Let us count the ways that the Mac sysadmin community hearts Mike B: we relish his reliable and full-featured Carbon Copy Cloner, we depend absolutely upon his fast and simple NetRestore, we puzzle through his instructions for deploying dual-boot machines and for working with Active Directory. Most of all, we love that all this snazzy management goodness is free. Now, for everyone tired of telling dual-boot users "just hold down the option key," Mike has released a Boot Camp OS selector tool called (unsurprisingly) BootPicker. It's open source, free and delightfully slick.

What differentiates BootPicker from a simple option-boot, or from more elaborate tools like rEFIt, is its manageability and simplicity. Installed as a preference pane, BootPicker actually boots to Mac OS X every time and lets the user click a button for the OS they want (or, if administratively desired, reboots automatically to Mac OS X or Windows without user input). This gets around a couple of tricky problems; normally, setting a permanent boot OS requires an admin password, and a machine set to always boot in Windows is immune to the management oversight of tools like ARD or Workgroup Manager (you can manage both sides of the fence with LANrev or similar tools, but that can be a pain). By booting into Mac OS X first, there's an opportunity to change the preferences for BootPicker itself and modify the behavior for the next boot cycle.

There's a very solid Read Me for BootPicker that (unfortunately) is only included in the install distribution, so you'll have to download it to peruse the details. Mike includes a candid evaluation of the security risks involved with something like BootPicker, which runs as root before the normal login window is presented to the user; please use discretion and care if you decide to deploy it. Check it out, and take a moment to appreciate what Mr. Bombich has done to make our lives a little bit easier.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the Pioneer Press points out the system requirements for Microsoft's latest piece of vaporware soon-to-be-released update to Windows, Vista. According to Microsoft, Vista may run on machines that don't meet their "Premium Ready PC" requirements (which referees to machines that can handle all of the eye candy...if you can call it that), but those users won't be able to experience all the ways Vista rips off Aqua and Mac OS X many of the innovative UI features of the OS. The "Premium Ready PC" requirements for Vista are:

• 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
• 1GB of system memory (!)
• A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero
• 128MB of graphics memory
• 40GB of hard drive space with 15GB free
• DVD-ROM Drive
• Audio output capability
• Internet access capability

Hmm. Seems the MacBook and Mac mini fail to meet the video RAM requirements. Not to mention that you're going to need at least a 60GB hard drive. Also note, as Julio points out, that the mini and MacBook share system and video memory, so Vista may be a drag on those machines. So, if you plan on running a dual-boot machine once Vista is released, you may want to look towards a MacBook Pro or iMac.

Many of our informal polls produce fairly even results. Not so with this one. Of the 5,228 of you who responded to the question, "Will you dual-boot your Mac," a full 50% (2,593) of you said, "absolutely." Twenty three percent of you stated that you have no need to do this and fourteen percent said they'd do it just to see it work. Finally, 681 of you (13%), thought the idea was pure blasphemy.

Personally, I'd do it just to see it work, but I immediately thought of the financial department at my day job when this news broke. We use nothing but Macs where I work, except for the finance department. They use a proprietary piece of software that is (and will stay) Windows only. So, the person who does payroll must keep both a Mac and a PC on her desk so she can use the payroll software just once every two weeks. A dual-boot Mac seems custom-made for her situation. I'm sure similar scenarios could be found all over the country. Add to that the number of potential new customers who are considering Macs for the very first time, based on Boot Camp's introduction, and we could have a hardware war on our hands.

We've seen a video of Windows on an iMac in action, and this weekend Dave Caolo posted the results from our poll that found the greater majority of TUAW readers were happy, at least to some degree, that Windows XP can run on a Mac. Now we want to ask: what are you going to do with it?

Are you an enthusiastic Mac user who can't wait to get in on Half Life 2? Is there an app or two your office (campus/business/etc.) needs you to run? Or might you simply have a hankering for Minesweep? We want to hear why you'll be giving your Mac a split personality, of sorts, but there's one rule: please keep the anti-Windows sentiments to a minimum. Yes, this is a blog about all things Apple and our favorite operating system, but how about we make some room for the visiting team just this once?

You had to know that XP on a MacBook Pro would quickly follow the same on an iMac. Nirlog has a nice, step-by-step how to, including links to the files you'll need to get the job done.

Stop worrying about VirtualPC and enjoy the dual-boot goodness.

[Via Make]