Thanks HMAC. But which OS should I buy, XP or Vista? My gut says Vista only because it's the newer. But how's Vista Compare with XP so far on this forum?
Personally, I remain skeptical of Vista because of reported stability problems and driver issues, so I went with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2C as is sold as OEM by NewEgg. OEM version is cheaper and the only difference is that it doesn't come with all the documentation and packaging, which I don't need anyway and the documentation is all online anyway. Vista may well be just fine in this application, I don't know, but I've read about enough problems with it that I decided to go with the more mature product. I haven't had problems with XP on either my MacBook Pro via Parallels or my Mac Pro via Boot Camp. I used XP Professional because of some of its enhanced networking protocols that I need for our network at work, but for home use, XP or Vista Home version should be just fine
Note that COD 4 is a pretty graphics-intensive application. It runs great on my Mac Pro, but how it runs on other Macs will vary depending on the graphics card, RAM, and processor type/number of cores. In order to maintain good frame rates on other computers, some adjustment of resolution, textures, lighting and anti-aliasing may be necessary.
I would think that for home application, Windows XP Home edition should be just fine. Make sure it has Service Pack 2 on the install disk - it won't work to use an older version of XP that requires updating with SP 2. The one you're talking about XP SP2B should be just fine. Follow the directions on the Boot Camp screens and you shouldn't have much, if any, problem. I say that having installed many versions of XP on computer's I've built over the years, but that install process, which is independant of Boot Camp, can be a little arcane. It's all text-based, no mouse, but pretty straightforward. You'll double click on Boot Camp from the utilities menu in OSX and it will ask you some straightforward questions, then tell you to insert the Windows install disk and restart. I'm inclined to say that you should use FAT32 on a partition less than 32 gig. After you install, you'll need to activate Windows, and that is pretty straightforward and should require nothing more than clicking Activate. You will have already entered the certificate code numbers that are on the Authenticity sticker on the Windows package. Then, you'll need to go to Windows Update (windowsupdate.com) and download all of the various security patches etc and you should be good to go. After that's done and you've restarted, you can install COD 4 (or whatever) as you normally would. Be aware that COD 4 is currently on patch 1.3, so you'll need to go to Infinity Ward website and download patch 1.3 and install that too.
