Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Siron

macrumors 6502
Feb 4, 2008
470
0
North Carolina
If you boot holding down ALT, you get should get two Windows
installation options - at least, I did. One is a BIOS+MBR option,
the other an EFI+GPT option (i.e., similar to what OS X uses).
As far as I know, nobody on a Mac has been able to get option
two working.

As a consequence, you're stuck with BIOS emulation.

About Vista SP1:

"Adds support for new UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface)
industry standard PC firmware for 64-bit systems with functional parity
with legacy BIOS firmware, which allows Windows Vista SP1 to install
to GPT format disks, boot and resume from hibernate using UEFI firmware."

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...f706-401e-abb5-eec42ea0a03e1033.mspx?mfr=true

Sorry to be pedantic but when I hold down the Option key all I get are the two disc options (OSX and Windows). Where do the options you mention appear?
Also, could Apple fix the EFI issue with a firmware update?
 

Infrared

macrumors 68000
Mar 28, 2007
1,714
64
Sorry to be pedantic but when I hold down the Option key all I get are the two disc options (OSX and Windows). Where do the options you mention appear?

It has to be a Vista installer disc with SP1 included,
and it has to be a 64-bit version. You might check
your DVD for the presence of this file:

\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI


Also, could Apple fix the EFI issue with a firmware update?

I would think so, and probably quite easily, but that's
guessing a bit. Whether they will or not, who can say?
 

Sesshi

macrumors G3
Jun 3, 2006
8,113
1
One Nation Under Gordon
With one of my planned Windows desktops still unavailable to me I've Boot Camped one of my Pros and am using it as a Vista 64 machine. It has a few quirks and can't be directly compared to a fully Vista 64 supported machine like a Dell Precision, but it seems to run well enough most of the time. I had no problems installing it.

It was only a few days after I'd installed V64 on this machine. Fast forward 4 days later having installed all of my apps and starting using it in anger as it were - and I've had 2 BSOD's.

Come to think of it, the only other machine I've had Vista BSOD's on in the last 12 months was a MBP I was boot camping Vista Business on.

My experience with V64 on the Mac however should be thankfully no longer relevant this weekend - as a real second Windows workstation is hopefully finally thudding back to my doorstep.
 

Siron

macrumors 6502
Feb 4, 2008
470
0
North Carolina
It has to be a Vista installer disc with SP1 included,
and it has to be a 64-bit version. You might check
your DVD for the presence of this file:

\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI

I have the Vista Business 64 disc and the separate SP1 disc (I guess they didn't have the combo disc when I ordered but it shouldn't make a difference - right?
Where would I look for the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file? In OSX or Vista?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.