Apple Drops Windows 7 Boot Camp Support in New Mac Pro

[na1577]

SL is reasonably stable IMHO, but not rock-solid. While difficult to crash, VirtualBox and any other having modules so close to the kernel don't help with stability.

How Mavericks can be more unstable?

I don't use VirtualBox and until Mavericks I didn't even know what a kernel panic was.

I've experienced more app crashes in Mavericks, issues waking from sleep, and problems with wi-fi connectivity. That doesn't mean it's an inherently problematic OS, I've personally just run into more problems with it than older versions of OS X.

 

[LordVic]

SL is reasonably stable IMHO, but not rock-solid. While difficult to crash, VirtualBox and any other having modules so close to the kernel don't help with stability.

How Mavericks can be more unstable?

Dont ask. constant beachballing on my Macbook Air.
Samba process often getting stuck when doing network file reads/writes forcing a reboot (forced reboot, even shutting down normally gets stuck)
Application Crashes
Higher ram usage.
Higher CPU usage
Audio doesn't always work when resuming from standby.

these are just some of the issues ive been having with Mavericks. For ultimately something that doesn't feel / look any different than it's previous iterations.

I have tried 3 fresh installs.
First using my MBA's system restore to Lion, then upgrading to ML then to Mavericks
Second, Straight from Lion to Mavericks
Third: Straight to mavericks from USB installer.

Same issues everytime.

Lion and Mountain lion do not give me these issues.

for the first time ever in my life, I have to admit that OSx crashes more than Windows... in fact, I have yet to have a windows 8 or 8.1 system crash.

 

[Cubytus]

I don't use VirtualBox and until Mavericks I didn't even know what a kernel panic was.

I've experienced more app crashes in Mavericks, issues waking from sleep, and problems with wi-fi connectivity. That doesn't mean it's an inherently problematic OS, I've personally just run into more problems with it than older versions of OS X.

Dont ask. constant beachballing on my Macbook Air.
Samba process often getting stuck when doing network file reads/writes forcing a reboot (forced reboot, even shutting down normally gets stuck)
Application Crashes
Higher ram usage.
Higher CPU usage
Audio doesn't always work when resuming from standby.

these are just some of the issues ive been having with Mavericks. For ultimately something that doesn't feel / look any different than it's previous iterations.

I have tried 3 fresh installs.
First using my MBA's system restore to Lion, then upgrading to ML then to Mavericks
Second, Straight from Lion to Mavericks
Third: Straight to mavericks from USB installer.

Same issues everytime.

Lion and Mountain lion do not give me these issues.

for the first time ever in my life, I have to admit that OSx crashes more than Windows... in fact, I have yet to have a windows 8 or 8.1 system crash.

It's a bit unfortunate both of you had such issues with the most recent iteration of OS X. I had a few kernel panics with SL I blame on Virtual Box's kernel modules, but no first-hand experience with Mountain Lion or Mavericks. And I know I dislike Lion. Sad to read even a clean install wouldn't solve stability issues as I first assumed.

 

[Traverse]

Could MS have had a part to play in this? Telling Apple to drop W7 support? Or is this solely of Apple decision to do this?

You ask interesting questions sir.

 

[colonelpanic]

No Biggie

I have the new Mac Pro and just installed Windows 8.1 on it. I don't see the issue others are having with it. I'm simply not a fan of Windows, don't use it much so I can't say I prefer one iteration over another. Only reason I use it is for clients with Windows where I need to check final output on Windows-native apps.

I spent over $4K for the new machine and it does the heavy lifting my graphics and communications work requires. If I really needed to work on a Windows box a significant amount of time, then I would have gone out and bought one. Every hour I'm in Windows mode is an hour I'm not getting from the Mac Pro the performance and output I paid for in the machine and the Final Cut and Aperture software.

This is a professionals' machine. It's a cost of doing business. I don't think it is something for the kids in the basement, and I think that crowd has made it clear that this computer and its capabilities are not for them.

 

[McTaste]

I have the new Mac Pro and just installed Windows 8.1 on it. I don't see the issue others are having with it. I'm simply not a fan of Windows, don't use it much so I can't say I prefer one iteration over another. Only reason I use it is for clients with Windows where I need to check final output on Windows-native apps.

I spent over $4K for the new machine and it does the heavy lifting my graphics and communications work requires. If I really needed to work on a Windows box a significant amount of time, then I would have gone out and bought one. Every hour I'm in Windows mode is an hour I'm not getting from the Mac Pro the performance and output I paid for in the machine and the Final Cut and Aperture software.

This is a professionals' machine. It's a cost of doing business. I don't think it is something for the kids in the basement, and I think that crowd has made it clear that this computer and its capabilities are not for them.

Because only "kids in the basement" use windows? Right-o.

 

[Fredtgf]

hi
I would like to know
is there a way I can switch between the tow systems Mac OS X and windows 7 without having to restart my PC every time ?
thank you

 

[colonelpanic]

Because only "kids in the basement" use windows? Right-o.

it is unfortunate that many of today's younger persons, in fact some well into their 40s, lack the reading comprehension skills that would allow them to land a good job and move from Mom's basement.

Any reading of the following sentence shows the comment on basement dwellers referred to individuals who are unhappy with the new Mac Pro:

"This is a professionals' machine. It's a cost of doing business. I don't think it is something for the kids in the basement, and I think that crowd has made it clear that this computer and its capabilities are not for them."

McTaste, I would recommend a remedial reading course. It just might put an end to your Mom nagging you to clean your room.

 

[McTaste]

it is unfortunate that many of today's younger persons, in fact some well into their 40s, lack the reading comprehension skills that would allow them to land a good job and move from Mom's basement.

Any reading of the following sentence shows the comment on basement dwellers referred to individuals who are unhappy with the new Mac Pro:

"This is a professionals' machine. It's a cost of doing business. I don't think it is something for the kids in the basement, and I think that crowd has made it clear that this computer and its capabilities are not for them."

McTaste, I would recommend a remedial reading course. It just might put an end to your Mom nagging you to clean your room.

Keep on trolling, bud.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

agreed, but then he wouldnt get to say "bare metal".

here in enterprise land, we use VM servers for everything in our datacenters these days.

Yea man, running just one instance of an OS these days is just plain wasteful

 

[SlCKB0Y]

in the past five years ive seen all the datacenters for major enterprise corporations move to exclusively VM environments. these VMs run atop blade servers...if there isnt enough power for a given VM (say your slow data server example) we toss in more hardware resources and the problem is solved. i dont see this trend reversing because the ease of management is too valuable over any performance gain from a native stand-alone server.

Same here. My company has around 1100 physical servers, all moving to blades with 64 per cabinet. Even when we have a "dedicated" server it is still running on virtualisation for ease of migration, snapshots and boot times - it just happens that there is only 1vm on the server and it is given full resources (minus host overhead).

Most of these new servers have 2 deca-core multithreaded CPUs (40 threads per server), 256-512GB of RAM and 20Gbps links to SSD SANs.... virtualisation overhead is a drop in the ocean.

 

[Cubytus]

hi
I would like to know
is there a way I can switch between the tow systems Mac OS X and windows 7 without having to restart my PC every time ?
thank you

This is called virtualization, and even if it's fashionable in the servers industry, you can use it at the desktop level. Of course you will lose significant performance from not running on bare metal. Make sure you have plenty of RAM and use an internal SSD, or an independent, external HDD to host the virtual machine.

 

[penplotter]

I've used VMWare and VirtualBox on multiple platforms for years, using Mac OS X guest OS, Linux guest OS and Windows 7/XP guest OS *all* with 8Gb total host ram or less - I've never had a problem. Apple aren't obliged to offer support to allow Windows installation - they do it as a bonus extra. If you want Windows 7, it seems that you're going to have to virtualise, or suck it up. If you can afford £3000+ for a Mac Pro, surely you can afford (even a USED) basic PC for Windows 7? They're about £150 *new*.

 

[Renzatic]

If you want Windows 7, it seems that you're going to have to virtualise, or suck it up.

Or install it natively outside of bootcamp. I'm thinking that'll still work, potential EFI issues aside.

 

[Cubytus]

I've used VMWare and VirtualBox on multiple platforms for years, using Mac OS X guest OS, Linux guest OS and Windows 7/XP guest OS *all* with 8Gb total host ram or less - I've never had a problem. Apple aren't obliged to offer support to allow Windows installation - they do it as a bonus extra. If you want Windows 7, it seems that you're going to have to virtualise, or suck it up. If you can afford £3000+ for a Mac Pro, surely you can afford (even a USED) basic PC for Windows 7? They're about £150 *new*.

Surely you don't run these virtual machines at the same time do you? I can also run a Kali Linux on a MacBook with 4GB RAM. Not fast, but runs.

And how do you make a Mac OS X guest communicate with the outside world through USB ports, as this is not supported by virtualizers?

Conspiracy theorist may claim Apple cut support for Windows 7 because it didn't want to give access to a better OS than its own, current Mavericks

 

[tigress666]

Wait, so MS puts out a system that is not popular and people don't want to move to, so Apple decides they should force their users to be on it too?

Either Apple is in cohoots with MS to try to force people on 8, or conversely, they want people to only see the OS most people dislike to make sure they want to stay with Mac (I kid! I kid!).

Good grief. I guess it's a good thing the only reason I am even thinking of dual booting is for the games. But I really dislike the idea i may be forced to use 8 to use the games (Windows was my backup if Apple decided to do the make iOS and Mac OS one and do a tablet interface for a desktop/laptop except MS decided to go straight to doing that).

 

[Renzatic]

Good grief. I guess it's a good thing the only reason I am even thinking of dual booting is for the games. But I really dislike the idea i may be forced to use 8 to use the games...

Hell, if all you're planning on doing is playing some games, then Win8 works just as well if not better than Win7. All you have to do is pin your game icons to the start screen or task bar, click 'em when you want to play 'em, then have fun.

 

[FluJunkie]

I spent over $4K for the new machine and it does the heavy lifting my graphics and communications work requires. If I really needed to work on a Windows box a significant amount of time, then I would have gone out and bought one. Every hour I'm in Windows mode is an hour I'm not getting from the Mac Pro the performance and output I paid for in the machine and the Final Cut and Aperture software.

This is a professionals' machine. It's a cost of doing business. I don't think it is something for the kids in the basement, and I think that crowd has made it clear that this computer and its capabilities are not for them.

And every hour I'm using Windows on a VM is an hour I'm not getting from the Mac Pro the performance I paid for in the machine for SAS. It's inflicting overhead, both in terms of memory and processor performance.

If you want to get in a "kids in the basement" pissing match, those licenses cost an order of magnitude more than Aperture or Final Cut.

 

[laurim]

And every hour I'm using Windows on a VM is an hour I'm not getting from the Mac Pro the performance I paid for in the machine for SAS. It's inflicting overhead, both in terms of memory and processor performance.

If you want to get in a "kids in the basement" pissing match, those licenses cost an order of magnitude more than Aperture or Final Cut.

I'm confused. So you agree with him that running Windows in virtualization is a bummer? Obviously, the "kids in the basement" comment doesn't apply to you so why are you offended by it? The reason I was able to have a Mac when I worked at P&G in the '90s was because I needed to use JMP statistical analysis software by SAS that was Mac-only back then. I definitely wasn't a kid in a basement. People need to stop thinking every post is about them personally when it's not actually directed specifically at them.

 

[FluJunkie]

I'm confused. So you agree with him that running Windows in virtualization is a bummer? Obviously, the "kids in the basement" comment doesn't apply to you so why are you offended by it? The reason I was able to have a Mac when I worked at P&G in the '90s was because I needed to use JMP statistical analysis software by SAS that was Mac-only back then. I definitely wasn't a kid in a basement. People need to stop thinking every post is about them personally when it's not actually directed specifically at them.

His suggestion is that anyone who needed a Windows box should just go out and buy one, and leave the Mac Pros to the "Pros". There's been a recurring idea on this thread that the desire to boot directly to Windows is somehow restricted to people looking to play games, rather than say people using Windows and hitting their hardware pretty hard for some fraction of their professional life - enough to be annoyed by the loss of performance in a VM, but not enough to justify running out and buying a whole new Windows box as well.

That's what I took the "kids in the basement" comment to mean. The OP is of course free to correct me.

Fun fact: JMP once stood for "John's Macintosh Program". I harass SAS every time I see them for a Mac version, but I hold out no hope at all :\.

 

[laurim]

His suggestion is that anyone who needed a Windows box should just go out and buy one, and leave the Mac Pros to the "Pros". There's been a recurring idea on this thread that the desire to boot directly to Windows is somehow restricted to people looking to play games, rather than say people using Windows and hitting their hardware pretty hard for some fraction of their professional life - enough to be annoyed by the loss of performance in a VM, but not enough to justify running out and buying a whole new Windows box as well.

That's what I took the "kids in the basement" comment to mean. The OP is of course free to correct me.

Fun fact: JMP once stood for "John's Macintosh Program". I harass SAS every time I see them for a Mac version, but I hold out no hope at all :\.

There has always been a Mac version of JMP:

http://www.jmp.com/support/system_requirements_jmp.shtml

Maybe it just doesn't work with your particular back end. I don't remember how I got the data from P&G's database to my Mac to be able to analyze it with JMP.

I think you might be confusing ColonelPanic with someone else who actually did suggest to get a PC to run Windows since he DOES use Windows 8.1 on a Mac and says so in the preceding paragraph of the quote you posted. Actually, his "kids in the basement" really had very little relevance to the subject at hand and was a reaction to people generally claiming the MacPro is overpriced for their use and especially for using Windows on it, when their general use is obviously not suited to buying this pro-level machine and more for gaming. People who buy a MacPro buy it primarily to use as a Mac and if they want be able to boot in Windows it's for a client compatibility reason, a very niche software need or a side need to do some gaming in their free time that doesn't rise to the desire for buying a separate PC for gaming. Frankly, I've never understood the attraction of computer gaming vs console gaming so this wouldn't be a need for my Bootcamp partition.

 

[Aameiel]

Apple really needs to update Windows 8.1 drivers for the 2012 iMac's, there's still no proper support for my iMac with 675MX, I always get BSOD because of the nvidia audio driver, so had to use Windows 7 for now..

I have a late 2012 Imac and i have 8.1 running with zero issues

 

[FluJunkie]

There has always been a Mac version of JMP:

http://www.jmp.com/support/system_requirements_jmp.shtml

Maybe it just doesn't work with your particular back end. I don't remember how I got the data from P&G's database to my Mac to be able to analyze it with JMP.

I'm aware there's always been a Mac version of JMP. As I mentioned, it's essentially named "The Mac Thingie", or used to be before the acronym came to mean really nothing at all. I meant SAS, their proper program

 

[Tech198]

Plus, what is everyone worried about, this is a good thing...

Why would you wanna reboot anyway just to run another OS on a machine not for the consumer... You'd make better time by running it in VM..

The Mac Pro has power and memory, why not use it ? After all you blew enough $$$ on it.... Its like paying for a car with cruise control, except you never will use it ever. Or air bags ? Good feature to have, but if your never involved in a crash your entire life, then it's a waste of money.

Then again this only came to light because its the only Intel-Mac to dropping support for Windows 7 in Boot-camp.... That stands out like a swore thumb..

What if Apple ditching Boot-camp across their entire line ? Now the store has changed to,, "ok, this this classifies as normal behavior", just because not just one Mac has stood out

 

[FluJunkie]

Why would you wanna reboot anyway just to run another OS on a machine not for the consumer... You'd make better time by running it in VM..

No I won't. The reboot time on an SSD-based Mac Pro is trivial compared to the time lost due to having less resources available to me.

The Mac Pro has power and memory, why not use it ? After all you blew enough $$$ on it.... Its like paying for a car with cruise control, except you never will use it ever. Or air bags ? Good feature to have, but if your never involved in a crash your entire life, then it's a waste of money.

I want to use that power and memory for *doing work*, not for VM overhead. I regularly run jobs that are CPU and RAM hogs, and I want that power available to me.