Windows XP SP3 and Boot Camp

[steveza]

Just a friendly note from the good folk over at Microsoft. If you are installing a release candidate of XP SP3 in boot camp you may receive an "out of disk space" error message. See below for details and fix.

Apple computers

This issue affects Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional operating systems running through Apple Boot Camp.

If you attempt to install this release candidate on an Intel-based Apple computer (Mac Pro, Mac Mini, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or iMac) that is running Windows XP SP2 through Boot Camp, installation may fail with the error "Out of disk space".

To avoid this, manually create a necessary registry key as follows:
To create the registry key

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and click String Value.
4. In the text box under the Name column, type BootDir and press ENTER.
5. Right-click the name BootDir, and then click Modify.
6. In the Edit String Value dialog box, type the drive letter for your system drive, and then click OK. For example, if your system drive is C:, type C:\.
7. Close Registry Editor.

After you have created this registry key (or if you created this key when you installed a previous version of this Service Pack), you can proceed with the installation.

I assume that since the article is directed at the release candidate, this will be fixed in the final release. Nice of them to get involved in the boot camp movement

 

[72930]

I'd like to see what percentage of people buying XP disks (as opposed to having it pre-installed) are on Macs. Surely its quite a lot, as the only other groups I can think of are people who build their own PCs and 'downgraders'.

 

[rake_mistry]

Well, I, for one, am going to purchase an XP disk for Boot Camp purposes in a few weeks time, accompanying my new iMac, which I'm partially reluctant in buying currently, due to the update speculation (gee, who knew that knowing too much can suck?? ).

 

[steveza]

Well, I, for one, am going to purchase an XP disk for Boot Camp purposes in a few weeks time, accompanying my new iMac, which I'm partially reluctant in buying currently, due to the update speculation (gee, who knew that knowing too much can suck?? ).

Ignorance is bliss, apparently

 

[twoodcc]

thanks for the heads up, even though hopefully this issue will be fixed in the final release

 

[steveza]

You never know - those crazy kids at MS might just leave it out for a joke.

Seriously though I'm sure that Microsoft has never refered to Apple machines in a release candiate before (I could be wrong but I've been doing this for a while and I've never seen it) which shows that "Windows on the Mac" is probably starting to become a revenue stream for them.

 

[zephead]

Hmm. I managed to get SP1 on my MacBook through an old install CD I have, and when I was trying to upgrade to SP2, it gave me that same error message... It said I needed greater than 4MB of space for the uninstaller when I had 17GB free, so the installer refused to continue.

However, I somehow managed to get SP2 on here by installing it through VMware Fusion. I just picked the Boot Camp partition as the Windows disk, and for some weird reason, SP2 installed just fine through there. I restarted and booted back into XP, and everything's fine to this day.

 

[Stridder44]

Vista is so much better though...I mean unless you're running 5 year old applications. But even then...

 

[KickNazer]

Automatic BootDir Batch File

Here is a batch File I made to modify your registry automatically.

http://www.filefront.com/14430491/Windows-XP-SP3-Install-Registry-MOD-for-Bootcamp.bat/

Just enter you system drive letter when it prompts for it after double clicking on the file. I'm sure lots of people with knowledge of batch files and DOS on these forums who can verify it to work and be 100% safe and working. All you have to do is right click>Edit to check out its code.

Hope this makes it very easy for everybody, Thanks!

 

[pepeleuepe]

Hmm. I managed to get SP1 on my MacBook through an old install CD I have, and when I was trying to upgrade to SP2, it gave me that same error message... It said I needed greater than 4MB of space for the uninstaller when I had 17GB free, so the installer refused to continue.

However, I somehow managed to get SP2 on here by installing it through VMware Fusion. I just picked the Boot Camp partition as the Windows disk, and for some weird reason, SP2 installed just fine through there. I restarted and booted back into XP, and everything's fine to this day.

Just a note for those running into the same error with XP SP 2. I had this same problem described by zephead and this registry change made the installation work for me. Thanks for the help, not sure how I stumbled on this thread but its the thing that finally worked for me.

- Dave