Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, Hacks, Macbook Pro
WinXP on a Mac Contest is Over; Dual-Booting Success
It's over, folks, and the rumors, screenshots, and
videos all appear to be true. Windows XP will soon be able to be installed on several models of Intel Macs and you'll
be able to dual-boot between the two operating systems. From the contest site:Contest has been won - updates to follow shortly. All further donations will go into an account to sustain the open source project that will be launched with the initial solution.
"narf2006" and "blanka", the two programmers who claimed a few days ago to have cracked this nut, appear to have written their own bootloader which allows you to select which OS you want to boot from. Screenshots here.
MacRumors is reporting that the solution will soon be available for download and that it will work with the 17" and 20" iMacs, the MacBook Pro, and the new Mac mini.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brett Berish said 2:39AM on 3-16-2006
sweeeeet. Very sweet indeed.
My only worry is that doing this would void the warranty. It would stink to drop the change on an AppleCare plan but because of this stunt, you have to pay for the trouble. Arg.
Reply
iFelix said 2:44AM on 3-16-2006
Well that didn't take too long did it...
Where there's a will there's a way.
Reply
Jeff Weitzman said 2:46AM on 3-16-2006
Cool! I'd still rather have a virtual machine environment, but this opens the floodgates, so to speak, and well, it's just cool that someone did it for the challenge of it.
Reply
Jeff Weitzman said 2:47AM on 3-16-2006
OK, I suppose the reward added a little incentive...
Reply
Straight Eight said 4:07AM on 3-16-2006
I'll believe it when I see a photo of a BSOD!! Then I'll know its windows :D
Reply
Samual Icky said 4:35AM on 3-16-2006
Brett,
I don't see how that could void a warranty... you not doing anyhardware hacks and I don't think it invoolves any firmware hacks... but I could be wrong... we will have to see
Reply
iRo said 4:58AM on 3-16-2006
We just need a VM - Virtual Machine now, to have the XP not only on Dual Boot, but also in a window, running at full speed! :)
Reply
Bob said 5:36AM on 3-16-2006
AutoCAD here i come!
Reply
aaa said 6:41AM on 3-16-2006
Holy Dogcow!
That's great, I can't wait to see the instructions
Reply
Matt said 7:09AM on 3-16-2006
Can someone show me the forum post with detailed instructions as required in rule #4 of the contest? Until that post shows up this contest is not over. Colin is sitting on nearly $14,000 of other people's money and is not following his own rules. This is a serious problem.
Reply
Steve said 7:34AM on 3-16-2006
Wow, pretty cool. A custom bootloader? Seems so simple and obvious. I'm still wondering if XP can access BIOS features. In any case, regardless of what you may think about Windows on a Mac, this will probably sell a few Macs and that's a good thing.
Reply
decaftim said 7:49AM on 3-16-2006
Brett,
Applecare? Why would you buy this why?
Applecare is the worst.
Reply
Edsel said 8:19AM on 3-16-2006
Congrats to the programmers, this is really splendid news for MS stockholders.
Let's see, Apple stock nose dives, Bill Gates buys Apple with cheap money, and Apple becomes an in-house Microsoft design studio designing WMA players and nifty Wintel boxes. Oh yea, Microsoft allows dual booting of Vista and BSD too. Steve Jobs runs Disney - for a dollar/year.
Reply
Mephistophelian said 8:39AM on 3-16-2006
Is it just me or does everyone else feel less violated by this than when the hackers got OS X running on x86 machines?
I wonder whos going to be first to run a hacked copy of OS X in XP on a Mac?
Reply
Robbie said 8:40AM on 3-16-2006
I started using Macs years ago for their OS, if I wanted to use Windows I'd fire up a cheap emachine or something. Why you would want to pay the money for a Mac and run windows on it is beyond me, save yourself the trouble and time and money and just stick with a PC.
Reply
LD said 8:52AM on 3-16-2006
Matt, you don't understand the contest. The details are submitted for peer review first then, once confirmed (as they just were), the details will be posted.
Reply
Mephistophelian said 8:52AM on 3-16-2006
That last bit made no sense really but you get the general idea. I hope?
Reply
Stephen said 9:18AM on 3-16-2006
Crazy. Just crazy, but I agree with needing a in-OS X emulator.
And can you make my Powerbook boot Windows? Thanks....
Reply
Casey Chiu said 10:58AM on 3-16-2006
Has anyone tried wintel as the xp emulator for the macbook? I think that should work like virtualpc
Reply
chris said 11:08AM on 3-16-2006
Running Windows on a Mac is like serving dog food on fine china.
Reply