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Boot Camp Fast-Switching Option Gone?

M

malenfant

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 31, 2006
61
0
I thought I read somewhere that Boot Camp in Leopard was going to have a "fast switching" option that would let you pop back and forth between OS X and Windows without actually having to reboot either OS. The two OSes would alternately be awake and hibernate. Now I am hearing that this option is no longer there and we'll have to shutdown and reboot to switch to the other OS.

Does anyone know the full story?
 
it was only on their webpage for a few hours (maybe a day or so). That was a long time ago now.

They probably plan for that feature and made the marketing material. Then by the time it came to giving out the details it became clear that this feature wasn't going to work. Then they realised they had let slip so quickly pull the page.
 
Trepex said:
I think it was actually confirmed to in fact be false, wasn't it? Bleh, I can't find any links though.
Click to expand...

My guess is that it was planned, and the idea was widespread enough that the web designers knew about it, but it was never meant to be on the website...the plan then got scrapped...
 
sushi said:
Me thinks it was too hard to implement with the other added features. Maybe a in a later update to Leopard, or in the next upgrade to whatever it is going to be called.
Click to expand...

The one I don't get is this: Windows has a hibernation mode. OS X essentially has all the underpinnings of one (for SafeSleep). How hard could it be to write code to order one OS to commit its state to a disk file, hibernate, and tell the other OS to wake from hibernate? Then vice versa?
 
mkrishnan said:
The one I don't get is this: Windows has a hibernation mode. OS X essentially has all the underpinnings of one (for SafeSleep). How hard could it be to write code to order one OS to commit its state to a disk file, hibernate, and tell the other OS to wake from hibernate? Then vice versa?
Click to expand...

Thats why I hope it will come in an update :)
 
If I remember correctly, at WNDC someone mentioned that to one of the Apple developers, who very swiftly was on the phone to someone at apple that removed that feature within a few minutes. Thats what I read somewhere.
 
cwedl said:
If I remember correctly, at WNDC someone mentioned that to one of the Apple developers, who very swiftly was on the phone to someone at apple that removed that feature within a few minutes. Thats what I read somewhere.
Click to expand...

Me too, but I'm not sure how true it is...
 
mkrishnan said:
The one I don't get is this: Windows has a hibernation mode. OS X essentially has all the underpinnings of one (for SafeSleep). How hard could it be to write code to order one OS to commit its state to a disk file, hibernate, and tell the other OS to wake from hibernate? Then vice versa?
Click to expand...
I'm with you on this. However, with Time Machine and other new features of Leopard, I think that Apple choose to keep it simple to make sure these other new features work.

Then again, Steve did mention Leopard will have some secret features of which this might be one. I guess we will see on the 26th.
 
mkrishnan said:
The one I don't get is this: Windows has a hibernation mode. OS X essentially has all the underpinnings of one (for SafeSleep). How hard could it be to write code to order one OS to commit its state to a disk file, hibernate, and tell the other OS to wake from hibernate? Then vice versa?
Click to expand...

That was essentially the plan (and it was indeed on Apple's site for a day). However, consider this - what happens if you make changes to a disk behind the other OS's back? If you use MacDrive in XP, or FUSE on OS X, or even a FAT32 drive both can read. Then when you switch back, the other OS could get very, very confused.

Not exactly commonplace, but it could have pretty dire consequences (data loss, etc).
 
Yeah, that is a good point. It would seem that you'd have to lock that drive out if you did that. I would think having a documents volume (perhaps FAT32, non-bootable) would still be worth it to overcome that. But that's a very good point in terms of limitations of doing this. If you used MacDrive or FUSE and you did the wrong thing, it could have unpredictable consequences.
 
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