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Windows on Mac and Mac OS X on PCs?

No Support for EFI in Win XP

Slide 5

ftp://download.intel.com/technology/efi/docs/pdfs/Windows-EFI_IDF.pdf

We'll have to wait for VPC, but at least apps will run at native speed now. And for those that ask why run Windows on a Mac, for the same reason you'd run Linux or any other operating system, to get the app(s) you need to run for work to run. I'm in a predominantly Windows environment. All of the calendaring and email is Exchange-based for all of my administrative functions. Despite Microsoft's claims that Entourage "just works", it doesn't unless you're in the same Class C IP range as the server. I'm two buildings and God knows how many VLANs away. There are just some things I *HAVE* to use Windows for. I do it under duress and with much consternation, but that's the way the real world is. Hopefully our current sysadmin guy will get fired so I can take over and replace Exchange with an open source product that works for everyone.
 
My main concern...

This is what worries me about running Windows on a Mac...

Developers.

Why develop software for an OS that is essentially unnecessary?

Why, say, should Alias|Wavefront develop Maya for OS X if Mac users can install Windows on their machine & run Maya thusly?

Suddenly Mac OS X goes the way of IBM's OS/2. It goes from an alternative OS to an unnecessary one for developers.

And that's terrible.

I like OS X. In my opinion, it's easier to use and more versatile than Windows. I don't want it to become a throw-away operating system.
 
There is another reason some would want to run Windows or at least Windows software on a Mac. One thing I do as a part of my work is web site development. I try to code according to xhtml and css standards but obviously Internet Explorer does not always render things the same way as other browsers. I NEED to check my work on both I.E. as well as Firefox, Safari, etc. Thst doesn't mean I like Internet Explorer. I hate Internet Explorer but when a huge percentage of viewers use I.E. I have no choice but to check my work on the piece of software. For the time being I use a Dell 8200 running XP Pro as my desktop but an iBook as my laptop. We plan up upgrading to one of the MacBooks when we can but ideally want to wait to the dust settles a bit and confirmation is made on how Windows will run on it either dual boot or via a virtual machine.

Yet one more are I need Windows is for customer support. As a self-employed contractor I work for quite a few small businesses and organizations who not only contract me to do their web work but also call me for their PC problems as well. It's not my favorite part of what I do but if they are paying me and I know how to do it I would be foolish to turn that work down.

Now, what I want to do take a Mac laptop with me on every job out of the house or make comments over the phone to the effect I need to "turn on Windows on my Mac" almost as a selling point for the platform. My wife and I have already told my father in-law that we will not help with any problems he has on his severely underpowered PC running Windows 98 (he has already expressed a great interest in getting a Mac but has been putting it off) however it would be a little harder to explain to customers I couldn't check their web sites or help them with problems because I have a Mac.

If I could work in nothing but Macs and convert all my customers to the platform at the drop of a hat I would but it's not that easy.
 
both

I would really like to know the answer to this question, as a multimedia developer, I am forced to use BOTH macs and PC's, because usually the products I build need to work on both. It's very hard to debug a platform specific issue when you only have one in front of you.

I need a new laptop, and placed an order for the macbook, but am having doubts - primarily, the question of "will my software run on it?"

While the MBP might be a lot faster than my old powerbook, it doesn't do me any good if I can't actually use it yet. If it could boot windows, I could be fully mobile w/o having to carry two laptops, and the possibility of not being able to run my macromedia/adobe apps immediately wouldn't be such a big deal, b/c I could just run them in windows.

I would really like to know the answer to this question before my MBP ships on feb. 15th, because this is likely the deciding factor in whether or not I let it ship, or wait for the next revision.
 
schatten said:
This is what worries me about running Windows on a Mac...

Developers.

Why develop software for an OS that is essentially unnecessary?

Why, say, should Alias|Wavefront develop Maya for OS X if Mac users can install Windows on their machine & run Maya thusly?

Suddenly Mac OS X goes the way of IBM's OS/2. It goes from an alternative OS to an unnecessary one for developers.

And that's terrible.

I like OS X. In my opinion, it's easier to use and more versatile than Windows. I don't want it to become a throw-away operating system.
Click to expand...

Becasue OS X is a better OS then windows. The way it handels things and there is no registry to get f***ed up.

On the note of dual botting or not. I do think they will find a way to do it on both the MBP and the intel iMac. I dont see it being easy roght away and i dont see apple or microsoft giving help when something gets screwed up.

I am totally content with my current iMac G5 and iBook setup. If and when the installing windows (via dual boot, VPC, or some other way) becomes easy/almost painless then i will probably get a new intel mac.

I NEED windows for my engineering class but i am an OS X fan to the core. So it would be great to be able to run windows and OS X side by side. I see it becomeing a lot easier when Vista is finally released...but we will see.
 
dagger01 said:
Slide 5

ftp://download.intel.com/technology/efi/docs/pdfs/Windows-EFI_IDF.pdf

We'll have to wait for VPC, but at least apps will run at native speed now. And for those that ask why run Windows on a Mac, for the same reason you'd run Linux or any other operating system, to get the app(s) you need to run for work to run. I'm in a predominantly Windows environment. All of the calendaring and email is Exchange-based for all of my administrative functions. Despite Microsoft's claims that Entourage "just works", it doesn't unless you're in the same Class C IP range as the server. I'm two buildings and God knows how many VLANs away. There are just some things I *HAVE* to use Windows for. I do it under duress and with much consternation, but that's the way the real world is. Hopefully our current sysadmin guy will get fired so I can take over and replace Exchange with an open source product that works for everyone.
Click to expand...

Are you sure this is still relevant? That document is from September 2003. Just a tad old. Considering the enterprise environment they are NOT going to give XP up easily. If systems start shipping to corp clients with EFI . . See the problem? I would not be at all surprised if there was some serious bitching from fortune 500 enterprises over this.
 
schatten said:
Why develop software for an OS that is essentially unnecessary?
Click to expand...
Well, without arguing about why OS X IS necessary ;) the answer is: demand.

There is demand for that OS X software, and money to be made.

There are three BIG reasons why Mac users will NOT be willing--on a large scale--to settle for running Windows on their Macs instead of demanding a Mac-native app. And with the Mac market growing (especially after the Intel change), developers will be more motivated than ever to sell to us :) (Besides, if they already have Mac experience and Mac apps to leverage, why throw them out?)

1. Cost. You have to BUY Windows. And possibly some helper app, either for installation or to actually host Windows like VPC. (Which also means a whole extra set of setup steps you have to go through before you can run Windows apps--not too difficult I'm sure, but not something your Mac can do out of the box.) And potentially an extra hard disk as well. More expense--unless you don't mind the hassle of erasing and reformatting your Mac to get two partitions.

2. Usability. You give up the benefits of OS X, which gets better all the time and is the reason you HAVE a Mac. You either accept the time and effort and inconvenience to dual-boot--in which case you give up OS X entirely for those times, and cannot use those apps in conjunction with your Mac apps... or else you run Windows and Mac simultaneously (with a fast new VPC, or even WINE to run--some--apps without Windows itself). Running both at once is cool in a geeky way, but it's terrible usability: working back and forth between two GUIs at once! That's not Mac user friendliness. Working in ONE environment is more productive if you have the choice. Not to mention a possible performance hit when running multiple OS's together.

3. Security and privacy. The advantages of NOT running Windows in this regard have been much discussed ;)


When you stop and think about it, can you really imagine most Mac users settling for Windows?

For these reasons, users will continue to DEMAND Mac apps. (Even games, to a lesser extent. The GUI is not always an issue for those, but the other issues remain. I know I'll give my money first for native Mac games.)

Running Windows on Mac WILL be great for certain things--such as to give a comfort zone to people fearful of straying from Windows, and thus grow the Mac platform hugely. And it's great as a last-resort option for Mac fans who need a certain Windows app for work or whatever. We already use VPC for that, and VPC (or something) will soon be full-speed and work even better! But it won't make us LIKE running Windows, and won't make us want to buy Windows apps. We'll do it only when we HAVE to.

And we already do: if we HAVE to--and often by choice for games--we run VPC or simply own a PC. No change there. (And neither option is free!) So the people most likely to accept a Windows app or game on their Mac are the very people ALREADY buying Windows apps--for their PC game systems, or their old PC they keep around, or VPC to run some app from their employer, or whatever.

Conclusion: the market for native Mac apps is about to grow, not shrink, and developers will deliver! :)
 
prostuff1 said:
Becasue OS X is a better OS then windows. The way it handels things and there is no registry to get f***ed up.
Click to expand...

That hasn't stopped 90% of the world from using it. And frankly from developers who have worked in both environments I've been given the opinion that they "enjoy" Microsoft's .NET environment. *shrugs* Take what you will out of that opinion. Its hardly a large sampling.
 
Photorun said:
Selling OS X directly to other peecee makers would be a bad thing, Apple overprices it's products and it'd cut it's legs out. There will be I'm sure a few posts on this board by loud, delusional, idiots (living in the parents basement no doubt, out of touch or step with reality) who will shrilly say, with glee even, "see SEE, now everyone will be hacking OS X to run on peecees... " and when they open their pie holes, simply nod, think about how they're the minority, not stable, and haven't lives.

The reality is there will be (thankfully) no LEGAL way to run OS X on a peecee (for now). Sure there will be a few hardworking luser geeks with too much time on their hands cracking the latest version to get it to run on some machines, and probably not well. And they'll share these cracks with the luser "warez" crowd and some lusers probably on this board even will get their hands on it. Then the next OS X update will make that null and void but people will go on with the current hack. And mind you they may make it so certain apps wouldn't work well on a peecee motherboard too so it's really for idiots to say "look LOOK OS X on my peecee.... (mother yells) are you ever going to move out of that basement, you're 36!!!"

So while there will be people here saying how they're going out and buying or building some piece of crap peecee and are going to run out and steal OS X right now (because losers that do this never legally buy software, they lack morals or a conscience) this is how they work. And they will get a cracked version of OS X working for awhile....

... but ignore them, because they should be ignored.

To get a cracked version of OS X and run it will take a lot of effort, 99.9999 percent of most average computer users with peecees (aside from having no taste) don't have the wherewithal, time, effort, or in many cases the savvy to actually put a cracked version on the Intel machine, it won't be easy or supported and the masses en mass won't even know there's a way, and that'd fine.

So it's not the next coming, OS X will mostly be exclusive only the Macs (thankfully) and hopefully if we can get Windoze working on a Mac then those who have to look at the craptacular, ugly, clunky, buggy, weak weak OS known as XPee on the Mac, more power too them. Heck, I'd love to play HalfLife 2 but am not getting a P.O.S. XSux or peecee just for it, it's compelling though if there was a way to play it on the Mac.

This may be a great year! (As an Apple stockholder it already IS!)
Click to expand...

Now, I have read several of your comments, but I'm STILL surprised by the sheer contempt you point towards PC/Windows-users... People who use and buy PC's are not morons. Many are quite intelligent. And many people who use Windows are not morons either. And using a Mac/OS X does not automatically make that person better than some "peecee"-user is.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: take a chill-pill. Seriously
 
schatten said:
This is what worries me about running Windows on a Mac...

Developers.

Why develop software for an OS that is essentially unnecessary?

Why, say, should Alias|Wavefront develop Maya for OS X if Mac users can install Windows on their machine & run Maya thusly?

Suddenly Mac OS X goes the way of IBM's OS/2. It goes from an alternative OS to an unnecessary one for developers.

And that's terrible.

I like OS X. In my opinion, it's easier to use and more versatile than Windows. I don't want it to become a throw-away operating system.
Click to expand...


Well, if the developers want to make money from Mac users, they're not going to make very much by saying "oh just install Windows on your mac".

Firstly, developers will be foolish to assume that most Mac users will have Windows installed on their machine by default. Would most Mac users want buy Windows when they've just paid $$$s for a Mac?

Secondly, People dont generally tend to use apps on their own (apart from games, obviously). The apps have to interact with the finder (got get access to the users files) or interact with other apps (such as web browsers). If Adobe suddenly said "Right, Photoshop is gonna be windows only, Mac users, buy VPC" how would they profit? They wouldn't as most Photoshop users use it with other apps and utilities on their system.

Basically, if you force users to goto a whole new environment to accomplish a task, it mucks up the users workflow terribly. And users wont like that, which wont help the developer.

Thirdly, god knows how easy it'll be to install Windows on a Mac. Dual boot might be possible, but you might have to make do with VPC.

No danger of this happening. I reckon it could only help Mac development in the long run.
 
Right now I use my iBook and Remote Desktop to access a remote, headless PC. Prior to that I used VNC. I will still keep that machine running as a server, but it would be very nice to run my engineering apps on my laptop.

My bet is on VMware. It gives securtiy but I am not sure on how well integrated it is to the current linux environments. Ideally it will recognize the video card, remaining hardware and allow cut and paste.

Does anyone know how Word for OSX handles doccuments with Visio or cad items embeded?
 
schatten said:
This is what worries me about running Windows on a Mac...

Developers.

Why develop software for an OS that is essentially unnecessary?

Why, say, should Alias|Wavefront develop Maya for OS X if Mac users can install Windows on their machine & run Maya thusly?

Suddenly Mac OS X goes the way of IBM's OS/2. It goes from an alternative OS to an unnecessary one for developers.

And that's terrible.

I like OS X. In my opinion, it's easier to use and more versatile than Windows. I don't want it to become a throw-away operating system.
Click to expand...
If that were true Microsoft would not poor tens of millions into the development of Office for the Mac. People, especially Mac users, want best-of-breed software. Running Windows XP through Virtual PC to run some app isn't going to make any user pay except when forced because there is no alternative.
 
windows server 2003 will run on an intel mac, it supports EFI and does not required a 64-bit cpu like XP-64-bit does.
 
Vista Beta?

Now that the EFI problem with XP has surfaced, I still have the question: Vista is supposed to support EFI, the beta of which I have a copy. Does anyone have the insight as to whether the beta supports EFI or is that a final version feature?
 
ericsthename said:
Now that the EFI problem with XP has surfaced, I still have the question: Vista is supposed to support EFI, the beta of which I have a copy. Does anyone have the insight as to whether the beta supports EFI or is that a final version feature?
Click to expand...


Heheh I can try it when I get my PowerBook* I've got the latest build here at work. :cool: My guess is that it prob will be incorporated into Beta 2 when/if the freaking thing ships.
 
SiliconAddict said:
Are you sure this is still relevant? That document is from September 2003. Just a tad old. Considering the enterprise environment they are NOT going to give XP up easily. If systems start shipping to corp clients with EFI . . See the problem? I would not be at all surprised if there was some serious bitching from fortune 500 enterprises over this.
Click to expand...

Microsoft doesn't look back, just like Apple with their OS development. They'll want people to upgrade to Longhorn, not try to reload their old versions of Win XP on EFI-based machines. This is still their plan, I will almost bet my entire life savings on it (all but a dollar so I can buy a lottery ticket that is). As for the bitching, how long did that last with the Win2K-to-WinXP transition. You bring up a valid point, but I think it's more moot than the age of the slides.

Hector said:
windows server 2003 will run on an intel mac, it supports EFI and does not required a 64-bit cpu like XP-64-bit does.
Click to expand...

But Win2K3 server is SERIOUSLY bloated for desktop use. It is an option though. Excellent find!
 
nagromme said:
I can't settle for "a Windows virus might erase my Mac, but almost certainly won't." Not good enough. My business, my client files, my security, my privacy, my identity, my software investment, my creative output... all of these things are worth too much to me. (Which is why I don't know how Windows users sleep at night!)
Click to expand...

Backups.
 
Synapple said:
If that's what you want to call it.. then yeah, I agree. But, where I work, no Mac OS is allowed to join the corporate network... hence, the freaken Acer I am typing this on.
Click to expand...

What kind of idiotic company do you work for?
 
While googling for vmware on mac. I found the blog http://www.virtualization.info/ very interesting. On the January 09, 2006 entry they interviewed "Parallels", a company that makes virtualization software like vmware. The rep from "Parallels" indicates they will support Mac OS X.

scott.
 
schatten said:
This is what worries me about running Windows on a Mac...

Developers.

Why develop software for an OS that is essentially unnecessary?

Why, say, should Alias|Wavefront develop Maya for OS X if Mac users can install Windows on their machine & run Maya thusly?

Suddenly Mac OS X goes the way of IBM's OS/2. It goes from an alternative OS to an unnecessary one for developers.

And that's terrible.

I like OS X. In my opinion, it's easier to use and more versatile than Windows. I don't want it to become a throw-away operating system.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I agree with you about the specific example you give, as people who want professional software will generally want to run it in a 100% supported environment, and so there'll always be a market for "serious" software under OS X, as long as machines with OS X sell.

The one area I'm concerned about is gaming. Games producers target the mass market. They produce software that's rarely particularly portable. From their point of view, the market for OS X games really would be under threat from PC games if people realise that running games sold in Wal*Mart means buying a one-off, $100, copy of Windows Vista, installing it, and getting it done. And those who don't have the skills to install Vista are unlikely to be the people PC/Mac game producers are interested in supporting anyway - tell them to get a games console.
 
I don't think it has been mentioned enough in this thread, so here goes:

WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega WINE Cedega


Darwine works, but requires X11. The aqua version is coming soon, but not ready yet.

As for Cedega nothing has been announced, but how long do you think it will take the president of Cedega to realize that he could more than double his potential userbase by supporting OSX86? I'd guess about -6 months.
 
The current build of the Vista Beta supports EFI! Come on People, Install away. I'll order one as soon as I find out if it works or not!

I think another potential issue is weather it uses an intel chipset or an apple one. My guess is it uses the intel 945 chipset but if it uses an apple one, we'll have to wait for windows drivers.
 
This gets us into the hardware Vs. software debate, and about which really makes the computer. Apple has been using more "pc" (lower-case as to refer to the common pc vs. mac, not to get confused with the acronym PC, which of course they both are PC's.. that debate also comes up at times) hardware (speaking mostly about the common video cards these days, to where macs are up for debate on if they can hold the status of the graphic's user's computer) also the fact that most users today really are about software. I mean sure a lot of people go out and interchange parts in their pc machines, and some do the same on their mac. It isn't a big deal, the big deal for users is that what they are doing works, works to their standards, and is compatible with other computers.

Being a part of the Linux community more than I am in the Mac community (at this time when I don't have any new mac systems, and my main computer is a linux machine. That will change when I get a MacBook Pro.. which by the way I wish they would have kept the name PowerBook, as that was a very common name for their laptop and it troubles me that they changed the name to MacBook Pro, I guess they put in the Pro to show how it is powerful, but I think PowerBook sounds like a tougher computer.. however since I won't be purchasing anytime soon, and maybe not this summer like I thought.. the PowerBook's may not be around then, and I wouldn't invest in a system that would be outdated soon anyhow.) I tend to feel that software is the most important. Considering that I can run Linux on mac hardware or pc hardware.

However, the mac is special in that I feel Mac OS is designed to work with the platform that it is currently running. Even if it could be ran on other intel-based systems, I don't believe we would see the same results. I believe this has overall been a good business move for Apple, sense I have a heard a lot people say that they would run the Macintosh OS on their own home built "PC" if they had the chance. Well in that case Apple would only be selling their Operating System, and I suspect that would encourage people to pirate the OS, and that would increase the amount of people using the Macintosh OS which would mean people would be writing viruses for the Macintosh OS. In the long run this wouldn't be a good idea.

On the other side, people talking about running Windows on mac hardware. Well sure, go for it. I wouldn't support it, it might void your warrenty with Apple (no AppleCare for you, I wouldn't guess). I wouldn't want to use it, because I think Windows is a horrible operating system. I will always have one windows machine, but how much I use it will depend on what I can do on other machines. Already my macs and linux machines say on longer then the windows machine, and they are used more. There are few ham radio applications that I use on the windows machine. I will be building a linux machine at some point that will be for amateur radio applications, and I beleive there are enough now written that I could fade out use of Windows except for VERY VERY rare times. But that is me, not true for everyone. Use Windows on what you want.

Linux on a Mac, I wouldn't run it, since I do believe (correct me if I am wrong) that you can run Linux apps native on OS X because of the fact that OS X was designed around Unix (Well a flavour of Unix... BSD for those new to OS X).

...excuse the long post and the rambling..
 
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