Use of MBP as a windows only machine...

Buy a PC laptop for 1/3rd of the price and none of the hassle.

 

You want to buy a ~$3000 17" MBP and not even use OS:X?

I have no idea why you would not buy a windows based laptop.

 

nobody replied because nobody would do this ... buy a thinkpad

 

You can do it but EFI updates can only happen through OS X. Just install Windows using boot camp and select it whenever you boot. OS X doesn't take up much space.

 

You're overpaying, and it's very stupid to do, as macs don't have a bios and you need OS X for firmware updates and the like.

How about buying a nice lenovo instead? You'll get more for your money and it runs windows from the getgo.


Oh and by the way, the battery life on macbook pros are advertised for OS X, you should at least halve that, OS X has optimized power settings under the hood that are tailored to the macbook pro, whereas windows doesn't. I would not expect anymore than 3 hours battery life with a MBP running strictly windows.

 

Boot camp is just like running windows on a windows machine, OS X is not running, it's not a virtual machine.

Read my other post though, you will not be getting the 7 hour advertised battery life in windows, ever. Forget about it, OS X is tailored around the hardware apple uses, so the power settings are just about perfect for it to achieve maximum battery life.

In windows, which is meant to run on just about anything, the optimisation for the power settings sucks, you shouldn't expect much more than 3 hours out of a single battery charge.

Like I said earlier, you would be overpaying for a computer which would not work as well as a PC for what you're trying to do.

 

ive heard of people doing it and running into problems with the efi, ie hanging on boot,better to just partition the smallest possible amount to osx in windows,afterall,you may need it to update stuff,it can be done,but apparently it hangs for ages on bootup,if i remember rightly.

 

Oh trust me, it is. My old 2008 macbook pro still goes for 3.5 hours on OS X, whereas in windows 7 64-bit I'm lucky if I can squeeze two hours out of it.

 

You wouldnt have any problem doing what you want to, as long as you keep OS X installed (only so that you can do firmware updates and things like that). You can install windows under bootcamp with the bootcamp assistant in OS X, just make the OS X partition as small as possible and leave the rest for your windows installation. You can then choose to have the MBP automatically boot into windows, you wont even know that OS X is there. Its really not that hard . The one thing to keep in mind is that the battery life will not be amazing, but should still be better then most windows based laptops out there (personal experience tells me this).

PS. I understand why you would want a macbook pro, even as just a windows machine, they are great, love mine! got 4 OS's on mine lol.

 

EFI is equivalent to BIOS.

Boot Camp isn't like running a virtual machine. It's like installing the OSes side by side.

 

You should also buy a Ferrari and put a Hona Civic motor in it.

 

My friend did this and it saddens me to this day!

I understand the concept of not wanting to change from windows, but, and please hear me out.... My recommendation would be, install windows 7 via bootcamp and then you can trial the two systems on the MBP so that YOU can see the differences in performance, features of the OS etc. I made the leap back in 2003 and although I do have a partition with Win7 on it, it is, to be honest, a waste of 100 gigs of space.

Essentially - yes you can install and just use Win7 on your MBP, although as people comment you will not see the battery life performance of OSX on it (however I should image that the apple battery is fairly competitive to any windows machine [but I think this, not know this]).

 

Every new thing has a learning curve and OSX from Windows was and will be a big one for most.

I wanted to chuck my new MacBook Pro at the wall so many times just after i got it (new 2011 model) as it was the first time experiencing OSX -

(What is up with no being able to cut files? Oh and not being able to access sub menus within menus!?>??????? I can't delete a bookmark in Firefox unless I go into CMD+B menu! ARRGGGGG)

In time you put up with the flaws and learn the pro's. OSX is a really intuitive OS and in time mate you'll get used to it.

For example, I did not understand OSX's Maximize button and thought it was stupid beyond belief but after a couple of days I hate maximizing windows to fill the screen. I don't know why but.... Yeah...

 

It might be impossible to completely remove OS X. But you could certainly make it so that it was all but unnoticeable that you had it on your machine.

I switched to Mac's with the original aim of doing just this. But I gave OS X a try and eventually came to love it. In fact many years on I've found myself trying to remove all my previous ties to windows.

My advice to you: if your still keen on Apple Hardware then give OS X a try (you will always be able to run windows through bootcamp). However if your not willing to try it, then buy a windows-based laptop instead.

Adam

 

You will lose 90% of the functions of your trackpad which is an invincible feature of Macbooks.

 

Lenovo for work and MBP with OSX for everything beyond.

 

Not to mention the not working turbo boost function for the new Sandy-Bridge processors? You are really crippling the MBP if you run it exclusively on Windows.

As for the OS:X: Please, give it a try! My 73 old grandma has an iMac and she absolutely loves it after switching from WinXP! Sure, she called me up a couple of times at the beginning but now she is a Pro!

 

But doesn't the battery life suck in windows on a MBP? (at least compared to on OS X)

 

Yes, and it's been mentioned at least twice in this thread. Maybe you should read it.

 

Maybe so, but you Lenovoe doesn't have the hardware (CPU, GPU) that the MBP has. Power reduces battery life UNLESS you build things into the OS like Apple seems to have done.

You're comparing "Apples to Oranges" and may just be approaching this thing the wrong way.

I've never used OsX for any period of time (Windows only to date) and for the life of me I can't figure out why you WOULDN'T want to try something else.

These days, hardware and software are more closely developed to maximize user experience....if you use an Apple product.

Windows is hurt in that regard by working with 10x the hardware vendors and things like Optimization for hardware/software synergy is just not there.

Last point on the Hardware/Software piece....given you can Bootcamp Mac (but can't really do OSX on a Dell/Leveno/HP, you could have MORE options for software on a Mac.


Apple Software/Apps Logic, Final Cut Pro, GarageBand...etc...etc are largely embraced as being exceptional offerings that you can't use on a Windows PC.