No EFI Support on Windows Vista?

[Eric5h5]

They did none of the above, and offer OpenGL only, which the vast majority of game publishers have no desire to mess with anymore.

You seem to be forgetting about consoles, of which the Xbox is still the minority. Everything on the planet that deals with 3D is OpenGL, except Windows and Xbox games. Since PC gaming is the minority these days, statistically speaking, most game publishers use OpenGL over Direct3D, or they use both. Apple would have to be completely insane to use anything else.

Anyway, it's rather a moot point, since Direct3D has never stopped a game from being ported to OS X. Not once! A lot of the conversion from Direct3D to OpenGL is practically automated, and has been for years. Depending on the game, you sometimes you run up against some Direct3D functionality that's hard to convert to OpenGL, but that just means the port takes longer, not that it doesn't happen.

--Eric

 

[Tupring]

yea, I dont get it. did you buy a mac just 2 weeks ago in hopes of booting into windows in 3 months?

im guessing sarcasim or retardisim

Yeah, it just doesn't make sense. Why would anyone want to buy a Mac if they don't want to use Mac OS? A better question, why would someone want to use Windoze anyway??

 

[Tupring]

If they've gotten OSX on pc boxes, we'll have Windows on Apple boxes. It's inevitable.

I hope that someday I'll be able to run Windows and OSX applications side-by-side seamlessly.

Just buy a Dull and put it next to your Mac.

 

[Whistleway]

if only apple went back to 64-bit

 

[zap2]

if only apple went back to 64-bit

G5... got your 64 bit covered

 

[matticus008]

And the clear understanding that XP would not.

That makes Apple liars when they claim that they won't do anything to block Windows from booting - they are blocking the currently available Windows release.

No. If nothing else, it is important to understand this point. Apple has not done anything to prevent Windows from booting. Period. Full stop. End of story. There is absolutely no technical reason that is a stumbling block. Apple has chosen a freely available platform to build forward, a platform which Microsoft has had access to since before Apple even started this whole Intel business.

Doing "nothing to prevent" is a hallmark of diplomatic language. It means no active deterrents. It means no assistance to encourage. It is consciously and deliberately neutral language. "Nothing to prevent" does not mean "add unnecessary software that doesn't provide any direct, tangible benefit to Apple so Windows from 2001 can boot out of the box." The CSM is utterly useless for Apple hardware and for products designed to work with Apple software. That's Apple's only concern, not designing to some soon to be obsolete product and increasing their own future workload.

Could they have adopted full-fledged BIOS (the "standard")? Not really, no. Apple depends on a number of features that have been and still are beyond the capability of BIOS to implement. I won't get into the technical details because there's no point in arguing that. Hacks and extensions to get some of it to work = stupid approach when you have something that works just fine as an alternative. Beyond that, there's Firewire booting and the Apple start up chime and trademark grey screen. You might find those trivial features, but I assure you that they're not. They're a symbol of continuity for Apple and a Macintosh tradition, and in this time of transition it's important for Apple to preserve its image and not look like a sellout.

I must be missing something here, becuase at the moment it is impossible to boot into Windows from a Mac, and it is because of a choice Apple made in motherboard design. What's changed in the last 24 hrs is now it will be impossible for a lot longer than several months.

Yes, you are missing something, over and over. Microsoft is the one that backed away from EFI. In 2006, there is no fundamental reason to use it unless you HAVE been using it for 25 years. As a company evaluating entry platforms, there's no reason to aim for compatibility with 25 year old hardware and 5 year old software that has no direct impact on your products. Microsoft is free to develop Windows for EFI and keep to its announcements. Apple isn't stopping them from producing a version of Windows that works on a Mac. As the product vendor, MS is the one responsible for selling to customers. Apple is not a peripheral company and they are not a white box company (you seem to have glossed over the point about white box hardware earlier--white box vendors are trapped in designing to "big fish like Intel, Creative, and Microsoft" because they can't sell products any other way--I wasn't talking about HP and Dell).

 

[reyesmac]

Either Apple made a deal with Microsoft so they would not make a Mac bootable version of windows or Microsoft does not want windows to run on Mac hardware... there is no third option.

 

[GilGrissom]

or Microsoft does not want windows to run on Mac hardware... there is no third option.

Why though? (Not saying your wrong!..I'm just confuzzled!) Isn't it just more OS sales to Microsoft?

 

[Tupring]

So here I am the week before Spring Break, my PC buddies have a few LAN parties ready and I can't attend... I would only boot into windows for LAN gaming ect. It would be no more different for me than turning on a Playstation, I'd still have my Mac for all it's functions.

I'd like to ad: Did Dual booting 10.1 and Classic stunt OS X development? No, even though OS X was a buggy mess at first development steamrolled forward.

Maybe you should just keep an old PeeCee around so you can fit in with those Windoze users once a year. Or just install OSx86 and donate your Mac to a Mac User. Mac OS X and Classic are both Mac OS's...

 

[reyesmac]

Why though? (Not saying your wrong!..I'm just confuzzled!) Isn't it just more OS sales to Microsoft?

All I can come up with is that Microsoft knows that more people will stop using windows if they actually own and try a Mac with the Mac OS. Lets say your a PC user and you are running windows on a Mac, in a few years your copy of windows will make the mac run slow, it will be just as buggy and virus filled as windows is, then you hear that Apple came out with a new OS update that makes your computer work faster and better. That person will end up using the PC side of the Mac only for the things he can't get on the Mac and use the Mac OS for everything else. I don't know about everyone else, but I have a PC in the house and I hardly use it, and I never upgrade it. Microsoft needs a steady source of income, not people who only need windows to open a few files every month that a Mac can't open.

And as for Apple, I think Steve does not want windows to ever run on the Mac natively.

 

[Tupring]

Until VPC comes out, would something like WINE work? I'm curious as to the state of WINE on OS X for x86.

Although I guess we should add this to the list of things dropped from Vista...

This makes even less sense than all the retards that want to run Windows natively on their Macs! If you have OS X for x86, wouldn't you have a PC? You can't run .exe files natively arleady?

 

[Tupring]

I get the distinct feeling that this was a politically-motivated move. Microsoft has backed away from EFI because supporting it would be following Apple and catering to the interests of Mac users.

I don't really care what anyone says, if you are a Mac user, your interests have nothing to do with M$.

 

[matticus008]

I don't really care what anyone says, if you are a Mac user, you could care less about Windoze or anything M$.

That's not accurate at all. I do a great deal of work in Windows, and I have no problem using it and no major objections. It's nothing to get excited about, but it's not a steaming pile of crap, either. I'd be happy to be able to buy a PowerMac that ran Windows and OS X natively. But I disagree that Apple working to enable dual-booting with XP is a viable strategy to grow the Mac platform.

 

[christian_k]

I *do* think there are other reasons.

Someone in this forum said, BIOS/EFI was just used to start the machine, then the OS would take over, so the boot ROM isn't important at all. This is not true anymore. During the last years firmware became more important again even on PCs, think of ACPI. And remember the time when ACPI was introduced. On a lot of systems you had to turn off ACPI in the BIOS setup at all to get Windows installed at all. Not because ACPI is bad, just because a lot of old implementations where extremly buggy (and still are). Or think back when they introduced USB (a technology mainly developed by Intel!). Most PC guys insisted on keeping a PS/2 keyboard, just because BIOSes had setups that where too dumb to be used with a USB keyboard.

Apple made EFI obviously work well, but a lot of PC and mainboard vendors do not have such high standards. They just put parts together without caring much about integration. Maybe MS is just glad that BIOS with ACPI (with all suspend-to-ram etc) now works quite well and they do not want hunderts of buggy EFI implementations with tons of support problems? And they know, PC makers will support BIOS for a long time, just because of XP and other "old" OSes, resulting in a EFI/BIOS "hybrid" of some sort, that could create even more trouble if it is not implemented well. Possibly this is a reason for them to start in the 64 bit and server segment, hoping for better quality than in the budget PC market.

And Apple ? Why EFI?
I think there are reasons that have NOTHING to do with Windows.
The first one is, a Mac with BIOS would not look and feel like a real Mac. When I switch on a typical PC, it makes a (legacy) beep , then it starts in a (legacy) text mode, then a Windows boot screen appears (in a legacy gfx mode) until windows finally boots. Imagine that on a 30'' cinema display In contrast, when my iMac is set to 1440x900 it uses that mode from the very first second. You can't to that with BIOS, legacy VGA (or VESA) BIOS does not even support that mode ! There are other things (FireWire target mode and others). And even if they had BIOS and EFI, the user would have to choose what mode to use in some way, maybe even resulting in an ugly PC style BIOS setup menu?

That is not Mac experience anymore.

There is another technical reason. BIOS uses MBR (Master boot record) to boot the OS, a very old standard. It has a limit in disc size, more than 2048 GB is not possible. That sounds much, but 500 GB discs are widely available now, and I think a 2 TB disc is no more than 2 years away. (Note: I mean 2 TB per DISC, not per partition, so partitioning won't help). I'm sure the PC industry will find another ugly hack to get around this , as they did over and over again, but with EFI you (and all Mac users) do not have that problem: EFI introduces a new partition scheme (GPT) that does not have this limit at all.

OSX is installed on a disc partitioned with GPT, but no Windows version (other than the one for Itanium) can boot from such a disc. That means you could need 2 discs to dual boot. Not much fun on an iMac,Mini or MBP.

Christian

Either Apple made a deal with Microsoft so they would not make a Mac bootable version of windows or Microsoft does not want windows to run on Mac hardware... there is no third option.

 

[Tupring]

simX, an architect as me usually HAS TO use AutoCad software... which only works on a PC. So I would LOVE to have a Mac that could boot Windows... as I would ONLY use Windows for work purposes... got it?

CADintosh?

 

[Tupring]

No.

If I'm using a program like CAD, its not like I'm jumping from one program in Windows... back to another in OsX every half hour. You boot, work say 8 hours.. and then maybe go back to OS X. Booting to one OS... and then 8 hours later rebooting into another OS is not tedious. You're being silly.

I own both machines now.. I have two monitors now.. I have two keybaords.. two mice.

Yet.. when I work in Windows (I want to WORK in Windows) and when I get home... the Mac is my video, photo, fun machine. Taking up twice as much desktop and work space... for no reason at all, doesn't make sense to me.

Just toss that PeeCee out the window and everything will make sense again, I promise.

P.S. I've seen plenty of people WORK in windows and it usually involved trying to get it to work.

 

[DCapple]

Couldn't this debacle easily be solved by Apple releasing an updated EFI firmware with a proper CSM/BIOS?

It's not unusual in the WinTel world to flash new a BIOS. I'm sure Apple engineers could find a way to do this elegantly.

In our fast phasing technology world nothing seems impossible! if MS can do it so can Apple!

 

[shabbasuraj]

Vista sux...

 

[Tupring]

Having Macs able to run Windows is a way of futureproofing Apple's hardware business, because it's not locked to the Macintosh computing platform in such a way that the demise of OSX makes Apple computers useless, they can still run Windows and are perfectly capable machines after that (with the right hardware compatability).

Capable of what? Collecting dust. If there was no Mac OS, I would not have a computer. Period.

 

[Tupring]

It's nothing to get excited about, but it's not a steaming pile of crap, either./QUOTE]Yes, actually it is! And that's exactly why it's nothing to get excited about.

 

[Tupring]

It's nothing to get excited about, but it's not a steaming pile of crap, either.

Yes, actually it is! And that's exactly why it's nothing to get excited about.

 

[Tupring]

It's nothing to get excited about, but it's not a steaming pile of crap, either.

Yes, actually it is! And that's exactly why it's nothing to get excited about.

 

[Tupring]

It's nothing to get excited about, but it's not a steaming pile of crap, either.

Yes, actually it is! And that's exactly why it's nothing to get excited about.

edit: posted from work with a PeeCee, which gave me multiple posts somehow. I only posted it once! P.O.S!

 

[Senbei]

I don't really care what anyone says, if you are a Mac user, your interests have nothing to do with M$.

Thats a bunch of malarky. While I'd prefer to always be working in OS X including using OS X apps, some of us have to use corporate defined applications/tools which unfortunately require the use of Windows.

Ever heard of CiscoWorks? What about those who use AutoCAD? What about those who have no choice but to use Microsoft Access? Having the ability to dual boot or work in a virtualized environment at native speeds on an Intel Mac is a value added proposition. At work, the two boxes (Mac and a Dell) I have can be merged into one. Right now, I need to justify the purchase of either one on a staggered schedule because of a thing called a budget. It also requires a lot more justification to get a Mac given that the majority of the tools needed are Windows based. And even with Virtual PC for PPC Mac's, running the necessary required software was not supported due to performance related issues with the emulated environment. The main reason why I was able to justify even having a Mac on my desk is due to BSD environment which contains lot of opensource networking tools AND Intermapper.

The Intel Mac's level the playing field since for the most part, no x86 emulation is required with a virtualization product (and for those who need the most absolute speed, the ability to dual boot). The core pieces they already have with Virtual PC 2004 (virtualization software for Windows) would not require a complete rewriting of the hardware emulation core of Virtual PC for Mac (PPC) as that part would no longer apply. Other parts would need to be written like the interface, the drag and drop integration extras, etc.

Microsoft seems content to sit on their plans for Virtual PC for Intel Mac's as long as possible because as someone else mentioned, it gives a reason for making an Intel Mac look a bit more attractive to those looking for (near) native speed Windows functionality or are contemplating switching but would like a fall back just in case. In mine and others case, I would no longer need to jump through these hoops to justify two pieces of hardware. Is it techno-politics at work because Microsoft does not want to help Apple in even the slightest way sell Intel Mac's because it can potentially run Windows at native speeds for those who may find that attractive? Maybe or maybe not. Will someone eventually come up with solutions for dual booting by doing the non-trivial task of writing a CSM or virtualization like the qvm86 virtualization module for Q/QEmu, VMware (if they do decide to port), or some other similar product (in the potential absence of Virtual PC for Intel Mac)? Of course.

But to call those of us who can make use of such a feature "retards" is such a myopic narrowminded view that it is no wonder others have a field day at generalizing all Mac users as being fanatical zealots.

If there was no Mac OS, I would not have a computer. Period.

 

[Maxwell Smart]

I'm hoping apple releases that windows compatibility layer (something like classic) that way i wont even have to worry about dual booting and I'll never have to leave OS X