Hello. Yesterday I received my Mac Pro (with xt1900 video card) from Apple and set to work using a slipstreamed XP Pro SP2 installed carefully following instructions posted by Terrabit at http://macprojournal.com/xp.html and toonerh at http://st118.startlogic.com/~macproxp/. After many frustrating attempts, I was unable to get the hard drives to work at more than 3 MBps and, while everything else worked fine, that meant a practically unusable system. I decided to try using the 64-bit edition of Windows tonight and now have everything running smoothly (and very fast!) There are two things you should know before attempting this:
Firstly, it appears that the GPT partitioning used on the stock hard drive is incompatible with XP64. To get XP64 to install, I had to use Disk Utility to erase the hard drive and format as MS-DOS with MBR partitioning. I had purchased two SATA drives from Newegg for running OS X in a RAID configuration and had planned to dedicate the stock drive to Windows so this was fine from my perspective, but this might rule out XP64 for some as I believe using MBR partitioning prevents dual booting into OS X from that drive (true?).
Secondly (and here's the good news), you can get a 120 day free trial of XP64 from Microsoft right now via download. Really. Here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/trial.mspx
Steps to Installation
1. Follow the instructions on slipstreaming the XP64 installation disc given on the links in the beginning of this post, substituting the 64-bit folder for the 32-bit one. I'd recommend using Parallels to do this as then you can easily modify the build if necessary (you'll need the update at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/update/)
2. The Boot Camp 1.1 driver disc does not support XP64, so you'll likely want to assemble drivers ahead of time and put them on a CD or thumbdrive prior to installation. The drivers are:
Network Card - http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=581&DwnldID=8719&strOSs=109&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional%20x64%20Edition&lang=eng
Graphics (I've only tried the XT1900 drivers)
All four downloads for the ATI Radeon - https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=367
or, if you're using the 7300 GT, you could try this link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_91.47.html
and for the Quadro: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_84.26.html
Sound - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;amp;displaylang=en&familyid=DAB139F1-065C-41E8-A148-9D79BD9D24F9&displaylang=en
then
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlhd-2.aspx?lineid=2004052&famid=2004052&series=2004061&Software=True&title=HD%20Audio%20CODECs
3. Boot from and install the slipstreamed XP64 disc. When you formatted for MBR it created a FAT32 partition, but this boinked the installation when I tried it. I would highly recommend NTFS instead (or perhaps split partition so there will be a FAT32 data exchange area).
4. When Windows installation is complete, install the drivers. Run hdtune and you should see 60+ MBps performance.
PERFORMANCE (ESPECIALLY WITH GAMES) IS EXTREMELY GOOD WITH THIS SETUP. Have fun!
-K-
Firstly, it appears that the GPT partitioning used on the stock hard drive is incompatible with XP64. To get XP64 to install, I had to use Disk Utility to erase the hard drive and format as MS-DOS with MBR partitioning. I had purchased two SATA drives from Newegg for running OS X in a RAID configuration and had planned to dedicate the stock drive to Windows so this was fine from my perspective, but this might rule out XP64 for some as I believe using MBR partitioning prevents dual booting into OS X from that drive (true?).
Secondly (and here's the good news), you can get a 120 day free trial of XP64 from Microsoft right now via download. Really. Here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/trial.mspx
Steps to Installation
1. Follow the instructions on slipstreaming the XP64 installation disc given on the links in the beginning of this post, substituting the 64-bit folder for the 32-bit one. I'd recommend using Parallels to do this as then you can easily modify the build if necessary (you'll need the update at http://www.parallels.com/en/download/desktop/update/)
2. The Boot Camp 1.1 driver disc does not support XP64, so you'll likely want to assemble drivers ahead of time and put them on a CD or thumbdrive prior to installation. The drivers are:
Network Card - http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=581&DwnldID=8719&strOSs=109&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional%20x64%20Edition&lang=eng
Graphics (I've only tried the XT1900 drivers)
All four downloads for the ATI Radeon - https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=367
or, if you're using the 7300 GT, you could try this link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_91.47.html
and for the Quadro: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_84.26.html
Sound - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;amp;displaylang=en&familyid=DAB139F1-065C-41E8-A148-9D79BD9D24F9&displaylang=en
then
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlhd-2.aspx?lineid=2004052&famid=2004052&series=2004061&Software=True&title=HD%20Audio%20CODECs
3. Boot from and install the slipstreamed XP64 disc. When you formatted for MBR it created a FAT32 partition, but this boinked the installation when I tried it. I would highly recommend NTFS instead (or perhaps split partition so there will be a FAT32 data exchange area).
4. When Windows installation is complete, install the drivers. Run hdtune and you should see 60+ MBps performance.
PERFORMANCE (ESPECIALLY WITH GAMES) IS EXTREMELY GOOD WITH THIS SETUP. Have fun!
-K-