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Win OS on Apple machine?

B

BikeDude

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 13, 2002
10
0
Hi there,

Please don't linch me for this seemingly freakish question, as I am a newbie with Macs.
But I'm just curious, since the hardware on Macs and PCs are pretty much the same, exapt mayby for CPU architecture, is it feasable to load a Windows OS on a Mac machine, or vice versa?:eek:
 
Nope, but you can emulate windows. Connectix makes Virtual PC which is a product that emulates the x86 processor. You can emulate windows and linux (there are native version of linux for PPC too). Windows machines can emulate old version of the Mac OS (8.0 and older), any Mac OS that supports processors before PPC.
 
There was some information here on a convoluted way to launch Virtual PC on boot as the machine's primary OS about 3 months ago.

This is as close as you can come, although I never tried to verify it. Apparently VPC ran faster this way because there was no MacOS overhead.
 
Originally posted by Nipsy
There was some information here on a convoluted way to launch Virtual PC on boot as the machine's primary OS about 3 months ago.

This is as close as you can come, although I never tried to verify it. Apparently VPC ran faster this way because there was no MacOS overhead.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it involved removing the Finder from System Folder, moving VPC in, and changing the name, type and creator codes to match Finder, then rebooting with cmnd-option-shift-delete (or whatever it is to override the main drive, option won't work). It has to be done on a separate drive or partition though, otherwise it'll be a pain in the neck to get it back to OS 9 or X.
 
Thanks for the insight. This forum is great, I will now attend regularly.
 
the technical reasons for the impossibility to run the mac os on intel or windows on ppc is due to the fact that the computers are not as much alike as bike dude had thought. the cpu architecture makes a huge difference. the operating system is compiled for a specific processor, and you cannot run compiled software on anything other than it's intended platform (java apps are interpreted by the system-i'll use webpages as an analogy-allowing them to run on multiple architectures). Microsoft used to make windowsNT for the powerpc processor and apple has had projects (project "star trek" for 7.0, and recently "marklar" for osx) to re-compile the mac os code for intel's x86 architecture (the mac os for intel builds have never been released beyond apple's doors, although the development versions of "rhapsody" were available for both ppc and x86).

if you could just switch out operating systems, everyone would just buy a pc at half the price of an apple and load it with mac osx.
 
Apparantly it is possible to run Windows on a MAC cpu. I just installed Win NT on PowerPC, which I think has 68000 motorola processor.

I am not 100% sure, but I think you can also run Novell on it. So Fatty wasn't entirely correct:eek:
 
Originally posted by BikeDude
Apparantly it is possible to run Windows on a MAC cpu. I just installed Win NT on PowerPC, which I think has 68000 motorola processor.

I am not 100% sure, but I think you can also run Novell on it. So Fatty wasn't entirely correct:eek:
Click to expand...
Erm...how? i thought base system requirements for any version of windows was an IBM compatable PC with x86 CPU. :confused:
 
I wanna hear about this one too.
wtf.gif
 
From my understanding....

There are builds of Windows NT around for the powerpc but...you need software compiled for the powerpc as well.

e.g. you can't just install Office XP


So in the end, you can run Windows NT but you can't do much else.
 
Originally posted by edesignuk

Erm...how? i thought base system requirements for any version of windows was an IBM compatable PC with x86 CPU. :confused:
Click to expand...

You could actually run Windows NT on a PPC based platform up until NT V4 service pack 1 (also supported MIPS and Alpha). Apple's hardware would not work, but Motorola and IBM had PPC based machines running NT. I actually supported a bunch of Motorola boxes with 604 processors running NT. Man those things were fast.

Wrong about Novell though - x86 only.
 
Originally posted by Gaz
From my understanding....

There are builds of Windows NT around for the powerpc but...you need software compiled for the powerpc as well.

e.g. you can't just install Office XP


So in the end, you can run Windows NT but you can't do much else.
Click to expand...

Not actually true. I installed a copy of MS Office compiled for x86 on one of those Motorola boxes I mentioned in my previous post just for the heck of it and the thing actually worked. I believe there was some emulation or something built in but I can't remember now. Don't remember the version of Office I installed either.
 
Just goes to show that I shouldn't believe everything I read!

Shame it doesn't run on Macs. I really need to use my copy of Visual Studio (don't even mention VPC) but anywho...

Hopefully we'll see .Net on the Mac sometime next year and I won't need to lug 2 laptops around with me.
 
Originally posted by Gaz
Shame it doesn't run on Macs. I really need to use my copy of Visual Studio (don't even mention VPC) but anywho...
Click to expand...

I use Vis Studio under VPC all the time. I'm only developing in VB in this case. What's the problem you are having?
 
Originally posted by BikeDude
Apparantly it is possible to run Windows on a MAC cpu. I just installed Win NT on PowerPC, which I think has 68000 motorola processor.

I am not 100% sure, but I think you can also run Novell on it. So Fatty wasn't entirely correct:eek:
Click to expand...

uhh...

Origionally posted by FattyMembrane Microsoft used to make windowsNT for the powerpc processor
Click to expand...

obviously you have one of the ppc builds

operating systems are compiled and cannot be run on processors other than those for which they intended, regardless of how much you want them to do so. stick an xp install disk in your mac and see if it works.
 
Yeap, that's ppc. you're right, XP will not compile, and niether will Win2K.
 
Originally posted by gbojim


I use Vis Studio under VPC all the time. I'm only developing in VB in this case. What's the problem you are having?
Click to expand...

Yeah I used to use VB but I'm currently using .dot which means trying to run IIS. It takes a long time from compile to viewing the page.

I'm mainly doing stuff on the train as well so the I restrict the processor to save on battery. All in all it's not a good solution.

On a side note my PowerBook isn't looking too healthy after it decided to jump on to my drive, grrrrrrr.
 
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