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treblah

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 28, 2003
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My previous instructions are no longer needed with the release of Vista RC1 (Build 5600).

Vista can now be installed just like XP with the exception of drivers.
 
Do you still retain the ability to boot in OS X as the default OS.

That's how I have my MBP setup right now and I don't want to lose that. I don't mind having to hold the alt/option key to load into Windows (I only use Windows for my PSP homebrew programs).

The EFI partition is the one, I suspect, that Bootcamp uses chose which OS you want to boot to, correct.

I'm worried about my OS X paritition. I don't want to hose that.
 
Has anyone tried installing XP-compatible programs into Vista? It is essentially the same underneath, correct?
 
linkboy said:
Do you still retain the ability to boot in OS X as the default OS.

Yes and no. As long as OS X was running when you shutdown it will be what boots the next time you power on. If you were running Vista and shutdown it would boot next power on and you would have to hold down option to boot into OS X. And since the Startup Disk pane doesn't work in OS X or Vista you are gonna have to hold it down to switch from one to the other until Apple gives Boot Camp update or someone else figures it out.
 
treblah said:
Yes and no. As long as OS X was running when you shutdown it will be what boots the next time you power on. If you were running Vista and shutdown it would boot next power on and you would have to hold down option to boot into OS X. And since the Startup Disk pane doesn't work in OS X or Vista you are gonna have to hold it down to switch from one to the other until Apple gives Boot Camp update or someone else figures it out.

Oh ok, I get it

Its like what I do now (hold option to load Windows) only it applied to OS X as well.

I could live with that.

So the EFI partition handles what OS is selected as the main OS.

Anyone know why it doesn't work with Vista? Is it something with how the OS loads or what.
 
Update

I got Vista installed using the directions posted above and its running perfectly fine (I haven't crashed it yet, either (watch it crash now)).

Also, my MBP is booting into OS X as its main OS, to get into Windows, I have to hold down the Alt/Option key (like you normally would).

I've restarted Vista twice and both times, OS X was the default OS (which is exactly how I want it).

Oh, I'm posting this from Firefox using Vista. Overall, I like it. The User Account Control access is annoying, but you can turn it off.

The thing I'm trying to figure out is how to map the delete key to the right Windows key (like I did in XP). I downloaded the Windows Resource Kit, but it won't switch the key. Anyone know how to change this.
 
linkboy said:
The thing I'm trying to figure out is how to map the delete key to the right Windows key (like I did in XP). I downloaded the Windows Resource Kit, but it won't switch the key. Anyone know how to change this.

Download Input Remapper and use that.
 
linkboy said:
I got Vista installed using the directions posted above and its running perfectly fine (I haven't crashed it yet, either (watch it crash now)).

Also, my MBP is booting into OS X as its main OS, to get into Windows, I have to hold down the Alt/Option key (like you normally would).

That's awesome. I was hoping someone would try. :)

Now that I think about it I guess I haven't really shut-down, only restarted from one OS to the other so thanks for clearing up that OS X is the default.
 
these instructions assume you have windows XP, anyone did it with just OSX and can you give some instructions on what you did?
 
chairguru22 said:
these instructions assume you have windows XP, anyone did it with just OSX and can you give some instructions on what you did?

It doesn't really matter at all if you don't have XP installed. I just wanted to skip the BootCamp steps to create the new partition and burn the driver CD, ect which have been covered a million times over.

Nothing XP is needed since one of the first steps is 'delete your XP partition' and create a new one. ;)
 
my startup panes work fine with vista, i used the bootcamp assistant to format off 10GB and just deleted the efi partition.
 
You can also install Vista INSTEAD of XP while using Boot Camp. Same thing, just delete the 200mb partition and everything works, no need to repair. Although if you want to remove the vista/xp partition later, you'll need to reinstall the 200mb partition via the OSX disc.

Otherwise everything works properly. You choose your OS by holding down the OPTION key (BTW, you don't need to run Boot Camp to do this), you can also make your own partitions in OSX, restart with your windows install cd in, hold down the option and load your OS without even installing Boot Camp.

On a side note, there's a better OS Loader that runs off the OSX side called rEFIt. So you set your startup disc to OSX, then rEFIt kicks in, and u can choose either windows or osx without even holding the OPTION key down.

Getting Vista to run on MBP/MB is easy, the question is, how do you get it to triple boot? I got OSX/VISTA or OSX/XP, and I even got XP/VISTA combo on the MBP.. but I can't get 3 OS's to load. There's several postings on triple booting VISTA/XP/OSX on osx86 forums, but their procedures don't work. And it's a different process from triple booting XP/OSX/LINUX, whereas with that triple boot you would use the windows boot loader to load linux.

Anyhow.. Tools to keep in mind are rEFIt and Input Remapper.

If anyone stumbles across a successful triple boot setup with XP/OSX/VISTA gimma a holla and let me know..

peace
 
mkrishnan said:
I'm sorry if this is a dumb question I should know the answer to... but... :eek:

What exactly *was* the 200MB partition before you delete it?

It's the EFI partition. The bit that bootcamp uses to manage your harddrive.
 
How to restore 200MB EFI partition ?

200MB is EFI partition which you delete when setting up vista. So what happens when you want to remove vista and just get back to "one" os x partition ?

I know you can use bootcamp to remove the partition. So when I want to remove vista and get back to single partition, should I just use bootcamp and everything will be normal ? Or do i have to do something else ?
 
kothrush said:
200MB is EFI partition which you delete when setting up vista. So what happens when you want to remove vista and just get back to "one" os x partition ?

I know you can use bootcamp to remove the partition. So when I want to remove vista and get back to single partition, should I just use bootcamp and everything will be normal ? Or do i have to do something else ?

I'm wondering the same thing. I don't want to install Vista if the only way to get it back is to delete the whole hard drive and reinstall OSX from scratch. Would something like gparted work to delete the Vista partition and everything would be back to normal?
 
Hector said:
my startup panes work fine with vista, i used the bootcamp assistant to format off 10GB and just deleted the efi partition.

How did you install the Vista pane? I am a Windows noob and didn't know where to put the .sys files.
 
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