Windows XP on Intel Mac Confirmed

niemassacre writes "According to winxponmac.com, the contest has been won - nearly $14k to narf2006 for submitting a working solution to dual-booting Windows XP and Mac OS X on an Intel-Powered mac. A thread on osx86project.org has confirmations from several testers that the procedure works on the 17" iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook Pro. Many sets of pictures and videos (such as this installation video) are floating around (and mentioned in the thread). The solution itself should be posted soon." Poit! Congratulations to narf.

Cool.

[bazmail (764941)]

But does it run Linux?

Wow

[2.7182 (819680)]

Now I can dual boot a good and bad OS. (I am not saying which is which!)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[ocp (598857)]

If now somebody figures out how to triple boot and add Linux then I will be able to boot a good, a bad and an ugly OS (and I'm not saying either which is which!).

Re:The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[jaiyen (821972)]

The price of Apple hardware, the security of Windows, the user-friendliness of Linux all on one machine - what's not to like ?

Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the In Denial

[David_W (35680)]

A quadruple boot of OS X, M-Windows, Linux, and OS/2.

The good, the bad, the ugly, and the OH GOD MAKE IT STOP!?

(And yes, I too leave matching the categories to the OS as an exercise to the reader...)

1984

[Anonymous Coward]

My friends, each of you is a single cell in the great body of the
state. And today, that great body has purged itself of parasites.
We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts.
The thugs and wreckers have been cast out and the poisonous
weeds of disinformation have been cosigned to the dustbin of
history. Let each and every cell rejoice! For today we
celebrate the first, glorious anniversary of the Information
Purification Directive.

We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of
pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests
of contradictory and confusing truths. Our unification of thought
is a more powerful weapon than any fleet or army on earth! We are
one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies
shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their
own confusion. We shall prevail!
                                -- Big Brother, Apple's "1984" commercial

So where's the meat?

[GekkePrutser (548776)]

Where can I get this? I haven't found any details or downloads yet...

Re:So where's the meat?

[Slashcrap (869349)]

Where can I get this? I haven't found any details or downloads yet...

As this is for a Mac, there will be no free download. It will instead be provided as a $25 shareware package - just like every other useful little utility.

I hope ...

[Luscious868 (679143)]

I hope everybody who dragged this guy's reputation through the mud offers him a huge apology! Maybe it's just because I'm growing older, but the older I get the more cynical I feel like people are becoming. Maybe it's always been this way and when I was a kid I either didn't notice or just shrugged it off....

Re:I hope ...

[mzieg (317686)]

I'm thinking $14 grand would stand-in for an outpouring of apologies. It would for me :-)

Re:Dude, Speak for your self.

[visionsofmcskill (556169)]

that makes you.... an idiot. ;) i think the money is humiliation enough for the nay-sayers.

Let's hear it for peer review

[murderlegendre (776042)]

Did you really read the original (yesterday's) commentary on this? It looked like a basic peer-review process to me, albeit in true /. style. A person steps up, makes an extraordinary claim, and the community of peers does its best to suggest every possibility for falsification.

It took a while, but the truly hare-brained ideas (like a photoshopped image of a MacBook) were discredited leaving only a couple of reasonable possibilities (like a full-screen display of an XP screengrab image).

So honestly, would you really prefer that a peer-review process work from the premise that the proposal is true, as opposed to false? While the former is certainly much "nicer", the latter is more in keeping with scientific modes of thought. I'd have expected nothing less, had I presented the same claims + shaky evidence.

Re:Let's hear it for peer review

[ultramk (470198)]

While I appreciate your point, I respectfully disagree. The tone of yesterday's discussion was vitrolic, mean-spirited and crass.

There's a big difference between saying "What an obvious fake! What a lousy photoshop job! What an idiot to think that we would believe this!" and something like "While there's no reason that this couldn't be faked, there's no evidence that it has been. Let's wait and evaluate the proof when it becomes available before passing judgement."

Where I come from, the scientific process of peer-review doesn't include name-calling and obviously premature pronouncements of fakery by armchair image analysts with a copy of the GIMP and no knowledge of things like light bleed in cheap CCDs.

Of course, this is slashdot, where making instant pronouncements about things you don't understand is practically the official sport.

M-

an end to speculation

[thelost (808451)]

and a amssive congratulation to Narf. This was an exciting contest to watch develop and definately brought out a lot of talent. Now the question in my mind is will this have any affect on the new intel-mac sales; Will people be keen to buy them because they can dual boot windows/mac os x on the same machine? Recently I bought a mac-mini (before the intel ones went live sadly) and I have to say, having used winxp for years after two weeks of my mac-mini on a KVM I'm just about ready to move over. I can't actually imagine many reasons for me wanting a PC any more. I'm not into gaming like I used to be, and mac os x is such a lovely user experience. I admit it, i'm a born again apple fan-boi! What exactly is the situation on driver support for someone booting winxp on a mac? That's what I am interested in, anyone got a clue?

Re:an end to speculation

[thelost (808451)]

well to compare, how many people do you think have bought an xbox because they could mod it, stick an emulator or backed up games onto it and play away (to back up my point I can say I know at least 5 people who have, it's pretty popular). Hacks start of as hacks, and then someone puts in the hard work simplifying them, making them more accessible to everyone and then we no longer need to play around with bootloaders etc. This is already big news and will be appearing on all the apple news sites, it's certainly gonna get the apple fanboi zealots riled. It will also get a lot of interest from people who don't just want to play games on their macs, but do a few of the things they still can't do on their macs - admittedly very little now - in windows. On another note, I feel that the mac populaces face has changed since OS X came along. Mac users have become much more homebrew, hacker friendly and do frequently get down and dirty with their darwin innards. People with that kind of attitude - which seems widespread in the community now - might well relish getting their machine to dual boot xp, just because.

Obligatory Pink and the Brain Follow Up

[Philosinfinity (726949)]

Brain: Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Pinky: I think so Brain but where are we going to find rubber pants and sod at this time of night?

I'd prefer a VPC-like solution

[illtron (722358)]

It seems to me that native hardware will mean that we're not far from seeing a lot of really great "not-emulation VPC-like products." This is nice, but it seems that being able to have the two up side-by side would be more useful. Wouldn't native hardware also mean that a VPC could run at nearly full speed, only taking a hit due to whatever resources were already being used by the Mac OS and applications? Still, this is a nice achievement.

soo.....

[Trelane (16124)]

if you can run Windows on a Mac now, will game developers stop porting games to Mac, since Mac users can run Windows?

Re:soo.....

[cgenman (325138)]

To stop doing something, first you must have started doing it.

Mirror of the movie

[jmke (776334)]

Here's link to the XP on MAC video from a site which can handle a /. http://youtube.com/watch?v=nzH6OFpXgzI [youtube.com]

Re:Mirror of the movie

[greg1104 (461138)]

You drink as much caffeine as narf did to get this accomplished and we'll see how much your hands shake.

be kind to their server

[thelost (808451)]

use the coral caches. I can't believe they weren't coralised in the main post

forum
http://forum.osx86project.org.nyud.net:8080/index. php?showtopic=11731 [nyud.net]
Video:
http://www.projectosx86.org.nyud.net:8080/winonmac .mov [nyud.net]

In other news...

[Half a dent (952274)]

ipods adapted so all audio output is in mono. Graphics on imacs converted to 16 color. Mac mouse to only have one button... oops.

Irony

[Fahrvergnuugen (700293)]

I find this kind of funny and ironic...

Apple announces that they are moving to intel. OSX is DRM'd and bound to Macs so that it cannot be run on commodity hardware. Senior execs at Apple also state that they will not do anything to prevent Windows from running on their hardware.

Intel Macs come out.

Hackers get OSX86 up and running on Dells with relative ease, despite Apple's best efforts to prevent them from doing so. However, they have such a hard time getting Windows to run on a Mac that a contest is started and 13,000 dollars worth of prize money is offered.

Oh the irony. :-)

Re:Irony

[mzieg (317686)]

In Apple's defense (and I do appreciate the irony you point out), OS-X was, from the start, a far more "portable" operating system, vastly more suitable to loading on strange hardware. From it's NeXTSTEP heritage, OS-X could build on Motorola 68K systems. From it's OpenSTEP heritage, OX-X could already build on Intel x86 architectures. From it's Apple heritage, it could build on PPC systems. From it's BSD heritage, it could build on pretty much anything else. OS-X had been ported so much that it had developed a fairly flexible hardware abstraction layer.

In contrast, consider Windows, which has been successfully ported to...Alpha? Once, many years ago? Windows is far more intransigent about porting to new hardware platforms, because they've never needed to, never wanted to, and never put any friendly handles in to smooth the transition.

Re:Irony

[adam1101 (805240)]

In the *STEP days, Windows NT ran on MIPS, Alpha, PPC, x86, and early versions even SPARC. This was drastically reduced with the NT -> 2K transition, but then again, so was *STEP -> OS X. Nowadays, NT runs on x86-32, x86-64 and Itanium, while *STEP runs on x86-32 and PPC, so it's pretty much a wash.

Some points to bear in mind:

[Phil John (576633)]

Windows NT was built from the beginning to run on multiple processors, it had a very advanced hardware abstraction layer built in. The other versions never sold very well and there were problems with application support (e.g. people targetting multiple processor arch's). Apple has clevery overcome this obstacle by including "Rosetta" from the start, something similar existed for NT Alpha called FX!32 but I suspect by the time it was released it was too little too late to save the OS.

I'm sure that the HAL is in place in NT derived operating systems to this day and if MS were so inclined they could do another port. However, there's no real business need (as there is for Apple with their transition) so it's never been done. They target the largest installed hardware base.

The issue with getting Windows on Macintel to work is that EFI is so fundamentally different to the traditional BIOS XP expects that you require either the source code of the OS kernel to make it work or have to, as has been done here, provide essentially a bios emulator. This is nothing to do with portability or HAL's, it's about having access to the fundamentally low-level parts of the operating system, something people outside MS don't have.

Big deal

[brunes69 (86786)]

Wake me up when someone lets me run Windows binaries *inside* Intel OSX. That is the achievement.

from macrumors

[ClassicComposer (916856)]

Since it's won now, I guess I can talk. The install requires a Windows XP PC, with which Windows is already installed. From here you use Nero Burning ROM to mix files from your XP SP2 CD, copy them to a new project, and add in some $OEM$ files and folders, and fix some of the files in i386. From here, you use xom.efi (which is the bootloader), and bless it in Terminal. Once it's blessed on startup you get a pretty nice selector, and you choose Windows. From here the CSM layer pauses for 2.5 Minutes while it does whatever its doing. Then you'll get into Windows Setup.

I should also mention at this time, you cannot reboot Windows. You need to shutdown. If you attempt rebooting it will hang at Windows is Shutting Down screen.

from mac forums [macrumors.com]

How can you knock flexibility and choice?

[_Pablo (126574)]

Excellent work by Narf2006 and Blanka.

I don't understand why some people are so negative about something which gives the user greater flexibility and choice. I love using OS X for my personal needs, but my job requires Windows and CounterStrike:Source requires DirectX, so it's made my MacBook Pro even more flexible and that can only be a good thing.

Whilst I can imagine that some software producers will look at the situation and say "The Mac now runs Windows so we don't need to produce a Mac native version", I think the ability to boot Windows tears down one barrier to buying a Mac...if you have to run Windows then you don't need to compromise and buy a Windows only machine.

Finally, I know you can buy a regular PC and dual-boot with a hacked copy of OS X, but it's illegal, whereas dual booting a genuine retail copy of XP on a Mac is legal and that makes it a real option for the workplace. I look forward to taking my MacBook everywhere and leaving that chunky Dell on the table...someone needs to start producing 200GB+ 2.5" 7200rpm drives fast!

Dell = Biggest Loser?

[gurutc (613652)]

Rather than talk about what Microsoft and Apple think, I'd love to see the marketing department at Dell today.

Perfect solution for Apple. (and me, yay!)

[guidryp (702488)]

Apple would never want to support this or even make it easy. But this is a boon. Many people such as myself who wouldn't switch previously will now consider it. In fact I am certain, my next computer will be a Conroe Mac. I predict the cool machine next year will be dual booting Mac with Conroe. Reminds of the old days when hackers liked the Amigas with x86 module that could run Dos/Amiga/Mac software all at full speed.

Why this won't negatively affect SW developers view of mac sales:
The average Mac user is never going to set up a dual boot (especially given no support, difficulties involved) so this really won't impact software developer plans (ie they won't stop making Mac software). Even those who dual boot will probably prefer to have native Mac versions of software. In the end all Macs sold will be potential buyers of Mac software. That is why this is a perfect solution, no official support and difficulties make it something only those who MUST have it will do, so it will not have any significant percentage of people using a Mac, but buying Windows software for it.

Why this is better than booting OSX on a whitebox:
Booting windows on a Mac, is a legal solution. Apple has said they are not doing anything to stop it. So you can have legal OSX and legal WinXP on the mac and keep them both updated with ease. Also the Mac which has less HW support will be running on it's intended platform. Windows should have no problem running on the same hardware. Contrast running pirate/hacked OSX on the whitebox (the only way to do it) which will always be of questionable stability and a fight to upgrade without breaking it.

Way to go guys!

explanation (riposte)

[mnemonic_ (164550)]

Colin has received a solution from narf2006 [onmac.net] and is currently testing it. Meanwhile, narf2006 has revealed some details on his method; he patched the Windows XP kernel [flickr.com] to get VGA working, and wrote a custom Compatibility Support Module (CSM) [flickr.com] to allow booting XP from EFI.

According to Intel documentation [intel.com], using a CSM that plugs into the EFI framework should allow for booting BIOS-based operating systems:

A contemporary implementation of the Framework on a PC includes a CSM for supplying services to operating systems that do not boot using EFI and for supporting legacy option ROMs on add-in cards. For legacy boot the Framework initializes the platform's silicon and executes EFI drivers.

In the words of Jim Cramer, "booyah."

Re:Why?

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

Because it's there!

Aaaargh

[BeardsmoreA (951706)]

Every time there's anything on this the first comments are along these lines. Fine! You don't want to play games or do any Windows devlopment - other people do! And this lets them. The end.

Re:Why?

[Ford Prefect (8777)]

Why?

Games.

Stuff like VMWare will do a great job of running applications, but for stuff that requires access to modern hardware, dual-booting is probably the only real answer.

I've been doing it for years on my PC, after all - serious stuff gets done in Linux, but when I want to mess around with modding Half-Life 2 then I quickly reboot into Windows XP, and instantly get 100% software compatibility. If something gave me the ability to dual-boot my new MacBook in a similar manner, then that would be great - I'd essentially have both a Mac and a PC in one shiny laptop case.

This latest news makes me happy - it's like I bought a very fast Mac, then just over two weeks later I received a very fast PC of equivalent specs for free. What is there to complain about?

Re:Why?

[The Fun Guy (21791)]

it's like I bought a very fast Mac, then just over two weeks later I received a very fast PC of equivalent specs for free.

Not quite free, since you have to buy a copy of XP.

Um...

You *did* pay for that copy of XP, right?

Re:Dual booting is unpractical

[PFI_Optix (936301)]

Dual booting is impractical under a lot of applications, but for some people (those constrained by budget, space, or the desire to not tote around two notebooks) it makes the most sense.

As for data exchange, unless you're packing a notebook, I'd probably just put together a lightweight file server with Linux so that you're not trying to juggle partitions on your local machine any more than is necessary.

Re:Why?

[slantyyz (196624)]

Because you're not a Mac user who lives in the Windows world. Some of us who make our money in the Windows world need to run applications that don't run on Mac... yet. I do Cognos development, and I have to provide my own notebook at work. Outside of work, I'm all Mac. Why have two notebooks when I can have my cake and eat it too? Yes, I could get a whitebox x86 notebook and run a hacked version of OSX, as the PC zealots would have it, but seeing how my PC is used for business, I'd like to stay above board. Which I can't do with an illegal version of Mac OSX running on a whitebox notebook.

Re:Why?

[AnonymousPrick (956548)]

Because you're not a Mac user who lives in the Windows world.

I'm thinking of writing a book about a Windows guy who disguises himself as a Mac user to see what it's like.

I call it: "Mac Like Me".

Sounds cool, huh?

Re:Why?

[Total_Wimp (564548)]

1. The first guy to do something gets lots of points

2. Anybody who does a lot of work so I don't have to gets points

3. The definition of hard has less to do whith whether the technology looks challenging and more to do with how long it actually takes people to accomplish. This was not instantaneous with a bunch of people piling on working solutions at the same time. This guy stands alone after a significant period of time. That makes this "hard" in a defacto sense of the word and is definately worth some points.

4. I'm not a Mac user. I'm a Windows user. Of course Mac users love their OS. I don't. After supporting several Mac people and trying to make use of it myself, I've decided I actually dislike it quite a lot (no flames, please, this is just a personal preference). However, I _love_ Mac hardware. I've lusted after the clean, light notebooks and the "cheese grater" G5 desktops are shear design elegance. As a current Mac user, judging this by the fact that you wouldn't want to run Windows is missing the fundimental point that Windows users might like the option of buying great hardware from Apple. From my perspective, this is worth lots of points.

Add em all up and this guy can redeem his points for several rounds of beer should I ever meet him :-)

TW

Re:Why?

[Heian-794 (834234)]

Why? Because of the huge number of applications that are only produced for Windows -- these are small enough that the makers can't be bothered to, or don't have the expertise to, make a Mac version, yet aren't essential enough to make me go out and buy a Windows machine just to run them.

One example would be the PC interface software for my cell phone. Nice to have, but I only use it every few months to back stuff up and am not about to go buy a PC just to run it. Same story for game hacking utilities.

Congratulations to Narf. I'm anxiously awaiting booting WinXP on my Intel iMac.

Re:Why?

[slantyyz (196624)]

It's actually called DarWINE and it's not quite at the level of maturity you see in the Linux world. Codeweavers says they're working on a version of Crossover Office for the Mac, but they haven't posted any news about it recently.

Crossover Office is pretty good on Linux. I'd rather use something like Wine (provided it worked on 100% of the stuff I need -- wishful thinking) than VMWare. Having said that, I'd rather use VMWare than dual boot.

Re:Why?

[mrbrown1602 (536940)]

Because it'd let you play games (Windows)

Considering the fact that the Device Manager screenshot from the iMac Core Duo shows an abudance of "Unknown devices" (including the display adapter), and considering the drivers for these devices probably do not exist for Windows, I don't see people playing games anytime soon.

Re:Lawsuit?

[slantyyz (196624)]

Apple is happy. Now all those Windows users who want a Mac (more market share, yippee!) will buy a Mac and dual boot, yet they can still "try" to protect their OS from running a white box.

Microsoft is happy. They didn't have to spend any of their own money to get compatibility, and if they're lucky, maybe more than 30% of the dual booters will actually pay for a Windows license.

Re:Lawsuit?

[earthloop (449575)]

maybe more than 30% of the dual booters will actually pay for a Windows license

A percent (%) character seems to have slipped in there. ;o)

Re:Lawsuite?

[gurutc (613652)]

I'd think Apple would love it. They played no part in working out the solution, but now their hardware is the most versatile around for running the two desktop OSes I've wanted to have on one machine. Done deal, buying a mac.

Re:the real question is

[slantyyz (196624)]

What's stopping you? There are tons of people who are already booting OS X 10.5.5 on cheap commodity hardware. There's even a wiki that tells you what cheapo hardware to buy to get the best Mac experience.

Re:Can't play the video

[787style (816008)]

Using the Quick Time player on Windows XP it says required compressor not available (1st time I tried it also said not available on server)... what do I need?

An Intel Mac, obviously.

Re:A lot more useful! Excellent!

[cgenman (325138)]

A hack must have been expected, even desired, by Apple. Being able to run both OSX and Win XP (and Linux) on a single notebook would be massive. If you need Wintel, you can buy anything, but if you want OSXP, you have to buy from Apple.

I, for one, am desperately trying to restrain myself from running out and picking up a Mac Book.