No EFI Support on Windows Vista?

[(L)]

I love macs but geez I hate mac users sometimes. You people can be soo arrogant and short sighted. "Games are for losers, so who cares if they can't be played." Thats the argument of some people here. Are you kidding me? The fact is, the lack of gaming capability on macs is one of THE biggest things holding them back. LOTS of people are interested in PC Gaming. And please don't say consoles - I hate consoles. Show me more than a few decent RTS or MMORPGs on a console... yeah, didn't think so. Sure, you can blame the game developers. Or you can realize, purposely or not, Apple has done EVERYTHING in their power to keep games off macs. Lets look at a list:

(1) Nothing to deal with DirectX. OpenGL is all but gone for many game developers these days. Its DirectX for Windows. DirectX for Xbox. Oh, no directx on macs? Oh well, no mac port, there aren't enough mac users anyway.

(2) Crap video cards come standard. The new MacBook Pros are changing this. But lets face it - not too long ago you could buy a top of the line PowerMac G5 for $3000 and get a Radeon 9600 with it. Come on, even back then, the 9600 is an "entry level" graphics card by PC standards.

(3) OS X. I love it to death. It handles a lot of things amazingly well. But I've got a feeling, and I've had it for a long time, that its just a bit too RAM hungry, too resource intensive, and too flashy to ever be great for gaming.

(4) Expense. I've got a dedicated machine for gaming. I can keep it upgraded for the newest games by dropping around $300-600 every couple of years on a new mobo/cpu/ram and/or video card. In comparison, with a mac, I'd have to drop $2500 every couple of years for a new powermac (because in all honesty, imacs never have cut it as anything beyond a casual gaming medium, and never will unless they become something more than glorified laptops).

(5) Lack of games. Sure there's WoW and a few other "hits." But by and large, I'd say you get access to about 10% of the games out there if you are on a mac. And about 5% are in the form of ports done by 3rd parties, which can occasionally be good, but often aren't.

Conclusion: Apple has made it abundantly clear over and over again that you aren't supposed to game on a Mac. So don't. Keep your Mac for every day tasks, for work, for iLife... and build yourself a Windows PC (WinXP or even 2000 will do) for gaming. You won't be sorry, and neither will your wallet. I'll admit that the non-booting of Vista is a disappointment. I was hoping it could boot so that I could have a laptop capable of some limited gaming while I'm on the road. And this will hurt apple. I know a lot of people who can't have or don't want 2 computers - so it'll have to be Windows, because that's where the games are. Even if you play once every couple of weeks - you need windows to even have the option. But oh well, ultimately this saves me cash. I'll be happy with my powerbook a LOT longer now. Because lets face it - a G4 is more than enough for 99% of the tasks non IT/Graphics people do. Gaming, of course, is the exception.

Disagreement on 2 points.

(1) Games are NOT the biggest thing holding Macs back. Market share, however, is. It kinda loops back on itself. You may not like consoles, but there's a machine dedicated to gaming...doesn't sound all that different from your super-costly rig to me, a non-gamer. Would all the games being written for Macs help Macs? Sure. Does Apple seem to think that is significant? As you say, clearly not. Real gamers have rigs like yours anyway, and for the rest of us, hey, we have other priorities.

(2) The people you know may pick Windows for games, forced to choose one computer. The people I know would choose Macs for everything else. I just don't know very many hardcore gamers, is all. My point is, people won't choose Windows "because that's where the games are," if they have other interests they value more.

 

[(L)]

I don't think Vista will be ready for years, Microsoft may just repackage XP as Vista with some new backgrounds, sounds, and effects.

Don't forget all those errors they need written...it's awful hard to train the apes that write them. They have to take Apathy 101, Insults x 2 credits, English Language Degredation x 6 credits, ...

 

[bigandy]

so the big positive points of Vista:

• WinFS filesystem - to replace NTFS
• MSH - the new script shell
• Trusted Computing module support

and now EFI support have all been chucked.

EFI, by the way, is still going to be around in the Server version...


but there's now little to differ Vista substantially from XP. Certainly not for an upgrade that's taken over FIVE YEARS to appear.

 

[tdar]

I just wanted to take this oppertunity to apologize to everyone for these incredibly long posts. I don't mean to dominate this viewpoint of the discussion and I'm sure AidenShaw and others have constructive input in this as well.

Except you are about the only one making any sense here....

 

[sunfast]

so the big positive points of Vista:

• WinFS filesystem - to replace NTFS
• MSH - the new script shell
• Trusted Computing module support

and now EFI support have all been chucked.

EFI, by the way, is still going to be around in the Server version...


but there's now little to differ Vista substantially from XP. Certainly not for an upgrade that's taken over FIVE YEARS to appear.

Vista doesn't look so impressive does it? I expect we'll see LOTS of service packs when it arrives to put back everything they've had to rip out.

 

[tdar]

Reading through this thread it makes me somewhat ashamed to be a Mac owner. For the simple reason that the narrow minded, arrogant, ignorant, elitist views are so aborant. It's like some sort of religious dabate.

I use both OS X and Windows....I would like to make the following points..

1) Windows XP is a good OS, but far from perfect

2) OS X is a good OS but far from perfect

Before attacking Windows, or more importantly Windows users, why dont you look closer to home and rant on about the many HUGE bugs in OS X before throwing your voice elsewhere.

If you can't understand why people need to run Windows then why do you make such a fuss about it? Why do you care if someone else needs Windows to run an app? or wants a Windows boot to play games? Are they betraying the Mac religion?

I dunno, this whole attitude sucks. The more and more I hear these views from people the more I want to distance myself from them. Apple and OS X are not the be all and end of of home computing, some people just can't seem to understand that.

OK...after reading your post I see I was wrong...Seafox is NOT the only one who is thinking....

 

[simX]

The beauty of your argument is that it is an exercise in the grotesque distortion of human reason to the level of pathetic excuses for why you insist on doing so.

Awwwww, man, that was beautiful. Seriously, this sentence practically brings a tear to my eye. L, thanks for saving me from the time it would take to respond to all these ridiculous comments about how Apple dropped the ball.

I love it how we're being accused of being arrogant. I like my platform the way it is, and I don't want it to be soured by the fact that Macs can dual-boot Windows. There's no doubt that companies would simply start saying, "go boot your Mac into Windows to run our software" instead of writing Mac-specific software. I don't want my platform of choice to be diluted by those people who can't be bothered to buy a PC to run their Windows-only software. You guys talk about Apple being the one who is bad because they didn't support BIOS booting -- talk about arrogant.

Intel-Macs not being able to boot Vista? Boo hoo. I would say, "who cares?", but I guess a bunch of misguided people do. Seriously, if you want to boot Windows, go buy a Windows machine not a Mac. I mean, they're supposed to be sooo much cheaper than Macs and all, right? ... right?

 

[Hattig]

Politically motivated - yes, by Apple, which chose a boot interface supported by no other (almost no other?) system on the market, in order to ensure that Windows wouldn't boot on an Apple.

Apple claims publically that they won't stop Windows from booting on a Mac - but they adopted the EFI boot code and stripped the BIOS compatibility layer. Liars.

Crikey, paranoid much?

EFI BIOS support is an optional module. Apple didn't strip it, they just didn't include it, and why should they? They don't need it.

I can see why Apple chose EFI - apart from Intel wanting to get EFI into the general marketplace and possibly sweetening the deal. It's modern. It's far more like OpenFirmware. They have no need for a BIOS. By 2010 it'll be the standard. If Apple change platform again they can still use EFI as it is platform independent.

 

[RacerX]

It is funny, but people will rarely look beyond their own needs in a debate like this.

It has been pointed out already, but I'll point it out again... it is bad for Apple to make PC (Windows) compatible computers. And it is the very people that are upset about Macs not being compatible with Windows that are the reason they should never be compatible.

For those that don't quite get it, here is the problem... people want to run Windows on Macs to be able to run some application(s) that is not made for Macs. If Macs can run Windows with ease, then those apps are available to people that needed them.

Problem solved, right? Wrong.

Developers either hear less complaining about not having a Mac version and opt against porting to Mac or they drop Mac versions because Macs can run the Windows version.

This is the computer equivalent of cultural assimilation. In the end, Apple becomes just another PC vender.

It has happen before. IBM's OS/2 Warp lost ground to Windows because it could coexist with Windows. It could run Windows apps and ran along side Windows on PCs. Developers stopped making OS/2 applications and pretty soon there was no real reason to run in OS/2. In 2003 IBM dropped OS/2 completely (though most people had left the platform by 1999), and in 2005 they dropped out of the PC market altogether.

Another example is SGI. They gave up their position as an independent platform when they started selling Windows PCs... even after they realized the fact that that was a bad idea and dropped the line, they followed up with an almost equally bad idea and tried to sell Linux systems. What set SGI apart originally was that they made everything... they had complete control and were able to innovate. Once they stopped being leaders and became followers... they started falling further and further behind. Odds are SGI won't see 2007.

On the other hand, we should take note that the Linux community has seen what has kept the Mac platform around for so long... being vocal about our platform. The squeaky users get the apps for their minority platforms.

The last thing Apple needs is converts to the Mac platform who aren't really converting. People who would run both Mac OS X and Windows on a Mac have no vested interest in seeing the Mac platform survive. If Mac OS X was gone, what would they care... they have been hedging their bets anyways.

But someone who has a personal stake in the Mac platform, those are committed users who are going to continue to buy Macs (because they have all Mac software) and are going to be very vocal about the lack of any type of software that their chosen platform doesn't have.

It might have been nice for those of you who want to ride the fence if Macs could run Windows (or Mac OS X could run on PCs), but for those of us who have made this platform our computing home (and for Apple) catering to your needs only hurts our platform.




Oh, and for those of you wondering... yes, X Windows and WINE are nearly as bad. And to a degree, so is Firefox. Anything that reduces what makes Macs special hurts the platform. X Windows apps don't act like Mac apps, Windows apps in WINE don't act like Mac apps, and Firefox is only as good as the worst platform it runs on (it is, despite all it's features, a least common denominator application).

Why are these bad? Ask Microsoft.

The reason Microsoft worked to kill off Netscape and Java in the 90s was that they saw that these apps provided users with a common work environment on any platform. What Microsoft uses to keep users is application lockin.

While Apple by contrast uses innovation, if a users primary apps are effectively the same as on any other platform and don't take advantage of Apple's innovations, then their is less of a reason for people to stay with Apple.

If my primary apps are OpenOffice, GIMP, Firefox and Thunderbird... then Linux (or even Windows) would seem pretty much the same as Mac OS X.

Currently Photoshop, InDesign, QuarkXPress and even Microsoft Office show some of the Mac's advantages. And Cocoa apps (like what I primarily use) really show how Mac OS X can shine. But if we lost this and have to start using the Windows versions of Photoshop, InDesign, QuarkXPress or even Microsoft Office in WINE... then like OpenOffice, GIMP, Firefox and Thunderbird, Mac OS X loses it's advantages over Windows (and Linux).


In the computing world one of the hardest things for any operating system to get around is the application barrier to entry. What many people don't realize is that this barrier is not a fixed wall-like barrier, it is in fact a current working against all minority platforms. Apple is one of the only companies to learn how to swim in this current, and it is not going to change what has been a successful strategy just to make a small number of uncommitted possible switchers happy... not at the risk of being swept away by this current.

 

[DougTheImpaler]

how far behind will 64bit Windows lag the 32bit release? Surely they'll come somewhat close together; it's not like they haven't already released an x86-64 version fo Windows.

Not that it'll run on a current Intel Mac, but I expect the "Mac Pro" will have x86-64, as Conroe is supposed to have that support.

 

[macgruff]

Initially when I read this news I thought "bummer". As a web and multimedia developer I need to check my work in Windows and need the occasional program that is only available on Windows. I thought being able to dual boot would have been great, I can cut my studio down to one machine, I've also got a collection of old games (Halflife, the Thief series, Total War series, Dungeon Keeper 2 etc..) that I have kept since before I switched and was looking forward to playing them again on my Mac.

However the more I think about this the happier I am about it, if every Mac out of the box has the ability to run Windows, why should any major Software Developer (not just games developers) build two versions of their software, incurring extra time and cost, especially when one version is for only 3% of the market who can run the other version anyway. I love OS X but if Photoshop or Dreamweaver or any of the other apps which pay my bills move to Windows only I'd follow them, Adobe wouldn't lose my business, Apple would. Os X is great but it isn't essential to get my work done, sure it makes the ride alot easier, stable and more enjoyable but I could get my work done in Windows. Look at BeOs, fantastic Os, no software = dead. I dont want this to happen to Mac Os X and Windows on Mac is too much of an invitation.

Someone will work it out, they got OS X running on a PC a while back, there's enough talent in the Mac world to do the reverse, I only hope it will be quite hard to implement. That way those of us willing to make the effort can do it but the road isn't open to everyone. The move to Intel has made it easier for developers to port their applications to OS X, I'd much rather that than see Apple port their users because there are no apps or developer support.

As for Microsoft why should they care, they only have 3% market share to gain, and most of that hates their guts, and alot more to lose, especially when they own the leading emulation software in the market so currently get to charge us twice if we want to run Windows.

As for games we need native OS X games, we dont need more reasons not to make native games, when we get more market share we'll get more games, these things can't happen over night.

I'll be happy with faster VPC, native Windows on every Mac is too much of a Pandoras box, I vote for leaving it shut.

EDIT: Sorry it seems RacerX beat me to many of my points, I need to learn to type faster!

 

[ewinemiller]

Intel-Macs not being able to boot Vista? Boo hoo. I would say, "who cares?", but I guess a bunch of misguided people do. Seriously, if you want to boot Windows, go buy a Windows machine not a Mac. I mean, they're supposed to be sooo much cheaper than Macs and all, right? ... right?

Really the goal/hope is that I don't have to buy two machines. Right now I keep a dual processor powermac, a dual processer xeon + an ibook, and an inspiron 600m (for the road) up and running so that I can support my customers. If I can get a one dual core machine that runs everything, suddenly my desk is much cleaner, my load much lighter on the road, and my expenses much smaller. As a small software developer, that last one can be a make or break issue for supporting the Mac platform.

This is what really I don't get, is the folks that want software built for the Mac and then want the cost of entering that market to remain high by requiring additional hardware. If it doesn't cost much more to move to the Mac (ie. a machine that does both), then you reduce the cost of Mac development, and attract more developers.

Just because you don't see a need, doesn't mean there isn't a really powerful desire for folks to have a platform that does both. I want a dual boot (or at least really good virtualization) so that I can expand my Mac offerings and support my Mac customers better, not just so I can abandon them and say use Windows on your Mac. Any company that currently deals with Mac users and plans on that, just doesn't understand their market.

VMWare and Virtual PC aren't working yet, with kind of a promise that they might. QEMU kind of works, but doesn't run XP yet (a requirement for VS.NET 2005). EFI support on Vista was one of the hopes.

 

[lord_flash]

What I don't understand is why people seem to think that Windows-booting on Intel Macs seems to be so necessary...But to buy a Mac and base your purchase on being able to run Windows in the future? That doesn't make sense.

At the better part of £2000 a new MacBook Pro is not a toy; not for me at least. Unless I can be confident of running everything I need to - and that's real work, not just iLife - for at least three years, then it's far too much.

If, on the other hand, I can make the argument to myself that it's also a Windows machine, well, I'm covered either way and can take on work from a variety of clients. Of course it's still expensive but, you know, it does look good. Even if it's got a stupid name.

 

[lord_flash]

Windows on every Mac is too much of a Pandoras box, I vote for leaving it shut.

Wuss.

 

[JFreak]

And to a degree, so is Firefox. Anything that reduces what makes Macs special hurts the platform. X Windows apps don't act like Mac apps, Windows apps in WINE don't act like Mac apps, and Firefox is only as good as the worst platform it runs on (it is, despite all it's features, a least common denominator application).

Yes and no.

If you rule out everything that doesn't concern what makes Mac special, then you're absolutely right: Firefox does not represent Mac experience to its fullest. It's not as good as Safari, Mac-experience-wise; however, there's one point that makes Firefox more "good" than "bad", and the point is lesser user base for Idiot Exploder. As long as IE has user majority, Microsoft can "own" the internet, but if Firefox gains momentum, they too are forced to comply with the internet standards. In this regard Firefox is great, and more Mac users should install it as an alternative. It is as standards-compatible as Safari, and in that regard all non-IE browsers are only a good thing.

 

[fatfish]

Mmmm What a kerfuffle

I think this is all rather sad.

You guys are obviously short of something to do if you have the time to rant and rave about your differing perspectives about macs and PC's like this. It seems fairly obvious that gamers will never be happy with macs, why should they be. Even if macs could boot vista, my experience is that gamers like to fiddle, mac users like to open the box and get to work, and the two are never going to meet.

I'm sure if I'm honest that I am disappointed if my next mac won't boot vista, but why I'm not sure, I stopped using VPC before OSX, I have no need for it, so why I might need a native boot for vista I can't tell you. But I suppose a small part of me wishes I could, just for the sake of being able to.

I believe however that the dual boot function would benefit apple in the long term, I know many disgruntled windows users who are afraid to get rid of their windows machines completely but will not entertain two computers.

However there are those that will never switch. Gamers being one group. The other group are those that don't really care about computers and just want the cheapest out there, I usually find this group doesn't understand anything other than $'s, they usually don't back up and have no problems at all just wiping everything and reinstalling when things go wrong.

I happen to believe that macs are good value for money and competitive when it comes to proper comparisons with PC's, but these people aren't even interested in quality PC's so why should they be interested in macs.

Gamers as I said before will never be interested in macs. I'll probably get flamed for this but I consider them an odd sort of bunch, I don't criticise them for it, it's what ever floats your boat, but the one's I know would never fit in with a mac.

Quite why anyone would stay awake for 24 hrs to perform a realtime flight from London to Sydney is beyond me. I have often visited a friend who just sits there watching the monitor for hours on end while his autopilot does all the work. And when I ask him to send me his pics from last weeks party he says he can't his PC is in bits for an upgrade or can't because he has just installed a new graphics card and lost all of his picture library. Quite obviously his games are more important than all his other stuff and that would never do for me which is why I have a mac and he has a PC.

Although the rants suggests differently, I don't believe a dual boot is that much of a loss, it might be for apple, but not for the user. If your a builder you have a van and a car, not a dual purpose vehicle, you don't want six bags of cement in the boot of your car, just as you don't want to take the kids to school sat on paint cans in the back of the van. If you have a need for a mac and a PC get both, a dual boot machine will likely be of little use.

I do believe my mac is superior, I simply could not put up with all the downtime my PC friends have to endure, but hey it's down to what the individual needs, if you want to game or want a really cheapo system to use now and again, nothing will touch a PC. On the other hand if you want something in the middle you have a choice and my choice is a mac. Other than attracting switchers I don't see an advantage for having dual boot in the area of the market where there is a choice between mac and PC.

 

[Arcus]

I might have to switch back to Windows then.

Oh well.

Anyone want to buy the iMac in my sig?

Its G5. You were never going to boot that to Windows anyway. ROFL.

 

[DougTheImpaler]

fatfish, just because you have no use for something doesn't make it useless. Some people (myself included) *need* Windows for one thing or another, and some other people *want* Windows on their Mac so they could get away with having just one computer for playing games and their Mac for real work. Either way, don't discount what the community wants just because it's different from what you want.

 

[Manatee]

I guarantee some cleaver person will find a way to make it work.

So you think a butcher is going to come up with the solution?

 

[fatfish]

At the better part of £2000 a new MacBook Pro is not a toy; not for me at least. Unless I can be confident of running everything I need to - and that's real work, not just iLife - for at least three years, then it's far too much.

If, on the other hand, I can make the argument to myself that it's also a Windows machine, well, I'm covered either way and can take on work from a variety of clients. Of course it's still expensive but, you know, it does look good. Even if it's got a stupid name.

If you need both platforms for your business and your downtime involved in rebooting between windows and OSX equates to less than $ 2000 over the lifetime of the computer (3 yrs in your case), then perhaps you should look at another business not another computer.

 

[Arcus]

Im actualy hopefull that the universal version of VPC will be good enough to do most of what I want to do in Windows. I kinda think it will. I just wish we could have some news on it.

 

[luko]

I love it how we're being accused of being arrogant. I like my platform the way it is, and I don't want it to be soured by the fact that Macs can dual-boot Windows. There's no doubt that companies would simply start saying, "go boot your Mac into Windows to run our software" instead of writing Mac-specific software. I don't want my platform of choice to be diluted by those people who can't be bothered to buy a PC to run their Windows-only software. You guys talk about Apple being the one who is bad because they didn't support BIOS booting -- talk about arrogant.

Dual booting is only appealing to a tiny tiny percentage of users. It sounds like you're afraid that the Mac platform will get spoilt because a handful of people dual boot. If you think a Mac software developer is likely to turn around to their customers and say "hey, everytime you want to run our software, reboot your machine into windows and then run it from there" I think you're way way off the mark.

You might be 100% happy with Mac, but alot of people aren't, they want the best of both worlds and who can blame them.

There's this assumption that people are buying Intel Macs just to run Windows. This is WRONG. They are buying Intel Macs because they want to run OS X, the fact they might be able to boot Windows has finally given them reason to make the switch. It's like a safety cushion.

 

[JFreak]

people won't choose Windows "because that's where the games are," if they have other interests they value more.

I agree, but that may be because I'm a dinosaur

When I begun gaming, there was my dad's Commodore64 available for me, and that was because he needed it for his word processing needs. After a while he bought a PC because his texts did not fit into the memory of a C64, so that opened me new gaming possibilities. As the time went by, he needed to buy better and better computers which allowed me to play better and better games; however, it was always other needs before gaming and not the other way around.

Today, kids are pampered with whatever toys they want to have. Toys, including computers dedicated to gaming. If games are made almost exclusively to Windows platform, then it's a no-brainer what kind of a computer they will get. Computers are cheaper today than what they used to be, and therefore gaming may very well be the only interest for a computer purchase. A very expensive interest, too.

While it was not common to even have a computer few decades ago, it is a commonplace today. If a family in the 80's did in fact have a computer, they probably only had one which had to serve all needs. This is not true anymore. Had I kids, I wouldn't even imagine using the same computer than they would use for their games - my data is far more valuable than that. I would surely buy them a computer of their own, if they could not live without one. If it's games they want to play with their computer, it would certainly have to be a Windows box; only that they could not expect me to buy them an expensive GPU every year, so they could very well choose a gaming console instead

EDIT: it was so nice to talk about imaginary kids

 

[fatfish]

fatfish, just because you have no use for something doesn't make it useless. Some people (myself included) *need* Windows for one thing or another, and some other people *want* Windows on their Mac so they could get away with having just one computer for playing games and their Mac for real work. Either way, don't discount what the community wants just because it's different from what you want.

But my point is not that people don't think they would like a dual boot ( I realise they do, or they think they do), my point is it won't work. How can you get on with your "real work" under OSX, while you have the thing in bits for an upgrade or a virus problem on the windows side of things.

Imagine designing a web page in OSX and having to reboot to windows and back again, to see if it works in IE under windows everytime you make a change.

 

[JFreak]

It seems fairly obvious that gamers will never be happy with macs, why should they be.

Gamers WERE happy with Macs before everyone begun to code against DirectX, which is yet again a good example how Microsoft abuses their monopoly and fails to play nice with open standards like OpenGL.