This weekend, I conducted a little experiment. I used Boot Camp to boot my 17-inch 1.83GHz iMac Core Duo with 2GBs of RAM and an external 24-inch monitor in Windows XP and then I forced myself to remain in XP. I didn't reboot into OS X. Instead, I explored the Windows performance on the machine. Overall, I have to admit, it was a positive experience. I still prefer OS X, but I can now see the advantages to booting into XP from time to time.

One odd thing that I wasn't expecting was that I didn't find myself loathing Windows quite as much. Something about running it quickly on my nice iMac made it more pleasant than all of my previous experiences running XP on various PC boxes. It's still the fastest I've ever seen Windows perform. Half of this is probably that I didn't load it down with lots of crap programs, and I had it properly protected immediately after install with virus, firewall, and spyware protection.

There were negative aspects to the experience. It hard crashed at least 5 times on me this weekend. This mostly happened when I was installing something...
More after the jump...

I just read over the Boot Camp install instructions (to find out what Boot Camp is read this post) and they are pretty straightforward. During the process you create what Apple is calling a 'Driver CD' which contains all the drivers to let Windows use your Airport card, the networking on your Mac, and various other things.

Here's what won't work in Windows on your Intel Mac:

• iSight
• Apple Remote
• Apple USB modem
• keyboard backlighting on the MacBook Pro

OMG I cannot stop giggling with glee over Scott's Boot Camp post. Apple has just thrown down a pretty major gauntlet to all the current PC manufacturers. I mean, now, thousands of cubicle workers around the globe can say, "Yes, I can run Windows on my MacBook Pro. I won't be needing that Dell machine you ordered for me to run the one bit of proprietary Windows-based software that has shackled our company to an expensive spyware and virus-riddled platform for far too long."

If it works nicely, that means in the short term that Dell is in big trouble, as are all other PC manufacturers. It also means that Windows may be making some more money starting out, as a decent number of Apple users *may* go out and buy a copy to install on their Macs. However, over time, if Apple plays its cards right and doesn't screw things up, people will see that booting into OS X runs more smoothly and is nicer than booting into Windows, and we may see more switchers than ever before.

Of course, the real key to this would be if Apple would just go ahead and release a version of OS X for PCs. I think with Boot Camp, Apple just threw down the gauntlet and within a year, they'll take the fight to the desktop PC. I cannot wait.

In a bold move today, Apple has released a public beta of Boot Camp, a piece of technology that will be integrated with Leopard that is just for Intel Macs. Why is it so bold? Boot Camp allows you to dual boot Windows XP and OS X on any Intel Mac. The software even includes Mac specific drivers for networking, graphics, audio, Airport wireless, and bluetooth (amongst other things).

You can download the public beta right now (it checks in at 83MB).

Don't get overly excited by this Digg post , announcing WINE arrives for Intel Macs. If you actually follow the links through to the discussion thread where this story originates, you'll find that WINE is compiled and working, but not that well: "I warn you. There is nothing to get excited about.... What I mean by this is, while this does in fact run windows apps, it *doesn't* seem to be running things that I *know* worked with the stuff that was floating around last summer. Its perplexing as to why this is. "

To keep your eye on the situation, you should keep reading those boards and check regularly with the Darwine project.

Looks like I may have an answer to Scott's question from yesterday. I'll test this out next week when I walk into an Apple Store and grab my new iMac, but according to a comment yesterday by Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, reported in this MSNBC article, the new Intel-based MacBook Pro and iMac will both be capable of running Microsoft Windows. According to the article, Schiller noted that Apple "won't sell or support Windows itself, but also hasn't done anything to preclude people from loading Windows onto the machines themselves" and they quote him as saying: "That's fine with us. We don't mind. . . . If there are people who love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that's OK."

Nice. Now we just need a program that will let us access our Windows' partitions via OS X.

Thanks, andras!