No EFI Support on Windows Vista?

[Lord Blackadder]

I can see Apple's motivation and reasoning for making Windows booting strictly experimental for now at least, but Microsoft's rationale is far less apparent.

I would think that Microsoft would want to try to out-compete Apple's OS on their own hardware, in the long term at least. On the other hand, the death of OS X would probably bring new anti-trust action....

I guess MS is happy with the status quo - Apple is a conveniently non-threatening "competitor" at the moment, at least in terms of marketshare.

 

[whooleytoo]

Dual booting would be cool, but a fast VM would be better. I think we'll see the latter before the former.

Sure, if the VM was fast (and on Intel it should be) and worked well (i.e. no compatibility issues), it's a better option. The exceptions are where you don't need the overhead of OSX & the VM; or on apps which for whatever reason don't work under a VM.

Though in the case I listed above, a VM would offer no advantage over dual booting.

 

[GilGrissom]

This is bad news for all the reasons stated in this thread. For Apple fans who are too short-sighted to see the implications, this reduces the possibility of introducing the Mac platform to a whole segment of the community who are interested in a "safe" switch to a dual booting platform.

Continue with your anti-Microsoft rhetoric, by all means.

For my part, an order of the greatest Mac Pro available at WWDC (when announced) just went from a "must have" to "wait and see." The ability to dual boot would be a great boon to me, and thousands of others.

I agree. It's a bit of a bummer. Doesn't really affect me though, I'm happy with my PPC chip in my 12" PB! But my friend has brought an Intel iMac and was kinda hoping he could get Vista running on it.

No doubt there will be some work around. Maybe even a proper tidy native performance workaround from something like WINE.

How much more will Microsoft drop from Vista?...I thought all the "dropping of balls", so to speak, was over and they were now on final course??

 

[Krevnik]

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.

EFI is heavily used in the market of 64-bit servers. WinXP 64 uses EFI to boot, and EFI is where Intel and AMD are heading. Not to mention that BIOS is wholy inadequate for Apple's purposes, which leveraged quite a bit of OpenFirmware for the device registry. EFI, not BIOS, would allow Apple to transition smoothly. BIOS would have made certain things that developers do(especially driver devs) nearly impossible.

And Apple didn't /remove/ the CSM, they never added it in the first place. When you are required to write a CSM /specific to your hardware/... and Apple doesn't need the CSM to boot OS X, I doubt they will spend effort writing one to /only/ appease the Windows guys.

Apple didn't do anything to prevent Windows from booting, but they sure didn't do anything to HELP Windows to boot either. MS /has/ been backing down from functionality with Vista like mad. First they dropped 32-bit EFI, saying that vendors can use a CSM... and now they are dropping 64-bit EFI saying that vendors can use a CSM. Sounds like MS dropped the ball here, not Apple.

 

[lord_flash]

- iMac G5 20" 2.0Ghz, 1.5GB, 250GB (Pre-iSight)

Ah, so I'm not the only poor sould in the universe unlucky enoug to buy before the free camera...

- MacBook Pro 2.0Ghz, 2GB, 100GB (Waiting on Repair)

Waiting on repair? Already? What happened? (I had the first Alu 15" and it hasn't been altogether reliable, so am wondering if something is going to crop up with these machines... my money is sitting in my pocket for while this time)

 

[Krevnik]

The idea was that once Mac OS X had a substantial user base and these developers saw what Cocoa could do first hand, that they would eventually convert their existing apps to Cocoa.

Well, I know we have probably butt heads on this on more than on occasion, but Apple definitely did not keep this mentality for very long. Carbon has been developed and expanded along-side Cocoa. Lately that has begun to change with frameworks like CoreData... and the way it appears to me, is that Carbon is essentially the low-level API. Much like how Win32 is still supported with updates, new APIs and so on, even though MS would much rather you use .NET to develop new apps in C#.

Even now, I love the environment, but I can see where Carbon is still needed. Ports from Windows will not be going Cocoa if they want to reuse code or go to a single multi-platform code base (at least not easily). There is still a black art to writing a fast OpenGL game in Cocoa, of which OmniGroup pioneered, but nobody seems to listen to anymore.

While it is great for new desktop apps... older code, multiplatform apps, and games actually don't see a huge benefit from the framework. And POSIX isn't good enough for those situations either. I don't see Carbon going anywhere because there are still perfectly valid needs for it.

 

[Krevnik]

Ah, so I'm not the only poor sould in the universe unlucky enoug to buy before the free camera...

Actually, I feel lucky, it was the last model that was easily servicable by the user. I can rip it apart and replace the HDD when I need to, service the optical drive, etc... it will last me a lot longer than a model with an iSight in it, actually. Of course, I am also someone who kept that 8600 running from 1996 to 2005 as my only desktop machine through repairs and upgrades, so being accessible is worth it to me.

Waiting on repair? Already? What happened? (I had the first Alu 15" and it hasn't been altogether reliable, so am wondering if something is going to crop up with these machines... my money is sitting in my pocket for while this time)

Well, I have gotten my replacement, but one of the fans was grinding. It wasn't one of the common issues being complained about by many others, and I haven't actually run into anyone who had the same problem. Personally, I would still wait, simply on principle. The power supply is still a common problem with the MBP, and while it doesn't bother me, and my GF can't even hear it, it bothers plenty of people.

 

[fatfish]

Why would this be a big deal? Dual Booting SUCKS! I disdain dual booting. If I had to dual boot, I'd much rather have two computers. In that case you might as well have a Dell next to your Mac.

This is a non issue anyway. .

While I agree dual booting will not be anyway near as useful as people are assuming, I don't believe this is a non issue.

It is the users perception of dual booting that is important, important to Apple and microsoft anyway.

Even the most sceptical about the mac will appreciate that a dual boot system is likely to produce more PC to mac converts than the other way round and in doing so makes a sale for the mac hardware unit.

Regardless of the size and the market-share of each company, a sale is a sale, MS will loath every one it loses just as much as Apple will enjoy everyone it gains.

Both companies will have thought this through and even though in the short term each company would gain, (PC user purchases one = 1 mac sold, mac user purchases one = possible windows/MS software sale) switchers may abandon windows software at the next system software release.

The perception in general is that dual booting will be a good thing. There are undoubtedly those who will get a real benefit from dual booting, say where they can run windows during the day and OSX at night. But generally the reality of dual booting for those who think they can switch back and forward all day, will be that they will find they need 2 computers.

 

[IJ Reilly]

This is bad news for all the reasons stated in this thread. For Apple fans who are too short-sighted to see the implications, this reduces the possibility of introducing the Mac platform to a whole segment of the community who are interested in a "safe" switch to a dual booting platform.

Continue with your anti-Microsoft rhetoric, by all means.

For my part, an order of the greatest Mac Pro available at WWDC (when announced) just went from a "must have" to "wait and see." The ability to dual boot would be a great boon to me, and thousands of others.

Apple has consistently said that they would not officially support dual booting, so I don't understand why anybody would be so eagerly anticipating it. This isn't a questions of being an "Apple fan" who is "too short-sighted" to understand the implications. Please understand the potential implications of Apple officially developing Mac hardware as a dual boot platform.

Microsoft has done what Microsoft has done. It can't be characterized as forward-looking.

 

[xDANx]

Do you really think MS really cares that much about Apple??? I think it was more a technical problem, and they are having to cut features in order to get the release out on time. IF it is a politically motivated decision, then it is most definitely something that the hardware manufacturers were pushing for since they are so locked into BIOS.

The only logic I can see behind MS being scared of Apple is the recent report sighting Apple doubling its marketshare if they could dual-boot easily.

the only time MS cares about apple is when apple starts screwing with their proprietary formats...they hate the ipod because it doesn't play wma. but everyone seems to be forgetting that MS is first and foremost a software company...and if every single mac user started dual booting windows MS would giggle with joy (with visions of OS/2 dancing in their heads). the more computers with windows installed on them, the better for MS...regardless of who built the hardware.

that being said...i wouldn't mind dual booting windows, but only for games. the only other solution to mac gaming woes would be for apple to take a serious chunk of marketshare...but i'm too impatient for that...

i think the real reason behind dropping EFI is the same as dropping every other feature...MS developers are molasses slow and they're having trouble implementing any of the interesting features that they promised sooooo long ago. bring on leopard!!!

 

[IJ Reilly]

I would think that Microsoft would want to try to out-compete Apple's OS on their own hardware, in the long term at least. On the other hand, the death of OS X would probably bring new anti-trust action....

I guess MS is happy with the status quo - Apple is a conveniently non-threatening "competitor" at the moment, at least in terms of marketshare.

But wait... Microsoft doesn't do PC hardware. But what they have done (deliberately?) is retard the advancement of the PC hardware platform by forcing the OEMs to stick with the ancient and creaky PC-BIOS in order to run Vista. (I know, I know, this is just more "anti-Microsoft rhetoric.")

 

[FoxyKaye]

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.

I was kind of wondering the same thing - when the Conroe chips make it in to the PowerMac systems, won't an EFI-enabled 64-bit version of Windows then be able to install? And, since Apple seems to always matriculate its chips downward throughout the line, in another 1-2 years maybe the entire lineup from Mac Mini to PowerMac will be running some form of Intel's 64-bit chip. So, isn't it then a waiting game?

This is pure speculation - I'm not terribly familiar with the software necessary to work with BIOS vs. EFI.

 

[windmaomao]

Not sure I entirely follow you. Apple obviously isn't encouraging dual booting, but Microsoft seems sufficiently intent on preventing it to stick with an obsolete technology. I can see Apple's motivation and reasoning for making Windows booting strictly experimental for now at least, but Microsoft's rationale is far less apparent. I don't think it's Apple they care about in this calculation.

I don't know if you seriously don't want to believe it or you don't get it, see, mac is the one who decide to use it, and microsoft is the one who doesn't want to write software for it. Come on, if hardware not invented and used, why bother writing code for accessing it
no offense, i don't like any of these company regarding this issue, actually i am more pissed off by apple.

ps. But anyway, now the progress is stuck at the driver for video card not the EFI any more.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I don't know if you seriously don't want to believe it or you don't get it, see, mac is the one who decide to use it, and microsoft is the one who doesn't want to write software for it. Come on, if hardware not invented and used, why bother writing code for accessing it
no offense, i don't like any of these company regarding this issue, actually i am more pissed off by apple.

ps. But anyway, now the progress is stuck at the driver for video card not the EFI any more.

What? Apple is at fault for using current technology instead of early 1980s technology? I don't understand your argument at all. I guess I must be really dim.

 

[fatfish]

In that the United Kingdom isn't part of the Eurasian continental plate? Is it in Africa? Oceana, perhaps?

Or are you just making it absoloutely clear to everyone that you're an isolationist who dislikes free trade, human rights etc. I noticed abve you said you employ people. Do you resent the Europeans enforcing a 20-day minimum annual holiday for them?

Sorry, but it just seems a but stuffy to clarify your Britishness to the world? Perhaps a handle-bar moustache and a relaxed attitude towards dental hygine would serve just as effectively, without the connotations of xenophobia.

I'm British (I live in England) and European (in that I don't come from Asia, Africa, the Americas or Australia). I also don't really mind the E.U.

Oh, and I like Macs. I'd like them more if they could boot Windows. Why not, eh? You can be two things at once, after all

My purpose is to make it absolutely clear I am not European rather than that I am British, if you understand what I mean. I'm afraid I believe the majority of the world would describe me as European and I wish to discourage this perception.

As a subject of Her Majesty I have no rights, except that I can always be a subject of Her majesty, I am exercising my one and only right.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I was kind of wondering the same thing - when the Conroe chips make it in to the PowerMac systems, won't an EFI-enabled 64-bit version of Windows then be able to install? And, since Apple seems to always matriculate its chips downward throughout the line, in another 1-2 years maybe the entire lineup from Mac Mini to PowerMac will be running some form of Intel's 64-bit chip. So, isn't it then a waiting game?

This is pure speculation - I'm not terribly familiar with the software necessary to work with BIOS vs. EFI.

Yes, I think you're correct. And keep in mind, Microsoft has said they will support EFI booting in the server version of Vista, so it's clear to me that they are playing some sort techno-political game with this. The question is why. Software doesn't seem to be the issue. Only the OS has to work with the boot ROMs.

 

[simX]

Well, I know we have probably butt heads on this on more than on occasion, but Apple definitely did not keep this mentality for very long. Carbon has been developed and expanded along-side Cocoa. Lately that has begun to change with frameworks like CoreData... and the way it appears to me, is that Carbon is essentially the low-level API. Much like how Win32 is still supported with updates, new APIs and so on, even though MS would much rather you use .NET to develop new apps in C#.

Even now, I love the environment, but I can see where Carbon is still needed. Ports from Windows will not be going Cocoa if they want to reuse code or go to a single multi-platform code base (at least not easily). There is still a black art to writing a fast OpenGL game in Cocoa, of which OmniGroup pioneered, but nobody seems to listen to anymore.

While it is great for new desktop apps... older code, multiplatform apps, and games actually don't see a huge benefit from the framework. And POSIX isn't good enough for those situations either. I don't see Carbon going anywhere because there are still perfectly valid needs for it.

RacerX: I have to agree with Krevnik here on this one point. I completely agree with you about why Rosetta for Windows and dual-booting a Mac will be harmful to the platform. However, if there ever was a mentality that Cocoa was supposed to completely supplant Carbon, that mentality is entirely gone now. Carbon and Cocoa are going to co-exist on Mac OS X for a long time, especially since they can both essentially do the same thing. Cocoa gets a lot more stuff "for free", but Carbon apps are just as native and can take advantage of all the same stuff as Cocoa apps can.

 

[Jon the Heretic]

No, it takes a $600 PC

Whooosh!

That's the sound of his point flying over your head.

So can you play <modern game> on a $299 PC with low-end integrated graphics and a celeron? No. And you can't on a Mac Mini either.

Good point. You can't do that on a $299 PC. But many $600 PCs can do quite credibke framerates; $600 --- the same pricepoint of the new not-suitable-for-games Mac Mini. You can do even better with the Duo Mini's pricepoint of $800.

Putting a part from a $299 computer in a $600 to $800 computer doesn't make that part magically better than it was in the hunk o' junk.

 

[Jon the Heretic]

Great benefit

Apple didn't do anything to prevent Windows from booting, but they sure didn't do anything to HELP Windows to boot either. MS /has/ been backing down from functionality with Vista like mad. First they dropped 32-bit EFI, saying that vendors can use a CSM... and now they are dropping 64-bit EFI saying that vendors can use a CSM. Sounds like MS dropped the ball here, not Apple.

Another way to look at it is that a CSM might actually HELP Apple sell more hardware --- to would be switchers. I believe Apple is still in the business of doing that. Just because the MacOS may never need or use it doesn't mean this couldn't be useful to users (every now and then Apple throws us a crumb) or to building marketshare.

Intel Macs with CSM are a great opportunity for Stealth Macs, getting a Mac as a Windows box in a Windows-only shop, but then promoting the advantages of the MacOS in that environment. Apple cared about this once in the days of CHIRP/PRep, where a few Macs could boot Windows NT for PPC and OS/2 as well as the Classic MacOS. CHIRP/PReP failed so the strategy because the alliance fell apart and so it didn't work out well for Apple, but it could work now, if they only had CSM support in EFI. That's actually a lot easier than trying to establish an all new platform at the same time, like CHIRP was supposed to become.

 

[RacerX]

RacerX: I have to agree with Krevnik here on this one point.

Don't get me wrong, I was looking at it more from a historical point of view. What Apple has done is try to extend Carbon to include features available within Cocoa. A good example of how this is progressing is BBEdit.

What is disheartening is the overall lack of adoption by the Carbon developer community of these new abilities. Even as Apple has been adding more access to services for Carbon apps, most of the Carbon developers (specially the big names) are ignoring these advances.

The thing about services is that they make it so no app need stand alone. One app can share features and abilities with another app without having to go to that other app.

Most Carbon developers seem to want to reinvent the wheel for many things that can be provided via services. For me, it is odd to have applications that want to go it alone... and the Carbon apps I do use often wake me up to just how much I access services within a given day.

What is worse, you have sets of applications from a given developer that will share abilities... but only with other applications from that developer (Adobe and Microsoft come to mind).

But yes, Apple did realize long ago that the build it and they will come idea behind Cocoa wasn't going to work and that it was better to grow the two together.

RacerX, you were right and I was horribly horribly wrong. I throughly enjoyed our debate. Kudos to you sir.

The fun of debating issues isn't the end results... it's getting to see the other person's point of view. The reason I debate rather than just state something is that I'm always interested in what other people have to say on a subject.

Honestly, I learn more from exchanges like ours then I ever could on my own. So even if it had gone the other way, I still owe you thanks for the help!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Another way to look at it is that a CSM might actually HELP Apple sell more hardware --- to would be switchers.

Might is the operative word. Consider, a switcher hoping to take advantage of a dual-booting Mac would need to fork out for a new copy of Windows -- at least $100. They can't simply install the copy they're running on their PC now. Some might spend the extra money, but I don't know that it would be enough to register on Apple's market share meter. I believe that dual booting would serve mainly Mac users who currently own VPC.

 

[FoxyKaye]

Yes, I think you're correct. And keep in mind, Microsoft has said they will support EFI booting in the server version of Vista, so it's clear to me that they are playing some sort techno-political game with this. The question is why. Software doesn't seem to be the issue. Only the OS has to work with the boot ROMs.

Might it be something along the lines of Steve going with the "latest/greatest" for the Intel Mac lineup, and M$ needing to provide some sort of obtuse backwards compatibility in its desktop Windows version? But does this even make sense? Would current Windows programs need to be re-compiled to run on a system without a BIOS? Or, could they run just fine on an EFI-only system, or would there just need to be some sort of low-level instruction code translation?

[Edit]: I mis-understood IJ's meaning above - apparently EFI and BIOS are invisible to software, so there goes that line of speculation.

I couldn't imagine M$ getting itself into any sort of agreement where it was bound to not make a version of Windows that could boot on Apple hardware - if anything, it would expand market share to have tones of Apple hardware versions picking up that errant copy of Windows "just in case..."

Techno-political game of thrones, indeed.

 

[whatever]

Whatever! Apple dropped the ball. People want to be able to dual-boot between Windows and Mac, natively. Not using VirtualPC or any other third-party stand-between. Apple should have probably used BIOS on the Intel Macs or at least implemented the backwards compatibility in their EFI setup.

You think Apple didn't investigate the Windows-booting capability of their Intel machines before they released them? I doubt it. It's something that would effect their marketability.

The whole "We wouldn't do anything to impede anyone from booting Windows" line was horse****. Why would they:

1) Pick a new system boot instruction platform different then what 90% of existing Intel systems use.

2) Implement it in a way that is not backwards compatible with the standard, when they easily could have, and

3) The result is something that will not run the currently shipping version of Windows (and a quick call to Microsoft could have verified that before finalizing the motherboard).

Really, does this not seem to be a little much for a mere coincidence?

Apple thought they'd get a year or two alone before Vista shipped. Then the Intel Macs came out, people started to complain that "Hey, I still can't boot Windows to work from home! Oh well, when Vista comes out I'll be able to then."

At some point Microsoft realized this was a Good Thing for them, too. And they had to do little to keep it going. Since most PC's had BIOS (or at least the compatibility layer) by dropping plans for EFI support they hurt their own customer base little but messed up people who were thinking of switching to Macs and taking advantage of the ability to use it like their old Wintel, too.

Really, people. I've been reading Apple's statements about booting Windows as lies from the beginning. The fact you couldn't do when they first shipped should have been writing on the wall.

_________
Edit: AidenShaw beat me to it.[/QUOTE
Apple did not drop the ball. If Apple really wanted to they would have made impossible to boot into Windows from a Mac. But they choose not to.

It's in Microsoft's best interest to have the growing number of Mac Users to buy MS Office for the Mac. MS is not stupid, they know that the majority of Intel Mac User population have no intention of running a legal copy of Windows on their machines or a legal copy of Office for Windows either. As far as gamers go.... Think about it for a second. MS would rather all gamers move away from PC games and buy a console (hopefully a X-Box 360).

I think everyone here is missing the point, Apple doesn't care if people run Windows and hopes that when they try to they will have such a bad experience that they never dual boot into Windows again and MS is trying to avoid the direct comparison between Vista and OS X that duel boot will give us.

Is this a conspiracy? No, it's called doing business and being smart

 

[mikeray]

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.

EFI was used because that is what Intel is pushing for. I am actually pretty surprised that Vista will not support EFI because that is supposedly going to replace BIOS in the future?

 

[Jon the Heretic]

A wasted opportunity.

Might is the operative word. Consider, a switcher hoping to take advantage of a dual-booting Mac would need to fork out for a new copy of Windows -- at least $100. They can't simply install the copy they're running on their PC now. Some might spend the extra money, but I don't know that it would be enough to register on Apple's market share meter. I believe that dual booting would serve mainly Mac users who currently own VPC.

I think from a marketing perspective this is disproportionately more beneficial than for those folks who would actually use it. It impacts purchasing. It is irrelevant whether someone needs to buy Windows or ever uses it.

Perception sells computers. A single commerical probably costs more than what it would cost to support CSM and in the long run would sell more Macs. Like a commerical, CSM support (Windows booting) would be a marketing tool. I bet it would generate a whole lot of free press, too, easily replacing the value of that commerical: "Apple officially supports Windows booting on Macs."

A wasted opportunity.