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64 Bit Vista On (Late 2008) MacBook Pro

M

Mirage08

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 31, 2008
18
0
I just bought the new MacBook Pro. I'm just curious as to how 64 Bit Vista Runs under Boot camp.

Is it any different to install than any of the others?
How big do you partition the vista side on average?
Do I need to get different drivers or is apple up to date?
Does anyone have a tutorial?

I got the 2.53 Ghz, 4 Gig RAM, 320 7200 rpm.

Thanks guys.
 
Usually most users just use 32GB, as they're only using windows for some things. But I'd recommend more for Vista 64. It's a huge install for some reason
 
Mirage08 said:
I just bought the new MacBook Pro. I'm just curious as to how 64 Bit Vista Runs under Boot camp.

Is it any different to install than any of the others?
How big do you partition the vista side on average?
Do I need to get different drivers or is apple up to date?
Does anyone have a tutorial?

I got the 2.53 Ghz, 4 Gig RAM, 320 7200 rpm.

Thanks guys.
Click to expand...
I have the same set up as you.
No just use bootcamp and format in ntsc
i originally used only 51 but i ran out of room after installing fallout 3, red alert, and need for speed. so now i re-did everything and made it 71.
The drivers on your DVD is enough, i know that you can actually update the gpu but i haven't tried it yet. I read that it improves the gpu a lot.
The bad thing about putting the vista 64 or any vista will be that you will spend literally 4 hour updating and restarting and installing before you shut down and installing when starting up vista. TOO MUCH UPDATES

There are some videos on youtube but they aren't great. Just do it, if a dumb little kids can do it so can you!
 
64 bit vista is as easy to install (very easy) as another version of windows.

use boot camp to partition your disk, use whatever you think is necessary. my fully installed vista OS takes about 20 gb, so keep that in mind.

after partitioning in boot camp, say "quit and install later" then start your computer with the windows dvd inserted... hold option/C and start from disk.

format the partition (the one that is as big as you chose) as NTFS and you're good to go!

i highly recommend downloading macFUSE and NTFS-3G so you can write to your NTFS partition from inside OS X. really makes the two installations seamless. and vmware fusion is pretty amazing too :)

i am regularly using windows these days... don't listen to the fanboys who froth and scream "OMGZ VISTA SUXXX!!1" all day... it really is a nice OS, if not as well thought-out as OS X. there are still many, many, MANY things that you can do in windows that OS X just can't do. at all.

as for drivers, the apple cd will be good enough. it will install apple software update (as long as you let it) and that will take care of important driver updates. i recommend against downloading drivers through windows update... the only ones you want to upgrade outside of apple's software update are the video drivers. go to www.laptopvideo2go.com and get whatever the latest forceware is. really makes an improvement in games.

and to whomever said there are "4 hours" of updating and restarting, that's simply not true. i did the entire process last week, and there 1 restart after partitioning with boot camp, 1 restart after the vista dvd copies installation files to the disk, and a third restart when installation is complete.

then one more after installing ALL the windows updates, which it DOES do in a single run. really not too bad at all, and the entire process took under two hours (one hr for installation, another hr for downloading and installation of updates. quite reasonable).

the only thing you need to make sure is that you're around the computer when it does its auto restart during the installation... you need to boot into the windows partition, or it will just automatically enter OS X and not finish installing until you go there and let it.
 
eddyhttp said:
The drivers on your DVD is enough, i know that you can actually update the gpu but i haven't tried it yet. I read that it improves the gpu a lot.
Click to expand...

Anyone knows were to get the drivers to update the gpu? On xp, I tried to update via Nvidia 9600M website, downloaded the installer, but it told me that it wasn't compatible with any grafix card in my pc.


Nevermid, read the topic above
 
I have a copy of Vista 64 I'll be installing soon. I intend to use vLite to strip the installation down to bare bones. I basically just want to use it for gaming and little else.
 
vm7118 said:
the only ones you want to upgrade outside of apple's software update are the video drivers. go to www.laptopvideo2go.com and get whatever the latest forceware is. really makes an improvement in games.
Click to expand...
I got a better 3D Mark score with the BootCamp drivers that with the lastest from laptopvideo. The difference was around 100 points.
 
On my early 08 MBP I made the Vista 64 Partition 80GB out of my 250GB total. If I had a 320GB HDD, I would have gone for 100GB as the Vista partition. Installing it is really easy, just be careful when you're installing it to make sure that you don't install Vista over your OSX partition.

Regarding 3D drivers, here is how I update my MBP drivers on Vista. The article isn't all about hardware physics acceleration; the process described shows how to change and update drivers too. http://tomkarpik.com/articles/enabling-hardware-physics-acceleration-on-the-new-and-old-macbook-pro/
 
Vista 64 is more stable and has better security, but some applications, especially legacy ones do not run on Vista 64.
 
alphaod said:
Vista 64 is more stable and has better security, but some applications, especially legacy ones do not run on Vista 64.
Click to expand...

Has anyone successfully installed Vista 32. I have prnaged about for 12 hours here and cannot get any install to work without a BSOD.

My last install was a compelete reformat of disk, reinstall MAC os, install vista, install dirvers from bootcamp on 1st DVD of MAc OS. As soon as the laptop restarted I had a BSOD. WTF? This is so frustrating.
 
vm7118 said:
64 bit vista is as easy to install (very easy) as another version of windows.

...and to whomever said there are "4 hours" of updating and restarting, that's simply not true. i did the entire process last week, and there 1 restart after partitioning with boot camp, 1 restart after the vista dvd copies installation files to the disk, and a third restart when installation is complete.
Click to expand...

Maybe 'whomever' watched some dumb kid's video on youtube--maybe.
 
Tex-Twil said:
I got a better 3D Mark score with the BootCamp drivers that with the lastest from laptopvideo. The difference was around 100 points.
Click to expand...

Great, but how do programs that *use* those drivers perform?

3DMark scores are really look down upon for performance measuring today because companies optimize for that program specifically; it's a good way to figure out if something is wrong with your system if your score is really low compared to other similarly spec'd systems, but I would never use it to compare two different systems or even drivers anymore.

See how the games you play or whatever other 3d program you use compare in both sets of drivers before jumping back to the older apple ones. Know that the 180.xx drivers were heavily anticipated in the PC Gaming community as the 'big bang 2' which nVidia dev's have been touting with their latest releases. They enabled SLI using *two* monitors, and a number of great performance improvements for newer generation cards (of which the new 9400M/9600M-GT belong).
 
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