Submitted by A very detailed how to for installing and running Windows XP on an Intel iMac have been posted on the contest website. And on a related note, someone who almost won the contest posted his findings too: “While I’m disappointed not to have won, I’m encouraged to see that our approaches were remarkably similar. We both wrote custom EFI CSM drivers to emulate the BIOS functions Windows requires to boot. I’m very curious how they managed to get VGA working, and I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t work in either the Mini or the Macbook Pro, as it looks like they did all their development on an iMac.”
If you have that much skill and talent, you haven’t exactly “lost” either. I can’t speak for narf, blanka or clay; but I think the deadline itself was a bigger driving force than the money. Hackers live by tight deadlines.
I’m very curious how they managed to get VGA working, and I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t work in either the Mini or the Macbook Pro, as it looks like they did all their development on an iMac.
The solution posted by Narf and Blanka works on the iMac 17″, the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro. As of late last night, it did not yet work with the iMac 20″ (see http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=11731&st=200 ).
*edit* added link
Edited 2006-03-17 14:09
I cannot think of any way, this might hurt Apple. Instead it will serve them a boatload of money. I expect the Apple Store to be down today, due to all the people who would have not bought a Mac or waited unless this happened. Don’t get me wrong OSX is a really good OS, but we all know that most of us are stuck with some Windows app we depend on.
Although the patching procedure is to complicated for average Joe to perform, we all know most of the people who are interested in this kind of stuff are able to handle this. Thus Apple does not need to care for support, since people using this workaround know that Apple is not accountable for any screw-up and beeing afraid of those unlegitimate support issues possibly stopped them from offering this workaround themselves.
On the long term it will definetely strengthen Apples position in the market and the larger deployment of Macs might animate some software developers to go cross-plattform.
Now if I just had the money to get a small Mac myself 🙁
Very true, I’m going up to London on Saturday to buy a MacBook Pro solely because of the result of this competition. That’s £1700 extra for Apple thanks to this competition, and I’m not alone.
I’m certainly considering it too. I’d like to see the video card working first though. I find it somewhat amusing that Apple never bothered mentioning that the ATI Radeon X1600 graphics processor using PCI Express ( http://www.apple.com/imac/whatsinside.html ) in the iMac is actually a Mobility Radeon X1600
Given the form factor, it does make sense of course. According to http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/print/ati-x1600-mobility.htm… it isn’t too much worse than the desktop X1600, though I do wonder if/how he managed to accurately compare the two 
Frankly I’m tempted. I want MacBook to replace my hp notebook. Currently I’m still thinking if 234.000 yen is worth to buy.
Great job, but now i’d like to see “Installing Mac OS X on a non-apple pc”
There is already a ton of stuff out there for this if you know where to look.
Yes there is, but it’s by far not as easy as installing XP on a Macintel. The current steps are very involved and IIRC even require an existing OS X installation that PC from the restore CD image that was leaked on the internet. Even if you manage to install OS X on generic x86 hardware you will still have problems with software not working properly.
I’d love to see someone put out a CD where all I need to do is boot from it and follow prompts to install OS X. Using a Linux live CD’s and the tools available for that OS I figure it should be possible to make such a CD; however, it hasn’t been done yet as far as I know.
Why don’t you do it yourself if you want it that badly?
If I were the client for such a CD I’d probably also buy a legal copy of OS X, so that I would feel like I’m being fair to Apple. If, however, I was the one making the CD, I’d know it would be used by people who wouldn’t do their part to make sure Apple is compensated. Even if I knew how to make such a CD, I want to keep a clean conscience.
http://maxxuss.com/
Hello,
there are no instructions on that site.
Use your eyes.
There are links to the instructions all down the right hand side of the page.
…a heck of a risk by allowing Windows (by MS or anyone) onto their cherished minority platform. If this is allowed to continue, Mac OS X could be eventually dilluted to the point of being extinguished and Apple turned into just another PC vendor.
Perhaps this is what Apple wants, after all they are a hardware company and they have a lot of stores, with lots of people asking why can’t they run XP on their hardware.
Apple has repeated said “We will not prevent anyone from running Windows on a Mac”
Why would Apple not defend it’s minority market share from intrusion?
Don’t they realize this will give people the option to switch to Windows before they have given Mac OS X a chance?
Sure Apple may increase hardware sales for the short term, but I can just see entire Mac computer labs and graphic shops being switched over to Windows by IT departments concerned about their jobs.
When the next purchase cycle comes up, I can hear the excuse already, “Mac’s? Oh they have been running Windows already, might as well go with Dell and get the cheaper price.”
I think Apple has shot itself in the foot, and soon will need to shoot itself in the head.
[quote]
When the next purchase cycle comes up, I can hear the excuse already, “Mac’s? Oh they have been running Windows already, might as well go with Dell and get the cheaper price.”
[/quote]
Those shops are already buying Dells already if they aren’t using OS X already. So your point is moot.
This is not the same as getting OS X on a generic x86. This may be doable, but will always be flaky because of bad hardware drivers for all the different possible configurations that can exist for wintels.
Running windows on PowerBooks may lead to increased sales for Mac hardware, but I don’t see it being a huge increase.
People like me may benefit. I use my Mac religiously, but always have a windows box around for those times I want to play CS Source or another game. This will allow me to dual boot to get 15 minutes of fraggin in instead of needing the windows box around.
Your argument humbles at many points.
1. Nobody buys a Mac and does not try OSX. Everybody who buys a Mac now, due to the fact that Windows works as well, does this to switch TO OSX in the long term. I mean on a regular PC you can forget about OSX directly (I know it can be done but it has too many issues to be productive). Thus this new situation only ATTRACTS further switchers.
2. No cooperation or other institution on a larger scale that deployed Macs in their offices and labs will install Windows on them. Simply because there is no official support. Administrators nightmare I would call that.
When they already use OSX they will stay with it since usually OSX is used for special purposes which no other OS (escpecially Windows) could fullfil i.e. content creation.
Those companies depending on Windows will never buy Macs to “hack” Windows onto these boxes, have no support and buy them at a premium price instead of ordering a large amount of off-the-shelf boxes for a 1.99$ from a large vendor like DELL.
As I stated before this hack does Apple a favor. To them it means a larger user base with MANY people willing to switch, increased hardware sales from this day forth and best of all. No legitimate support requests from users trying out Windows on their shiny new Mac.
Your arguments are based on these falacies.
1: That Windows will always be a insecure, ugly, clusterfsck OS.
2: That developers will bother to code for Mac OS X if a Mac can boot Windows.
I think there is a new problem, when a software developer considers coding their program for Mac OS X, there is a additional thing they must now consider.
Apple may have sold X amount of Mac’s in this Y year, but how many of those will be running Mac OS X?
How many operating systems can a normal person deal with?
After all, once you get used to the ugliness of XP, then it really doesn’t matter, you stick with what you know because it runs what you need.
“Sure Apple may increase hardware sales for the short term, but I can just see entire Mac computer labs and graphic shops being switched over to Windows by IT departments concerned about their jobs.”
1. Why only short term? How many people do you know that want two computers to do the work of one? Most people don’t. Having one that do the work that has required two ever since Mac went to PPC is a good thing, and guess what? Only Apple allows this option (though a geeky friend is needed to get it working, at the moment).
2. The support people in a graphics shop would not decide what production software runs. The managers and actual users would.
3. The support people would not go through as much hassle as is needed to install Windows. They would go ahead and buy new machines.
“When the next purchase cycle comes up, I can hear the excuse already, “Mac’s? Oh they have been running Windows already, might as well go with Dell and get the cheaper price.””
You’re years late for this one, JustAnotherMacUser. It is why Apple has struggled on the desktop. It’s a valid argument at its core, but has nothing to do with Apple hardware, and everything to do with these people not needing OS X.
“Why would Apple not defend it’s minority market share from intrusion?”
Intrusion by who? AOpen? Laughable!
This is really cool from the perspective that you can now access windows if you must.
However, dual boot is a pain in the neck. Anyone who had done it find that after a while, it really starts to wear on you and you end up staying in one or the other environment.
– Kelson
The point of this isn’t to use Apple hardware in place of Dell or whatever for running Windows, it’s to let fence-sitters switch to OS X and still reboot into Windows when they need to run their “mission-critical” applications… such as video games that haven’t been made available for Mac OS X.
This will let me replace my XP box with a Mac, finally.
– chrish
I was happy to hear that this solution wasn’t a fake. However, I think that some of you who are admitting one or more applications that are absolutely necessary and only available in Windows may be missing the point: PRODUCTIVITY
Until we can run Windows virtually along side of OSX, we will not be productive. XP won’t be able to write to the OSX partition, and that is where many of your files might be. I guess you could keep an external drive around with a mutual filesystem. The point is, many of us *hate* to use Windows; but we have to. We need a fast, easy way to run applications in Windows at native speed, without hindering our OSX usage at the same time. Rebooting into another OS is not efficient.
I keep a Windows laptop for specific applications only, such as AutoCAD, Microsoft Access, and a few others that are necessary for my job. But, I still use my Mac over 90% of the time, and all of my files are kept on the Mac and accessed over the network from the laptop. This makes for more efficient backups for me too.
I will be content when we are given a stable virtual environment (NOT EMULATED). Hopefully, Virtual PC will adapt correctly and/or VMWare will come to the Mac.
“Hopefully, Virtual PC will adapt correctly and/or VMWare will come to the Mac.”
I’m gonna try installing XP on my iMac, then running OSX inside the windows version of VMWare using Maxxuss patch for 10.4.4.
All legal, and fun to play with. 🙂
I will be content when we are given a stable virtual environment (NOT EMULATED). Hopefully, Virtual PC will adapt correctly and/or VMWare will come to the Mac.
I’m using VirtualPC on a Windows box and it’s great! I have every OS variation available without rebooting, and reinstalling just means copying a file, even easier than ghosting. I’ve considered doing a minimal XP install as a host and a virtual one to work in.
I’m not interested enough in dual booting to buy a MacBook, but a native VirtualPC that gave me a usable Windows at the same time as OSX (the current PPC version is really not usable) would sell me quickly.
…to release Intel Macs. Until Leopard, anyway. Let the current (or what was current) hardware line to sink in, spruce up Mac OS X so it was even better, more attractive (and I don’t mean looks), line up some more MS-Compatible (or improve compatibility with) software, THEN release an (at that point much more powerful) Intel lineup.
I can’t help but think they have rushed things a bit.
That being said, I love my Mac mini core duo.
It’s worth noting that there are still some issues awaiting to be worked out, most importantly lack of accelerated video in XP (ie no games for now). I don’t believe bluetooth works either. There’s also a weird keyboard mapping issue with delete vs. backspace on the MBP.
There’s now a test version for the iMac 20″ though.
And for everybody who’s looking to go out and get a new Mac, have a look at the Macintouch.com reports. Otherwise you may be in for some nasty surprises (numerous cases of wireless problems with the minis, noise and screen issues with the Macbook Pros etc.). It’s not that they’re bad machines, but it’s not always smooth sailing either.
I am wondering how much of this is relevant to an older W2K install, I am not likely to ever upgrade to XP.
A whole lot of useful information no one will ever need. Kudos for the effort, had to be done, but one usually hacks to make something better.
“one usually hacks to make something better.”
So enabling people who wish to run XP on their Mac is making something worse in your opinion?
Yes and XP vs. OSX has absolutely nothing to do with that opinion. You have a piece of hardware with an OS designed just for it, then take something off the shelf with an emulated bios dreaming it will be better? Only raw zealotry will take that leap of faith. All you’re really going to accomplish is voiding the warranty and zeroing out the resale value of a very nice little mac. The best advice is don’t buy one in the first place if you want to run windows, you’ll be wealthier and happier. The only winner in this project is the guy who got MS’s money for it.
If I take a linksys $69 nas device and hack it with linux/openslug, I’ve got a $300 Xscale devo platform for under $100, see better. Thinking a mac mini with winXP has more value than one with OSX on it is just delusional beyond even zealotry. Why not sell it and buy a nicer, cheaper clone to run XP on, you’ll be a lot happier in the long run.
You’ve made the all too common mistake of assuming that because you personally find something to have no value, that other people do too.
Everyone has different needs, and what is important to you is probably not important to me.
Much like the mistake of thinking you can read minds.
The Value of anything is only what someone is willing to pay, now, this second, nothing else matters. Do you really think that mac can sell for more with windows on it? I mean really, be serious for a second and think about it. One the way it came from the factory with an OS custom made for it or one hacked with a bios emulator running off the shelf windows? Picture the classifed ads for the two and pretend to be someone who wants a mac and then someone who wants a pc with the original list price in mind.
See, you have de-valued the mac.
Thinking a mac mini with winXP has more value than one with OSX on it is just delusional beyond even zealotry.
Thinking that a mac mini with both XP and OSX is not more valuable than one with just OSX is zealotry. As if having XP on a partion somehow sullies the computer. If I have a Mac with both OSs but I hate XP then I just don’t use it. But when the day comes when I have to use XP for something, I’ll be glad it’s there.
“All you’re really going to accomplish is voiding the warranty and zeroing out the resale value of a very nice little mac.”
Your MacOSX CD can remove any changes you make to the firmware, so how are they voiding the warranty? Let people do what they want to their hardware. Modifications ot the EFI would also have to me made to boot into Linux, maybe not as extensive (linux can support booting into EFI) but changes still need to be made.
“Thinking a mac mini with winXP has more value than one with OSX on it is just delusional beyond even zealotry.”
Media Centre Edition, MythTV(Linux) combined with a mac mini would be awesome.
Media Centre Edition, MythTV(Linux) combined with a mac mini would be awesome.
Why, is it fanless, silent, low power? I don’t see the qualities that would make a great media center, just an awsome waste of a nice mac workstation.
“You have a piece of hardware with an OS designed just for it…”
I almost laughed, here. Apple maybe designed the motherboard, and definitely the case. Other than that, it’s COTS parts. The hardware was as much designed for OS X as a $300 Dell was designed for Windows.
“All you’re really going to accomplish is voiding the warranty and zeroing out the resale value of a very nice little mac.”
First: Have you ever voided a warranty on something by tinkering with it? Have you ever took it apart to see what was inside, removing that foil sticker in the process?
If not, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to explain it to you. It is something we must do, and its success is its own reward. To those of us for whom tinkering and rigging is a part of our personalities, this has increased the value of Macs in our eyes, and even if we ultimately chose OS X, we’d have to try XP, just to see it working.
Second: From what I read, no permanent changes are made to the computer. So, please elaborate on how the value is changed by making a non-permanent, completely reversable change.
“Why not sell it and buy a nicer, cheaper clone to run XP on…”
…because no one sells one! Please look outside your bubble. The iMac has no meaningful competition. Once you include XP, AOpen’s copy is over $200 more.
So, when I see hacking a Mac to make it run Windows, I do see it becoming better: only the Mac has anything close to that hardware.
“…you’ll be a lot happier in the long run.””
…and this, of course, explains your entire opinion, in a nutshell, and why it is absolutely wrong (your opinion is not fact). I’ll have no part of your hegemony, thank you very much, and will let you keep your elitism, too.
I almost laughed, here. Apple maybe designed the motherboard, and definitely the case. Other than that, it’s COTS parts. The hardware was as much designed for OS X as a $300 Dell was designed for Windows
and I heartily at this thought, what parts are there left to customize? It’s a single board computer, laugh out loud.
First: Have you ever voided a warranty on something by tinkering with it? Have you ever took it apart to see what was inside, removing that foil sticker in the process?
If not, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to explain it to you. It is something we must do, and its success is its own reward. To those of us for whom tinkering and rigging is a part of our personalities, this has increased the value of Macs in our eyes, and even if we ultimately chose OS X, we’d have to try XP, just to see it working.
Unfortunately the rest of us buy stuff with our wallets, the value in your eyes is the delusion. Breaking everything you buy to see what’s in it, is not exactly rocket science but it is a start albeit a rather economically silly one. Personally I’ll buy an extra one for that if I get that urge, and I do.
So, when I see hacking a Mac to make it run Windows, I do see it becoming better: only the Mac has anything close to that hardware
So now you’re saying that imac is some kind of magic box that can’t compare to anything else which is the exact opposite of
Other than that, it’s COTS parts. The hardware was as much designed for OS X as a $300 Dell was designed for Windows.
Which makes your argument one of contradiction.
“and I heartily at this thought, what parts are there left to customize? It’s a single board computer, laugh out loud.”
…and that has how much to do with the OS? There are many nice single-board computers over at CappuccinoPC, with even less customization. They don’t care what OS runs them. Nor do these Macs. It’s a legacy free PC. The difference is that none of them have the power or design compormises that the Mac Mini and iMac do.
“Unfortunately the rest of us buy stuff with our wallets, the value in your eyes is the delusion. Breaking everything you buy to see what’s in it, is not exactly rocket science but it is a start albeit a rather economically silly one. Personally I’ll buy an extra one for that if I get that urge, and I do.”
You once again have made an argument with no substance, based off a false premise: “Breaking everything you buy,” which also shows that you failed to read the article. No kind of breaking is involved. Whether or not it voids the warranty I do not know, but there is no breaking of any kind.
“So now you’re saying that imac is some kind of magic box that can’t compare to anything else which is the exact opposite of”
Exact opposite of what?
“Which makes your argument one of contradiction.”
What is the contradiction?
…I wonder if the same can be done to get OS/2 or BeOS to run on the Mactels?
do you install Windows to run MSIE, Outlook Express, Active-x, vbscripts, wmp10 and listen to drm:ed wma ?
But surely there are more important issues around the world that could use the brain power of these individuals.
They are very intelligent and clever people (I for one wouldn’t even know where to start!). But why? It’s the old ’cause I can’ syndrome.
As a Windows XP, FreeBSD, OSX user I really don’t see the benefits. Why buy a Aston Martin and then see if you can fit a Skoda engine in it? OK it still looks fantastic but why I would never reach the original top speed that the designers envisaged?
I love my Mac and I love my FreeBSD install, Windows is a company choice that I have to use.
The thing that tickles me the most is that you go out and buy a MacIntel for $$$$$ then you shell out more $$$ for an OS from Redmond when there was a perfectly good one installed.
Call me old fashioned but I quite like have real machines lying about. I am a fan of VM’s but you can’t beat the raw performance or suitabilty of a bit of tin for the job in hand.
I use my Mac for all my design, music and video work. FreeBSD is my CVS, WebServer and the Windows laptop is a work machine (kindly provided by my employer). This comment is being written on my personal iBook.
Every single one of us has an opinion and this is mine … let thoroughbreeds be thoroughbreeds.
Why buy a Aston Martin and then see if you can fit a Skoda engine in it? OK it still looks fantastic but why I would never reach the original top speed that the designers envisaged?
Wow, completely ignoring the fact that they are basically the same parts in Mactels. A Mac is not some specialty piece of hardware that only the geniuses at Apple can take advantage of. Any developers of an OS that have the hardware specs can make it go at the “top speed”.
I didn’t ignore the fact … Aston Martins have many parts that are similar to other cars … wheels, doors, windows (TM), exhaust etc. What I was referring to was the ‘design’. The desingers view is always different to the owners view. Designers take great pride in their works, owners tend to abuse the original concept and ideal.
Edited 2006-03-17 22:20
You are right. The Macs are a great design. But it’s still just hardware. You imply that XP (or another OS) can’t take advantage of that great design as well as Apple. Which isn’t true, since in the end it’s the same hardware.
It’s not the same as putting a crap engine into an Aston Martin. It’s like replacing the engine that came with the Aston Martin with a different engine that can perform and push the car to it’s limits just as well as the original could (depending on your preferences of engines and OSs of course).
but the replacing engine dies from time to time and you have to mentain it all the time you run it
Yeah, with a bios emulated, sure, just as good, roit.
More power to you dude, voice of wisdom.
well done, but this might be a short-lived experinece
apple might do some changes to the upcoming intel based macs that will render this hack useless.
Folks talk about resale value, but we have no proof that Mactels will have the same resale value as PPC Macs. Maybe, maybe not, pure conjecture at this point.
Also, people forget that Apple will “break” this “fix” with the next update, same as they did with Real’s Harmony.
Then the Mac fans will try to rewrite history AGAIN. They will claim that Apple never said that they wouldn’t do any thing to make Windows not run on their hardware.
George Orwell would be proud….
I love MacOSX. That is the seller for me, not the hardware as teh “engineers envisioned it” or anything at all about the hardware. I like the OS. But alas the job I have uses Windows and they will not change at all no matter what it seems. So it’s like this, I need Windows for work and want MacOSX for home. Just like MANY MANY people. So is it prefereable to hack up OSX to work on my “beige box” and run Windows on the machine it was supposed to, or is it preferable to run MacOSX on a Mac and a hacked up way of running Windows? Surely it would be the latter, atleast Apple gets a hardware sale in. Also let’s face it. Windows is designed at Redmond (and supported) to run on a whole mess load of configs versus OSX only runs on specific hardware. So Windows is more adaptable to running on these machines. Also what I wonder is what kind of support MS offers for this kind of setup. Do they view it as any different than running on any old PC?
Windows is designed at Redmond (and supported) to run on a whole mess load of configs versus OSX only runs on specific hardware.
Microsoft doesn’t support the hardware, hardware vendors support Windows. There’s a big difference there. Microsoft does not write drivers for the gazillion pieces of hardware you can use with Windows, the makers of the hardware do. If OS X were available for any x86 PC, as I firmly believe it will be someday, it will be up to the hardware vendors to write drivers that support OSX. And they will.
A very, very important point, thanks.
The eventual goal of this is for microsoft to control the hardware side as well. In a couple of years running Windows on Macs will be common, then Windows apps will run better than equivalent Mac apps, then finally compatibility between Windows and non-Mac hardware will degrade. Eventually to get Windows to run optimally or even just correctly you will need the proprietary hardware, the hardware that started out being Mac hardware.