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Is the Great Windows Debate Over?

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sHARD>>
sHARD>>
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The folks at ArsTechnica have gotten their hands on a new 17" iMac Core Duo and run it through it's paces. During their review, they tried their hand at answering one question we've all been pondering: Can the new Intel based Apple machines run Windows? It seems no, for now.

 

"In the 36 hours I've had this machine, I've spent a fair amount of time scouring the Internet looking for clues on how to get Windows installed. Unfortunately, I came up empty, and due to time constraints I wasn't able to spend the time I wanted to trying to hack the iMac."

 

While it may be theoretically possible, it seems that no one can quite figure out how to use the new EFI-based system - yet. While this doesn't rule out the possibility of current generation Windows XP, it could be awhile before users are able to take a good look at the new machines and figure out just how to do it. As for the future? Windows Vista is slated to support EFI, so unless Apple has instated a bootlock, which they deny, all should be groovy in the Windows world.

 

Check out the Windows booting attempt, or just read the full article on ArsTechnica.

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nanoblade
nanoblade
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I wonder why Vista didn't boot as it's supposed to support EFI. I know it's still in beta, but i think EFI is currently supported in the most recent one.

 

I'm sure we'll see a Vista Beta running on a Mac soon, and i'm sure Microsoft or Apple would be happy to give people support to get it going as there it's in both their best interests.

 

p.s. EFI is a replacement for the now 20 year old BIOS, has a couple of new features (Google?).

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genexk
genexk
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Posted (edited)

If everyone is wasting time on the internet searching for an answer, there would never be an answer.

 

"In the 36 hours I've had this machine, I've spent a fair amount of time scouring the Internet looking for clues on how to get Windows installed. Unfortunately, I came up empty, and due to time constraints I wasn't able to spend the time I wanted to trying to hack the iMac."
Edited by genexk
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sHARD>>
sHARD>>
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If everyone is wasting time on the internet searching for an answer, there would never be an answer.

 

A valid point, however the internet does contain a wealth of resources and information would could at least shed some light on the situation, including EFI documentation and Apple references. It's what many forum users here are taking a look at right now :)

 

EDIT: You mind reducing your sig? Even my 5Mbps connection takes awhile to load it.

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INFNITE
INFNITE
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Posted

there will eventually be a solution. It's not gonna be a put the CD in the drive and go type deal, but will require someone to perhaps write a BIOS emulator of some sort that gets loaded by the EFI. It will be pretty messy, and will probably take weeks if not months.

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cyrana
cyrana
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Posted (edited)

The next person to link to that Wintel 2.0 or iEmulator {censored} gets in trouble. :)

 

Wintel = bochs

iEmulator = qemu

 

Both = SLOW and mostly useless

Neither = Commercial solution really hehe (just rebranding opensource stuff)

Edited by cyrana
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dmdimon
dmdimon
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Here is the reason to NOT booting into Win:

 

Shipping Intel-based Macintosh computers use Intel's new Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)[17.1]. The partition scheme is GUID Partition Table (GPT)[17.2], part of the EFI standard. The default filesystem is still HFS+/Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and all other conventional Mac OS X filesystem formats are available, but they are now within GUID Partition Table (GPT) instead of Apple Partition Map (APM). Only a Mac OS X 10.4.4 (PowerPC) system (or newer) can read, but not boot from, a GPT disk. Conversely, a Mac OS X 10.4.4 (Intel) system (or newer) can read, but not boot from, an APM disk.

 

You have to make a GPT to boot from it.

 

_http://appleintelfaq.com/#10

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xtraa
xtraa
Posted
Posted (edited)
That's a totally stupid move for apple, denying an easy dual boot option for their legit customers while hackers will still be able to install 10.4.4 on generic hardware

 

Ack,

 

it is part of the TCP and I think thats why they took it. Another thing is that EFI is not in Assembler but in C,

and so it is much easier to handle and it can provide weekly "bios"-updates, if necessary. And the partition

structure with EFI is handled in another way. So that means, that OSX could require an own harddisk with

10.4.4, because I do not think that EFI will run mixed up with Bios and our partition tables.

Edited by xtraa
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INFNITE
INFNITE
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Posted (edited)

agreed. They had such a huge marketing potential here, and they are making it next to impossible (for now) to boot Windows on these systems. Is it Apple's arrogance? that Apple is the superior platform and they wouldn't let any other platform touch their computer system? Yeah, they didn't do anything to prevent Windows from booting...what a load of BS. If I can't install both OS's on the same friggin hard drive, I'm not gonna even bother with it. I was planning on getting a MacBook Pro, and carrying a portable hard drive simply just isn't feasible.

Edited by INFNITE
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jreate
jreate
Posted
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Wouldnt it be better to just run windows under mac os x like with VMware or a WINE port or something like that? It would probably run at full speed and you could have it running in a window withing mac os x...much better than dual boot in my opinion.

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autoy
autoy
Posted
Posted

Actually, one of the top reasons potential switchers do care about dualboot is games. Another frequently mentioned topic is pro applications. You are no way getting the same kind of performance even using virtualization (vmware-like).

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dkelley
dkelley
Posted
Posted
Wouldnt it be better to just run windows under mac os x like with VMware or a WINE port or something like that? It would probably run at full speed and you could have it running in a window withing mac os x...much better than dual boot in my opinion.

 

No. It won't run at full speed (that has been proven by hackers running OSX under vmware in windows and previously by legit users running other windows or linux installs under vmware in windows). VMware and all virtual machine technology is slow by nature (video card and sound card are emulated virtual hardware and very slow no matter what you do to hack it up faster).

 

The only way to run windows on a mac at full speed and take advantage of your mac's 3d card and high performance sound card (such as through USB2 or firewire) is to install windows as a dual boot with OSX.

 

I can't do it, but it seems to me that the best way would be to create a hacked version of WINDOWS (not a hack of your new Mac). This version of windows will run from an install cd which uses the correct boot concept (so it will be recognized and bootable) and the windows installer will be hacked to install windows in a way that it can dual boot with OSX and be recognized in the mac's guid partition table.

 

I honestly can't imagine that being so challenging if you know how to hack windows install cds - people have done it before for other reasons.

 

And hell - like any of us would want to support microsoft by paying for legit copies of windows to go on our macs right? heh heh heh... just a little joke there, I don't condone piracy. Really. :-D

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DaffyDuck
DaffyDuck
Posted
Posted
The next person to link to that Wintel 2.0 or iEmulator {censored} gets in trouble. :D

 

Wintel = bochs

iEmulator = qemu

 

Both = SLOW and mostly useless

Neither = Commercial solution really hehe (just rebranding opensource stuff)

 

It would help actually understanding what you condemn.

 

Yes, they are both slow on G5/G4s because they EMULATE an x86 CPU.

 

Both of these have a dynamic solution that bypasses the emulator on intel native machines, because (natch!) it doesn't need to emulate an x86 when running on an x86.

 

Open OS X Wintel 2.0 already claims full native support on intel.

iEmulator will release their version in March.

 

Both should be running at near native speed on intel based Macs - and unless you have an intel based Mac to verify your claim of "It's slow" I would suggest actually waiting for people to benchmark these, before you discard a viable solution.

 

For what it's worth, running Windows in a true virtual environment is *THE* way to run Windows on intel-based Macs.. Why anyone would want to boot into any form of Windows is beyond me - but, hey, you kids knock yourselves out.

 

DD

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DaffyDuck
DaffyDuck
Posted
Posted

Lastly, regarding games - it will be possible, for game developers, to create an installer that can install games on a dedicated or separate partition, and allow booting into them.

 

This would be inline with Apple's patent about a Macintosh with a primary and secondary operating system.

 

Oh, and regarding all you INCREDIBLY ANNOYING WHINERS -- get a fraking clue! This is Apple's first intel based machine. It's not even in the stores (or, barely so), and the full capabilities and possibilities are barely starting to be scratched. Apple hasn't, as hey said, done anything to prevent Windows from running on these machines, but at the same time, they haven't gone out of their way, or dropped quality or features, just to allow Windows to run on them.

 

They use industry standard parts, on a pretty standard motherboard design - there is no reason why Windows should not run on it, and eventually, it will. Right now, today, it does not.

 

You can bet that while you are sitting on your ass, whining, and 'threatening' Apple with not buying their latest devices (oh, and I'm sure Steve Jobs is quaking in his boots over losing YOU), that some enterprising smart guys are in the process of making Windows boots happen -- and that those guys are working at Apple.

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Guest terry
Guest terry
Posted
Posted
It would help actually understanding what you condemn.

 

Yes, they are both slow on G5/G4s because they EMULATE an x86 CPU.

 

Both of these have a dynamic solution that bypasses the emulator on intel native machines, because (natch!) it doesn't need to emulate an x86 when running on an x86.

 

Open OS X Wintel 2.0 already claims full native support on intel.

iEmulator will release their version in March.

 

Both should be running at near native speed on intel based Macs - and unless you have an intel based Mac to verify your claim of "It's slow" I would suggest actually waiting for people to benchmark these, before you discard a viable solution.

Did I miss something? The last time I checked Bochs (the x86 port, in fact), it still was an emulator and NO virtualizer, even on x86-based systems, meaning that it ALWAYS emulates, regardless of which architecture it runs on. Bochs was meant to be a highly portable solution, not a fast one.

 

"What is Bochs?

[...]

Commercial PC emulators (VMware, Connectix, etc.) can achieve much high emulation speed using a technique called virtualization[2], but they are neither portable to non-x86 platforms nor open source."

http://bochs.sourceforge.net/doc/docbook/u...troduction.html

 

It is correct, however, that in the meantime a virtualizer for QEMU has come up, the "QEMU Accelerator Module", which should speed up things drastically when run on an Intel Mac compared to a PPC one.

 

Regarding the rest of your rant, I pretty much agree with it (especially with your opinion on the whining on this board :( ), but don't forget that the current Macs do not feature VT, so running Windows or any other OS alongside Mac OS could turn out to be quite cumbersome. It's not only gamers that would prefer good integration with other operating systems, but also people who depend on full 2D and 3D acceleration and accurate timing for their work.

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myzar
myzar
Posted
Posted

I hate stupid zealots whatever sj does is holy hahaha. Apple is using efi with the only hope to twart people in to running osx on generic hardware but 10.4.4 will be easily hacked because is binary compatible with 10.4.3 even the extensions work so it's just a matter of using 10.4.3 boot files to bootstrap the kernel.

 

On the macbook side you would need atleast another hd , anyway i could care less i will happily dualboot with whatever os i want on my not apple blessed hardware :(

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John the Geek
John the Geek
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Posted
iEmulator will release their version in March.

 

Correction... iEmulator will release theirs once they steal the code from Q which is exactly the same, except free. Oh, and he changed the icons a bit.

 

Q is the official QEMU Mac Port and will be Intel based as soon as the developer gets his MacBook Pro to build and test on.

 

It has its downside (no multiprocessor support, USB isn't quite finished yet) but it's great for most generic Windows stuff like running Office, etc... Gamers are going to need a real boot to use the hardware to it's potential.

 

=)

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bofors
bofors
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Posted (edited)

OT: The board is really slow today, here is why:

Most users ever online was 1,761 on Today, 03:38 PM

That beats the previous record of some 1500 that I think was set in August. Note, that there are over 1000 guests in the hardware forum right now.

 

Here is the reason to NOT booting into Win:

 

Shipping Intel-based Macintosh computers use Intel's new Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)[17.1]. The partition scheme is GUID Partition Table (GPT)[17.2], part of the EFI standard. The default filesystem is still HFS+/Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and all other conventional Mac OS X filesystem formats are available, but they are now within GUID Partition Table (GPT) instead of Apple Partition Map (APM). Only a Mac OS X 10.4.4 (PowerPC) system (or newer) can read, but not boot from, a GPT disk. Conversely, a Mac OS X 10.4.4 (Intel) system (or newer) can read, but not boot from, an APM disk.

 

You have to make a GPT to boot from it.

 

_http://appleintelfaq.com/#10

 

Here is some related info and a link to a thread at ArsTechnica for those interested in EFI GUID issues and such:

 

This hasn't been explicitly documented by Apple anywhere I can find, but it looks like it won't be possible to create a disk that is bootable on an Intel Mac and a PowerPC Mac, even if that disk has an Intel installation of Mac OS X on one partition and a PPC Mac OS X on another partition.

 

Here are the rules as I can determine so far.

 

Intel Macs use Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) instead of Open Firmware. EFI Macs can only boot from GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioned disks, but can mount (the soon to deprecated) Apple Partition Map (APM) partitioned drives.

 

Open Firmware Macs cannot boot from GPT partitioned drives. They will be able to mount them if they are running 10.4.x or higher. Perhaps Apple could come out with an Open Firmware update that would allow OF Macs to boot from GPT disks, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

You can create your own GPT partitioned disks using diskutil on your PPC Mac to test this if you are running 10.4.3 or higher.

 

Use the argument 'GPTFormat' :

 

diskutil partitionDisk <device> GPTFormat <partition format> <partition name> <partition size>

 

 

The man page for gpt has some amusing disclaimers in it.

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/fo.../m/843000827731

Edited by bofors
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