Does ALL Windows software work?

[dumoon]

Hi - My wife may be scoring the SAT this fall. She's required to download and use some software available only for a Windows machine. I was planning on trying out Boot Camp and purchasing XP, however, they state:

* ePEN is not compatible with Macs, Macs running Virtual/Bootcamp/or Parallel Windows, or Linux operating systems

Should I believe them? I thought Windows operated identically under BC. I'd rather not spend the $$ on Windows to test it out....any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!

-dumoon

[robbieduncan]

Under Bootcamp you are just running Windows on another x86 box. There is no reason for it not to work. They are just covering their asses as they don't want to support Bootcamp issues.

[dumoon]

HA! Thanks robbieduncan....I told my wife that was probably the case, but wanted to get a more informed opinion.

[J@ffa]

I remember reading about this somewhere, actually - it was for law students who were sitting the exams, but I think it was because non-tech savvy markers obviously wouldn't know the difference between native and emulated operating systems so they just blanket banned Macs. The situation with this might be different, but the fact that they explicitly forbid Macs makes me think it's not worth the trouble. If no-one's going to see the machine though (she's marking at home, say) then go for it. :P

[crabola]

My Mom has the same problem. She needs to run the Pearson Scoring software and they told her that her Mac "wouldn't pass the diagnostic" that the program runs. I would hate to see her have to buy a PC when she can just get Windows and install it under Bootcamp.

[aiterum]

how do people not get this? windows under bootcamp runs natively and anything that works natively under windows will work natively on your mac when it is running windows under bootcamp. Bootcamp is just a program that partitions your harddrive, so its not even running under bootcamp, its just running windows natively. So stop worrying about this already

[old-wiz]

how do people not get this? windows under bootcamp runs natively and anything that works natively under windows will work natively on your mac when it is running windows under bootcamp. Bootcamp is just a program that partitions your harddrive, so its not even running under bootcamp, its just running windows natively. So stop worrying about this already

But doesn't bootcamp install drivers to allow the windows program to communicate with EFI since there is no windows BIOS?

[cathyy]

3DS Max 2008 has some problems running under Boot Camp.

[Nermal]

But doesn't bootcamp install drivers to allow the windows program to communicate with EFI since there is no windows BIOS?

Every computer has drivers, so they can't justifiably ban a computer for having drivers :)

I believe that all the BIOS/EFI interaction is done before Windows even loads.

[mac88]

Don't worry about it, the program will run just fine.

[AVR2]

But doesn't bootcamp install drivers to allow the windows program to communicate with EFI since there is no windows BIOS?
Only DOS-based Windows variants - so, anything up to and including Win98, but possibly WinME as well - require run-time access to the BIOS. None of the later versions of Windows actually use the BIOS for anything other than instigating the boot process; once that's underway, Windows communicates with the system hardware via device drivers, rendering the BIOS somewhat redundant.

[dumoon]

My Mom has the same problem. She needs to run the Pearson Scoring software and they told her that her Mac "wouldn't pass the diagnostic" that the program runs. I would hate to see her have to buy a PC when she can just get Windows and install it under Bootcamp.

There was an online form that had you state your OS. It didn't like it when you entered anything non-Windows. We figured we could enter Windows if using XP through Bootcamp, but then my sister gave us her PC laptop and we decided to use that rather than spend the $$ on a copy of XP.

-Bryan

[Syonidism]

just as well... However you were good to go under bootcamp too.

anyways tell us how it goes:P

[Stridder44]

Under Bootcamp you are just running Windows on another x86 box. There is no reason for it not to work. They are just covering their asses as they don't want to support Bootcamp issues.

This is most definitely the case. They're just covering their asses.

windows under bootcamp runs natively and anything that works natively under windows will work natively on your mac when it is running windows under bootcamp. Bootcamp is just a program that partitions your harddrive, so its not even running under bootcamp, its just running windows natively.

Exactly. It's native %100 pure-grade Windows. You have nothing to worry about.