer one OS over the other, and some need both in their daily work.

An interesting twist came yesterday. Apple has officially launched a tool to run Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac. The days of wonder are apparently still here… The name of the tool is Boot Camp and for the moment it is in beta but offered for download by Apple. The final release is said to be shipped with the next major release of Mac OS X: Mac OS X Leopard.

What you also need to do in order to run Boot Camp is to update the firmware in your Mac. The different downloads are:

If things go terribly wrong, or if you have a change of mind, you can run the Firmware Restoration CD v 1.0

So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and get it all! πŸ™‚

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16 Comments

  • Jules says:

    I am a Windows user but I would like to be able to afford a Mac. However, Synergy seems to me much more useful than dual booting a Mac.

  • Marco says:

    I don't understand this thing. Why buy a Mac to run windows on it?

    Even for testing purposes this is a royal pain in the ass since you'll be rebooting like there's no tomorrow.

    I'd much rather see an advanced virtualization application like VMWare that lets you run Windows 'in a box' with virtually no performance hit. This can be done under Linux so it shouldn't be a problem to do it under Mac OS X I guess. With that it would be possible to fire up Windows on your mac, on demand, without rebooting.

  • Joel says:

    I agree with Marco, though I think that BootCamp makes a lot of sense for users who are interested in playing Windows games on their MacTel hardware. I could be wrong, but I don't think that virtualization would provide the level of performance needed to run graphics intensive games (mainly because it abstracts away the video hardware, I believe).

  • Stuart says:

    Exciting stuff. I have a need to be able to test software created with Director on windows and that was probably the only thing that has stopped me going fully over to using a MacBook Pro to replace all of my other machines. Apart from the cost to own one of course πŸ™‚

  • Stuart says:

    Maybe this is the answer if you prefer virtualisation: New software lets Intel Macs run Windows sans rebooting

  • Kanashii says:

    Yup, with the new hardware instruction set and software for virtualization, OS X and XP can run simultaniously : ) Now just to save up the $3k to buy one : (

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Jules,

    Thanks for the tip!

    Marco, Joel,

    Well, sometimes people need to use Windows-only applications, and, as Joel says, I'm not a 100% sure that virtualization is a total equivalent of actually running the OS itself.

    But let's turn the argument around: if you buy a MacBook Pro solely to run Windows on it and not Mac OS X, then I think you'd be better off with a regular PC.

    Stuart,

    Thanks for the link!

    Kanashii,

    Ah, it's nothing! It's a bargain! πŸ™‚

  • Johan says:

    >I’m not a 100% sure that virtualization is a total equivalent of actually running the OS itself.

    You cannot eg install dosBox in an emulated environment, since it is software based I guess, intel macs have this in the chip which makes hardware-based which is a boost in performance …

  • Gustaf says:

    I don’t understand this thing. Why buy a Mac to run windows on it?

    A huge problem with Apple computers is that it's really scary to buy one. If you buy a PC with an ambition to run Linux or a BSD flavour on it.. you have an option of going back to Windows if you're not contempt with how the other operative works. If you buy an Apple however.. you're (were) totally screwed. I think this is preventing a lot of people that are having a hard time deciding from buying a Mac. Boot Camp is the potential buyers lifeline. This is quite brilliant.

    I’d much rather see an advanced virtualization application like VMWare that lets you run Windows ‘in a box’ with virtually no performance hit.

    You mean with a quite big performance hit, right? πŸ™‚

  • Solon says:

    There's one thing I still don't get: apart from the EFI-BIOS differences, an Intel-based Mac is just a PC brand, as far as hardware is concerned. And from what I've read, BootCamp is just a bunch of Windows drivers to make it easier to make a dualboot system in a Mac.

    So, what is keeping Dell and Sony, for example, from teaming up with Intel and Microsoft to develop a similar tool for installing MacOS X on regular PCs?

    Is it Apple's hardware-based protections? I'm sure they're not that hard to crack, but I understand it would be illegal to do so, and then companies like Dell wouldn't be allowed to make something like BootCamp.

    But if that's the only thing, then it shouldn't be too hard for Microsoft, if it felt the need (or were sufficiently bothered by the likes of Dell), to develop similar protections that made BootCamp illegal as well.

    I just don't know what to make of these Apple moves, at this point. Personally, I'd love to see something like BootCamp for regular PCs, if nothing else to see how Steve Jobs would react to having actual competition for the first time in his life.

    But I just can't understand where they're going with this. First, after years of PC-bashing, they start using the same Intel technology that is used in PCs. And then, as if that weren't enough, they release an official tool to make it possible to run Windows on their machines. And now I see sites devoted to Macs talking about how Apple is "the new Dell".

    I mean, so far, all of Apple's moves have been toward becoming just a high-quality (and high price) PC brand, like Dell and, mainly, Sony. Do they really believe the iPod factor will attract so many Windows users to their platform that they'll be able to compete with Microsoft? Or is Steve Jobs really trying to compete with Dell in the PC market?

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Solon,

    Those are all very interesting ponderings, and the same as I have. My first thought when it was found that you can run Windows XP on a Mac, how about vice versa?

    My guess is that Apple will hold that option back, since price is a great issue for many people. In that case I think a lot of people would buy PC machines and then boot Mac OS X on them if they wanted that particular OS, as opposed to buying a Mac.

    I have no clue about Apple's strategy either, but I guess they hope to lure developers in to create more software for Mac OS X, since it's now Intel-based, and if Max OS X gets more software options it might be able to get more users to switch and in the end selling more Macs.

    All I can say is that it will be an interesting future… πŸ™‚

  • Rob says:

    Nice Comments but i am not sure the point of windows bashing is the case.And buying an inferior macine ie Windows machines for running OS X has the same experience. I am not sure if you have a Macbook Pro or even an Apple machine but from box to computer it is a WONDER TO BEHOLD. and for me i will take this boot camp for WINDOWS GAMES only and the rest of windows can goto HELL πŸ™‚

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Rob,

    and for me i will take this boot camp for WINDOWS GAMES only and the rest of windows can goto HELL

    Well, that's also one usage. πŸ™‚

  • I liked your site.

  • Luuk Lamers says:

    <blockquote cite="Marco">

    I’d much rather see an advanced virtualization application like VMWare that lets you run Windows ‘in a box’ with virtually no performance hit.

    This is soooo not true. I used VMWare for F*** (sorry) ages… it's THE worst program ever to be used for virtualization. when MAC OS X for windows wasn't yet released I had to use this to get to my precious MAC OS X (on the pc I own). It consumes heaps of ram. memory, GPU, CPU and a lot more… while using it I found myself disliking mac os x because it was sooooo slow… I have a super-computer so there's no-one who can say it was because of my configuration… MAC OS X is wonderful… Windows XP is… so-so… Windows Vista is a little bit better…

    The only reason I would install windows xp or vista in MAC OS X would be to run loads more games… demos come in waves, not one-by-one πŸ˜‰

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Luuk,

    Thanks for sharing.

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