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Is the Great Windows Debate Over?

sHARD>>

By 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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pawel_lasek

It's not about making Windows unsupported - M$ talks about switching to EFI for at least four years now, but with Longhorn (now Vista) being delayed, they propably couldn't talk hardware manufacturers to it.

 

Now Apple goes the "good way" (although EFI is a little over-bloated i think) and decides to not use PC-like BIOS at all (Atari 800 (an 8-bit micro) had better BIOS ;P) and use EFI.

 

As for Windows support for EFI - you don't need PC-BIOS to boot Windows NT (NT disables BIOS at start, just like Linux). The only think you need is EFI-enabled ntldr along with EFI hal.dll and drivers.

 

In fact, Windows NT 5.0 was one of the first OS'es to support EFI - however, the only released EFI-bootable version is for IA-64.

 

(Incomplete) list of OS that support EFI and architectures:

 

Linux: ia32 (x86), ia64, propably amd64 (need to check)

Windows NT >5.0: IA-64, (not released, offically planned for Vista) x86 and amd64

*BSD: at least on ia64, don't know about other

OpenVMS: IA-64

HP-UX: IA-64

 

Legend: IA-64 != amd64/emt64t - it's a completely different architecture, and the EFI-supported one is not everything (I'm not sure whether Altix uses EFI)

 

And for booting Vista on EFI: You propably won't be using "set your BIOS to boot..." sequence, IIRC EFI has zero knowledge of bootable CD's. I think it goes similar to ARC boot procedure for NT4, where you go to System Console, then to CD-ROM and you find install.efi or sthg alike :>

 

In fact, it should be possible to launch it that way (with Intel Reference Impl.):

  1. Go to EFI Bootmanager
  2. select Boot option maintenance menu
  3. select "add boot option"
  4. Legacy boot (or sthg similar), if not, choose a volume and appopriate loader file (should have .efi extension)

just my speculation :P

 

UPDATE: Intel Reference Implementations contains images allowing EFI to boot "normal" PC OS'es :P going to check it :)

Edited by pawel_lasek
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R. Bear Helms

There's always a lag between a new partitioning scheme being made and someone's coding a way of manipulating it, or just adhering to its standards.

 

We need not only to EFI boot another volume, but a boot manager which asks you which compliant volume you want to boot, and in the case of Windows, somehow put in place a BIOS like what would satisfy XP to load and run stably and well.

 

I think the source code to the EFI used on the Core Duo Macs really needs to be examined - without this being disclosed, and without reverse engineering it (which is against EULA), someone will have to sit down to some sample code from Intel for EFI and make intelligent guesses as to how to achieve Mac/XP boot menuing.

 

It's not clear at all to me whether EFI is allowed to exist in several flavors on one volume. How would the firmware loader select which one to use?

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