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Windows XP Booting on Mac Contest Over

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,803
31,280


The contest to boot Windows XP on the Mac is over. The winners will receive $13,854:

Contest has been won - updates to follow shortly. All further donations will go into an account to sustain the open source project that will be launched with the initial solution.
Click to expand...

The instructions to the contest stipulated the following conditions:

- Boot Windows XP on the Intel Mac
- Windows must coexist with Mac OS X and may not interfere with the operation of the other
- Upon starting the computer, the user must be offered a choice of which OS to boot

A photo of the OS selection screen was posted in this forum thread. Upon booting the Mac, an Apple logo appears on a grey screen. Pressing the down arrow key at this time brings you to a Windows logo on the same grey background. Hitting enter lets you proceed to boot the selected Operating System.

According to this post the final solution will work on the 17" iMac, 20" iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro. The full solution should be posted shortly and appears it will include downloadable bootloader.
 
narco

narco

macrumors 65816
Dec 9, 2003
1,155
0
California.
Is this a bad thing for Microsoft or Apple? I can't imagine since Microsoft doesn't sell computers and if Windows ran smoothly on a Mac, I'm sure Apple would sell more hardware.

Fishes,
narco.
 
R

rareflares

macrumors regular
Jun 7, 2004
180
0
Washington D.C.
could be a problem for the Mac OS. Who would develop for OSX if users can just use Windows on the same machine?


I understand that only a small minority of computer users will actually do this but it's still a concern for Apple.
 
wheezy

wheezy

macrumors 65816
Apr 7, 2005
1,280
1
Alpine, UT
Congrats to the winner! Didn't know dual-boot was required but that's pretty cool. A good geat way way way beyond my skills! I can hardly install XP on a made for XP PC. But I blame that on Windows.
 
M

mlrproducts

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2004
443
522
I don't want to see developers drop OS X. But since Adobe is being a PITA at least I can run PSCS on my MacBook Pro for now (or at least hoping to).

Who removed my second post, ARGH!?
 
echeck

echeck

macrumors 68000
Apr 20, 2004
1,831
21
Boise, Idaho
Dual boot? Meh...

I want to be able to run it within OS X. With the new Intel Macs I'm assuming the next version of Virtual PC will run at native speeds.

That's what I want. :)

But regardless, kudos to these folks. :)
 
EricNau

EricNau

Moderator emeritus
Apr 27, 2005
10,728
281
San Francisco, CA
I only view this as a negative thing.

I don't believe that this will bring a significant amount of market share to Apple, unless Apple starts offering it as an option - very few people who want to run dual OS's are actually going hack around in their computer to do it.
 
mulletman13

mulletman13

macrumors 6502a
Jul 1, 2004
505
0
Los Angeles.
I personally don't believe that this will really hurt Apple, or that developers will stop developing for OS X. They know OS X is superior for nearly everything besides gaming -- but now people can have that too.

It's great no matter which way you look at it -- Apple will sell a ton of hardware because of this. Most users will play with OS X and get introduced to it now... only to find they really don't need XP :)
 
treblah

treblah

macrumors 65816
Oct 28, 2003
1,285
0
29680
Funny, it took almost as long to get OS X on beige boxen as it did to get Windows on Apple boxen.

EricNau said:
I only view this as a negative thing.

I don't believe that this will bring a significant amount of market share to Apple, unless Apple starts offering it as an option - very few people who want to run dual OS's are actually going hack around in their computer to do it.
Click to expand...

Uhh, if the end user is savvy enough to know what 'dual boot' means I think they could handle it.
 
Ja Di ksw

Ja Di ksw

macrumors 65816
Apr 9, 2003
1,313
8
I don't think there's a reason to worry about people dropping developing for OS X. I don't think many (any?) people were running macs *solely* for the hardware, wishing and hoping that they could run Windows instead, if only the hardware was made by Apple (yes, there are people who want Windows on Apple computers along with OS X, or OS X on non-Apple PC's, but those are different groups and do not affect this logic). The number of people running OS X will not (significantly) decrease, if at all, and so the incentive to develop for OS X will not (significantly) decrease, if at all. The only possible side effect would be more of the people who were already using Windows buying Apple computers, but that doesn't affect how much money developers can earn making programs for OS X.
 
QCassidy352

QCassidy352

macrumors G5
Mar 20, 2003
12,032
6,061
Bay Area
Not that I really have any interest in using windows, but if there's some software I'd have to run, this would be cool.

VPC at native speeds would rock too. :)
 
LagunaSol

LagunaSol

macrumors 601
Apr 3, 2003
4,798
0
Heck yeah! Goodbye ugly PC on my desk, annoying KVM switch, and spaghetti pile of cables. Hello sleek, quiet new iMac that will run any major software on the planet!

Or MacBook Pro....hmmm, decisions decisions...
 
M

mrplow

macrumors member
Sep 18, 2004
75
0
rareflares said:
could be a problem for the Mac OS. Who would develop for OSX if users can just use Windows on the same machine?


I understand that only a small minority of computer users will actually do this but it's still a concern for Apple.
Click to expand...

why would anyone buy a mac if they intended to use windows to run applications? this whole theory that software development will cease to exist is ridiculous... apple exists because it has a superior OS, not because their hardware is superior to the windows world (and is alot more expensive!).

point in case- why does anyone support Linux when Windows has been around for over a decade, running on the same hardware? or vice versa... nothing will change. The only thing that might receive less attention is games.. but with how weak it is to begin with, who the hell cares- they're going to run faster through XP regardless.
 
IJ Reilly

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
EricNau said:
I only view this as a negative thing.

I don't believe that this will bring a significant amount of market share to Apple, unless Apple starts offering it as an option - very few people who want to run dual OS's are actually going hack around in their computer to do it.
Click to expand...

The difficulty of this installation hasn't been ascertained yet, but the question is certainly being asked. If loading Windows on Mac hardware becomes a non-technical task, I can see it being offered as an insurance policy to potential Mac buyers, much as VPC is now.
 
.Andy

.Andy

macrumors 68030
Jul 18, 2004
2,965
1,306
The Mergui Archipelago
Mac OSX up there for thinking (working!)

Windows XP down there for dancing (games!)*

*as long as the performance doesn't suck and all the video drivers and other whatch-ma-callits are cool :cool:.

Congrats to the winner. I can't believe people are out there smart enough to come up with this stuff.
 
D

dlpmaster

macrumors member
Jan 10, 2006
33
0
Pretty kol..
but what about if a user is working on Mac Only based programs and want to tranfer stuff from Windows only files or something? Will people have the availability to run both OS' at the same time.. like have one account under windows and another under OSX ?
Maybe that could be taken into consideration?
 
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