My weekend with Boot Camp and Windows

So I've got a friend who just purchased a shiny, new MacBook. It's packed with RAM and beautiful (she went with the classic white). She's a long time Mac user, and has been happy with her G3 iBook since she bought it. Recently, however, she had been charged with using some proprietary Windows-only software for work (sound familiar, anyone?). So, enchanted by Boot Camp and the Windows-friendly Intel Macs, she made the big purchase...and convinced me to get everything off the ground for her. I accepted the challenge, as I had never played with a Macbook or installed Windows on any machine. Even though this story has a happy ending (the aforementioned Macbook is currently a dual-boot machine), getting from Point A to Point B wasn't easy.

First the good news. Boot Camp installed without a hitch. If you haven't done this before, I can tell you it's pretty straight forward. At one point, you're asked to burn a CD of Macintosh-specific Windows drivers, which I did. When the installation of Boot Camp was complete, you're asked to put your Windows installer CD (XP with Service Pack 2 on a single disc) into the machine and click the "Install Windows" button. It's very creepy, and the machine then reboots and starts the next installation, this time Windows XP. Or, at least, that's what the instructions say (Note: PRINT OUT the instructions that are bundled with the Boot Camp installer. Trust me).

I got the initial blue screen and watched as the installer "checked" a number of files. Eventually it hung up and froze. After staring at it for ten minutes, I turned to my printed instructions. "If installation fails," it says (I'm paraphrasing here), "restart the machine with the option key down. Select the Windows CD as the startup disc and installation will resume." "Ok," I thought. I forced the machine to turn off by holding down the power button and then turned it back on, as the instructions suggested. The Macbook's hard drive and the CD appeared for me, I selected the CD and the machine returned to the same blue screen. Guess what happened?

The same thing. I repeated the reboot process, and this time it failed again, but with a different excuse: File such-and-such had been identified as "corrupt." How a file on a read-only CD could become corrupt is beyond me, but I initiated the reboot for a third time, and just as inexplicably it worked perfectly. I got her software up and running, booted back and forth between Windows and Mac OS X a few times just to see it work and called it a done deal.

After wrapping up a few niceties (like the driver CD I burned earlier and getting her printer working under Windows) everything seemed to be in order. I know that many have said this before, but it was kind of creepy to see XP running on that gorgeous Mac. I should also note that my trouble seemed to have been with the Windows installer, not Boot Camp (go figure). Now, you may be wondering why we went with Boot Camp over Parallels or something like Q? Well, cost was a concern, and Boot Camp is free. She bought XP on "Tax Day" (which is a tax-free holiday we have here in Massachusetts), and Parallels was $70US at Staples (an office supply and gadget store for the unfamiliar).

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Source: http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/publicbeta.html

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So I've got a friend who just purchased a shiny, new MacBook. It's packed with RAM and beautiful (she went with the classic white). She's a...

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Todd Garvin

mwinterholler, I've had no problem using my bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mighty mouse with bootcamp 1.1 drivers. If you're not using those, give it a try. Also from XP, when you pair your keyboard/mouse with Windows, tell it not to require a code. That made all the difference for me with earlier attempts. Good luck!

August 24 2006 at 4:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mwinterholler

Has anyone found a way to pair the wireless mighty mouse and keyboard with XP? I realize that the Apple Boot Camp Support says it cant be done but I was searching through some blogs and found a few people that said that theirs was working. Any suggesions??

August 23 2006 at 9:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Peter Payne

JFTR, I've installed Boot Camp about 5 times on various Macbooks and Macbook Pros (Macbooks Pro?) with no problems. Note that it's EASY to make an upgrade disk into a full version (or a useable version) by copying previous Windows files into the install and making a new version, google for this to find out how to do it. So you don't need to necessarily go buy a new Windows SP2 install disk.

August 23 2006 at 2:01 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

kevin

I have win xp sp1a. I wonder it's working with bootcamp or not.

August 22 2006 at 8:59 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jonathan Kressaty

I had the same problem!

Took me three tries to get Windows installed with boot camp (about two months ago) because of a corrupt file on a windows cd....My MacBook Pro works fine now, but at the time I found it very strange.

So now I have Boot Camp AND Parallels...don't ask.

August 22 2006 at 8:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeffrey LeBoeuf

The surface of boot camp was the selling point for me, I'd never owned a Mac before the MacBooks.

The day my shiny new Mac arrived in the mail I read up on BootCamp, read up on adding SP2 to my old timey standard XP cd, then installed BootCamp.

Everything after that went fine, the partition went ok, the reboot went ok, Windows XP installed fine, and before I knew it I made it to the XP desktop.

It's a shame your install froze up so much, but there are some 100% successful stories out there (me, me!)

Anyways, good to see my state mentioned, woohoo. ;)

August 22 2006 at 6:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Danger

so check it out. my bootcamp installed perfectly with no glitches or anything. runs totally smooth. i can connect wirelessly to the internet at my home network on windows, but i can't get it to work in OSX- wirelessly. how does that work?

the wireless network runs off of my dad's windows comp.

August 22 2006 at 5:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Richard

"I'm reluctant to install it on my Mac Pro until I get my second 500GB HD. I'm currently waiting for it to go through an RMA cycle since the one I got sent to me was DOA. I understand that BootCamp 1.1 allows for putting the Windows Partition on a drive other than the first one. "

You may wish to hold off longer; there is a known problem with the SATA drivers for Windows for the Mac Pro. For some reason, Windows sees the SATA drives a Programmed I/O mode only rather than DMA, this creates some serious performance problems.

I have XP installed on its own drive and while the setup it easy, performance is irritating at times.

I have read, but have not tried it yet, that you can install a PATA drive in the bay where the second optical drive would be installed and see better performance.

August 22 2006 at 4:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

KSF

Lori, do you really think Parallels is easier to install/set up than Boot Camp? I just helped my (non-techie) brother set up Windows on Parallels--he never would have tried it without me there to help. I was even a bit mystified when first installed it on my own Mac, but I figured it out by reading the documentation and tinkering--just like I would have with Boot Camp.

August 22 2006 at 4:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

kevin

you're getting a mac pro? and you just got a mbp? jesus...

August 22 2006 at 4:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply