Windows on Intel Macs - Yes or No?

With the announcement of the Intel chip based MacBook, the door is now open for running the Windows OS on Macintosh hardware, right? jaypatrick writes "BetaNews reports that along with the announcement of the first Intel based Macs yesterday, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems." I guess not. But, wait... Big Z writes "Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview Tuesday that the company won't sell or support Windows itself, but also hasn't done anything to preclude people from loading Windows onto the machines themselves." I think someone actually trying it out is the only way this is going to get straightened out.

Oh the possibilities....

[losman]

Great, now I can have an exploitable and virus infected operating system running on my Mac! The only place I want to see Windows running is on someone else's machine.

Re:One box...

[RevDobbs]

I wonder what a beowulf cluster of these could do.

Empty your wallet.

I eagerly await

[Snamh Da Ean]

...the posts breathlessly announcing "Hackers manage to make Windows run on Apple", "Hackers manage to make Windows run on off the shelf Dell PC", "Hackers manage to make Windows run on X-Box", "Hackers manage make Windows run", complete with little pictures of the device in question displaying something characteristic of Windows....

Re:One box...

[Biff Stu]

One box to rule them all
One box to bind them
In Redmond, where the shadows lie

Re:Oh the possibilities....

[Foofoobar]

Better yet, Windows running on over a million other peoples machines and becoming part of a botnet to DDOS my machine.

Scam of the century!

[Oz0ne]

I'm also upset that my nintendo DS won't run the PSP operating system, I mean come on, they're both hand held gaming consoles, I should be able to dual boot, right?! /snark.

Re:Windows on Intel Mac? Answer: Yes YOU JEST?

[Nom du Keyboard]

but Intel Core Duo is not a 64-bit chip.

Surely you jest. Apple wouldn't be putting out 32-bit systems still, nor would Intel be building them. Just because they don't mention it doesn't mean it isn't there, along with Execute Disable, which is mentioned and is part of the 64-bit specification.

Re:I eagerly await

[vjmurphy]

"complete with little pictures of the device in question displaying something characteristic of Windows...."

The Blue Screen of Death?

Re:EFI vs OpenFirmware

[Karma Farmer]

More important to me are the lack of a full-size 5-pin DIN keyboard port, a DB-9 serial port, and 5 1/4" floppy drive.

The fact that I can't use my 23 year old floppies and keyboard really bothers me.

It is nice if you like to anthropomorphise our PC

[SmallFurryCreature]

Your new macbook looking like it is about to lock up? Whip out that Windows Install CD and tell it in a nasty voice that you could easily slide the CD in its virginal slot and have its hardware rooted by every little hacker out there before it can call Apple support.

I placed a Windows 95 CD in viewing distance of my linux machines and they never gave me troubles since. MS, ensuring your hardware behaves for two decades and counting.

Re:It is nice if you like to anthropomorphise our

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, have a rapist wit.

Re:Ummm... Virtual PC 8.0 anyone??

[rubicon7]

And how is that behaviour different from Windows running non-emulated?

Re:Agree, this will not be not a common occurance

[Reckless Visionary]

http://www.testdriven.co.uk/news.cfm/bmw_opens_chi na_factory [testdriven.co.uk]

Well, it looks like since 2004 or so.

Re:Agree, this will not be not a common occurance

[bfischer]

Well, BMW = Beijing Motor Works, right?

It doesn't matter what chip Apple uses

[Austin Milbarge]

because the prices are simply to damn high. Lets face it, most consumers don't know the difference between a Mac and PC but they do know the difference between a $500 DELL and a $1400 Mac! It's not rocket science. If Apple's ulterior motive for moving to Intel's architecture is to eventually compete with Wintel systems, they are gonna have to do something about there pricing. As far as I see it, the main difference between the two systems will eventually come down to the operating system and charging someone a rediculas premium for "everyday hardware" so they can run your OS is pretty ballsy. Especially when Apple has no way of hiding the prices (like they used to) behind fancy and unneccessary hardware like SCSI.

Re:Probably not and here's why ...

[djdavetrouble]

Mac have no games, BTW

There's WoW, Nethack, UT, Q3A, MAME and BZFlag you insensitive clod ! What else do you need?

Re:Probably not and here's why ...

[TheJorge]

I believe you and I are brothers.

Re:Probably not and here's why ...

[Sketch]

> Windows already runs on EFI on some architectures.

Great! Now all you have to do is recompile it for x86.