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Mac Pro & WinXP via Boot Camp - how's it working for you?

M

mustgroove

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 14, 2006
203
12
I'm thinking of buying a Mac Pro soon (probably going to be waiting for Nehalem) and will be using it with Boot Camp at least half the time...

So I just wanted to post this thread to ask if any Mac Pro/Win XP Boot Camp users were on here, and whether you could please post your experiences... is it a reliable WinXP machine? Any issues at all? Would you recommend it?

Cheers :)
 
mustgroove said:
I'm thinking of buying a Mac Pro soon (probably going to be waiting for Nehalem) and will be using it with Boot Camp at least half the time...

So I just wanted to post this thread to ask if any Mac Pro/Win XP Boot Camp users were on here, and whether you could please post your experiences... is it a reliable WinXP machine? Any issues at all? Would you recommend it?

Cheers
Click to expand...

Well, Windows will be running natively on the Mac, so any Hardware/Software/Driver/Virus/Trojan issues you get on a PC, you'll also get with the Mac.
You have to remember the majority of flaws on the Windows platform is with the MS Windows Software, it's not a hardware issue cause the chipset and CPU are common for both platforms. Running Windows and using PC hardware on the Mac will have one or two issues...

Any Graphics cards/hardware you install should be MAC and PC compatible, they have both a BIOS and an EFI. Otherwise they'll only work in Windows and they'll sit blindly on the Mac, idling..


As far as bootcamp is concerned... On the MacPro you can install BootCamp on to any drive that's in the system, hence, it doesn't need to be a partition, can be any physical drive. i.e. Internal (I haven't tried with any externals yet!!) So what I've done is install BootCamp on the piss-tiny drive Apple supplied cause it's too slow for anything I do!! I only need and use windows when checking for faulty drives, testing websites and web-applications - I could remove the unit completely!!

I've notice if you format the system drive after (OSX side), the link between BootCamp and OSX will break but switching drives via OSX isn't a problem, it's just a little snag in windows, cause the taskbar tool can't find OSX however there's a very simple workaround for this - Just press and hold option key on start up for the EFI boot menu. :)
 
Stable as any other windows machine using boot-camp. Works great.

Though as someone who switched about a year ago I find I almost never go into bootcamp anymore, VMware runs anything I need windows for just as well as bootcamp would. Unless you're playing high-end games or doing heavy editing type stuff in windows(which I'd wonder why you wouldn't in Mac if that's the case :p).
 
m1stake said:
You think you want XP, but really you want Vista64.
Click to expand...

Shush. He can use what he wants.

And it works perfectly fine. Just toss the Windows disc in there (while on OS X), open up Boot Camp, and it will install Windows for you. ;) Keep in mind, it's running natively, so you'll get the best performance from the OS.

Also, if you ever need to upgrade your video card, I've heard that you can have both your EFI-compatible video card, as well as a new PC-based (BIOS) video card attached on the motherboard at the same time. As long as you disable the EFI-compatible video card, Windows should use that new PC-based card. Just thought it was a worthy tip for a new Mac Pro owner. :D
 
pwn247 said:
Shush. He can use what he wants.
Click to expand...

I suppose you aren't familiar with Vista64. It's stable and reliable. There are no driver issues. Just don't run Aero and Gadgets and it runs nicely. While anyone can see that Vista isn't going anywhere fast, they are the same price and no longer have the launch day issues that many Mac Rumors posters cling to as a reason to use OSX.

By comparison, XP64 is unsupported garbage next to Vista64. It's a much smarter choice at this point.

Before you decide to use one or the other, do your own research. Anything from the theinquirer.net or any idiot gamer forum does not count. :p
 
mustgroove said:
is it a reliable WinXP machine? Any issues at all? Would you recommend it?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. 100 %. I had XP, then moved to Vista x64 -- no problems whatsoever. Don't even bother yourself with doubts.

Good luck!

sash
 
I still use 32-bit XP, and it works perfectly fine for me. Thinking about moving up to Vista64 sooner or later, but it's no rush.
 
m1stake said:
I suppose you aren't familiar with Vista64. It's stable and reliable. There are no driver issues. Just don't run Aero and Gadgets and it runs nicely. While anyone can see that Vista isn't going anywhere fast, they are the same price and no longer have the launch day issues that many Mac Rumors posters cling to as a reason to use OSX.
Click to expand...

So for Vista to run nicely all we have to do is to turn off some of the defining features of the OS? Awesome. That makes total sense and I'm going to run out and buy Vista right now. *cough*

As for Vista not going anywhere... Erm... Ever hear of Windows7? Yeah. You'll hear about Windows7 way more than Vista. Microsoft is pretty much trying to forget all about Vista.

----

Back to the original post, XP via Bootcamp runs perfectly fine. The only issue that I've had is when using the Apple Update it also kills the Nvidia drivers I had installed for my 8800GT. So those had to be reinstalled after the update, but other than that it's fine.
 
I'm running WinXP 64-bit and it's fast and runs almost all games, which is only reason I use it.

Mac Pro 08, nVidia GT8800, 4 GB RAM, 2x750 WD drives raided for Mac volume, Raptor X drive dedicated to Win XP, default 320 drive used as backup/storage.
 
siorai said:
So for Vista to run nicely all we have to do is to turn off some of the defining features of the OS? Awesome. That makes total sense and I'm going to run out and buy Vista right now. *cough*

As for Vista not going anywhere... Erm... Ever hear of Windows7? Yeah. You'll hear about Windows7 way more than Vista. Microsoft is pretty much trying to forget all about Vista.
Click to expand...

Yeah, turn off the performance sucking features and use the 64 bit goodness. Or use XP64 which is, uh, not so widely supported, to put it nicely. Buy a copy of Vista64 for $160 or buy a copy of XP Pro64 for $160? "cough".

Vista isn't going anywhere fast, as MS has fast tracked Windows 7 development because Vista is a commercial failure. Thanks for the history lesson and explaining my own post to me though.
 
Mac Pro '08, 8 GB RAM, GeForce 8800 GT.

I have one "dedicated Windows HD" of 320 GB HD partitioned in 2 x 160 GB NTFS volumes:
one for Win XP Pro SP3, one for Win Vista Ultimate 64 bits SP1.

Installed all latest Boot Camp drivers, and both operating systems work very well for what I do with them... GAME :cool::)
Unbelievably fast, and gr8 drivers support. Best investment ever... no more one Mac and one PC. Just one Mac Pro!!!
 
Running XP (32-bit) on my mac pro primarily for gaming. Solid system for sure. I only have the stock ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT but it's still pretty good.
Boot camp is sweet because it makes it easy if there are ever any driver updates or firmware updates.
 
m1stake said:
Yeah, turn off the performance sucking features and use the 64 bit goodness. Or use XP64 which is, uh, not so widely supported, to put it nicely. Buy a copy of Vista64 for $160 or buy a copy of XP Pro64 for $160? "cough".

Vista isn't going anywhere fast, as MS has fast tracked Windows 7 development because Vista is a commercial failure. Thanks for the history lesson and explaining my own post to me though.
Click to expand...

XP 64bit is underrated, trust me. I rarely have issues installing anything, with the occasional software that won't install like iTunes... which the Vista 64bit version installs and runs fine. Otherwise all games install and run faster and better than any 32-bit version, and much better than Vista 64-bit. And all RAM is recognized.
 
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