Apple Fails To Deliver On Windows 7 Boot Camp Promise 279
SkydiverFL writes "For those fans of Apple's Boot Camp package, it looks like you might be waiting on the next 'end of year' to use Windows 7 on your shiny silver boxes. Back in October of this year, Apple published a rather short, but affirmative promise stating quite simply that, 'Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.' The support page has no updates regarding the new version. Maybe they're waiting for iSlate?"
The Vista drivers work fine (Score:5, Informative)
There is no need to wait. I installed Windows 7 bootcamp on the day it was released on Technet, and it worked fine with the Vista drivers.
i just posted this comment on my 27" imac (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
PC World's fastest Windows laptop in 2007 was a MacBook Pro [pcworld.com]
Apple Specific Drivers (Score:3, Informative)
i just posted this on my $600 quad core hackintosh (Score:2, Informative)
running snow leopard, debian, and win7. what's the issue? everything works great.
Stop with the "Better quality hardware" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Virtualbox (Score:4, Informative)
Not entirely correct.
Virtualizing the graphics card already has support for all the major VMs (VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels, etc) and it's being actively worked on with support from the big GPU ISVs.
Its Very Doable now (Score:5, Informative)
First, the Snow Leopard DVD includes boot camp 3.0, which VASTLY improves the use of the touchpad under Windows XP or Vista. It also mostly works under Windows 7.
If you don't have a Snow Leopard DVD, here is a link to the drivers on TPB:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5054638/Bootcamp_Driver_3.0_for_Windows_32bit__amp__64bit_%28from_Snow_Leopard
After installing this updating the sound drivers and video drivers would be advisable since the ones that come in boot camp suck and/or cause crashes.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us for video drivers. Select windows-7 then 32 or 64 bit depending on which you've chosen.
ac
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false
After this it should be reasonably stable.
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
Bootcamp drivers aren't adequate for all systems (Score:1, Informative)
Some Apple Fanboys are long on BS and short on facts. The "mine works, what's the problem" comments bear witness to the lack of even the most simple research before posting. The mid-2009 MacBook Pro's have a different manufacturer's audio system than earlier MBP's and quite simply, there are problems in Win7. The built-in microphone doesn't work and the audio output volume is too low to be really useable. Someone has created a workaround for the audio out, but not the mic-in. There are other problems, too, but the facts are obviously not too important for the "mine works" folks. Apple sells their systems with Bootcamp as a selling point, then gives a promised date for the drivers, and then doesn't deliver. There has never been an OS in the hands of more people in beta form than Win7. Apple has had over a year to get this addressed. We know why they haven't and it is very small-minded of them. They seem to be having increasing problems with dates. quality, and credibility. This doesn't bode well for the future. The MBP's are reallly nice machines and still a good value for the money when compared with Windows-only laptops, but they would be better if Apple would fulfill their commitments to their customers. Some of us care about things like that.
Re:Apple Specific Drivers (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 7 supports EFI natively. You apparently do need Apple drivers to use the internal keyboard and trackpad on laptops, though.
Regarding power management, AFAIK, the worst case scenario would be if the SMC drivers didn't load, in which case after the SMC's watchdog timer fires, the SMC should bring all the fans up to full blast. You're not going to overheat the CPU by failing to load the drivers. You can verify this if you'd like. With your computer idle, unload the fan control KEXT. Thirty seconds or a minute later, the fans should ramp up. When you reload the KEXT, they should spin immediately back down to what you'd expect with the machine idle. At least this is what happens in the G5 towers. I'm assuming the Intel laptops behave the same way.
CPU power management is handled by the CPU, not by any special bits in the chipset, AFAIK, so that should be unaffected no matter what. And the hardware is designed to protect against getting too hot, so at some point, the CPU starts putting itself to sleep to keep the temperature within bounds, and if even that isn't enough, the computer shuts down. AFAIK, most of that happens in hardware, so even a really broken OS shouldn't be able to damage hardware. At the very least, it's pretty unlikely.
Re:Why do you eschew choice? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why do you eschew choice? (Score:4, Informative)
While I consider my aluminium macbook to be of excellent design and hardware quality, the first generation macbook that I had before this was absolutely atrocious. Random reboots, dying batteries, malfunctioning chargers, wireless that wouldn't connect under bootcamp and an optical drive that required prying a second disc half way in to be able to eject the first disc.
On the topic of the article, Vista drivers work fine, but one thing I did not appreciate was having to (though easily) find a work around to Apple's arbitrary restriction on limiting the installation of x64 drivers to the macbook pros. Not sure what the stupid rationale would've been for that as the drivers work fine and nobody would've chosen to buy a macbook pro just to run Windows x64
Re:Why bother? (Score:2, Informative)
An another note: It also was more expensive than two of the second-most powerful one. ;))
Re:Why do you eschew choice? (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking as a former repair tech that still gets the 'honor' of fixing other people's broken new-model macbooks, I'll just say "Look at the actual board vendors." Apple hasn't realy "MADE" their own hardware in years. They just say what hardware they want and let the board makers pack it on and make it work.
Fuck that noise, you're better off trying to piece your own system together. In fact, many companies exist to do just that for you, nowdays, with discrete powerful MXM graphics that you can upgrade. Barebones laptops FTW. And you'll still get a comparable system for about 1/3 as much.
Re:Stop with the "Better quality hardware" (Score:3, Informative)
Not even close, at least not for the Mac Pro (which I considered for a while until the price realization came).
The 8-core Mac Pro base sells for $3299 [apple.com]. I tried to duplicate the hardware, but unfortunately you can't buy some of it at most stores any more as it's older (i.e., nobody sells it anymore because it's junk compared to current hardware).
So, for less than $2100, you can far exceed the specs on the $3300 Mac Pro, and these are nowhere near the lowest prices on this hardware...it's just that Newegg carries everything and their search is very good.
MAC HAS DISABLED WINDOWS 7 64 BIT IN OSX (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The Vista drivers work fine (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why do you eschew choice? (Score:3, Informative)
You're also ignoring the fact that you have to re-open any files, programs, and possibly websites that were open. Not only does that take time, but it's also a pain to keep track of everything. Hibernate is wonderful, but you'll never even give it credibility because it's the evil Windows that uses it (yes, I realize Linux has it too, but I've yet to see a Linux system wake from sleep or hibernate - I love Linux, but that's always been a problem on every Linux system I've used).
Besides - 2 minutes? My POS laptop can wake from hibernate to everything working perfectly in Win 7 in under a minute. My desktop is even faster.
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
"A new Mac mini goes for $599 and a MacBook is $999. This is hardly "house and children" figures. Pick a reasonable Mac then go to Dell and spec out a similar machine. The PC prices will be in a close neighborhood."
Ok I'll take that challenge. Im Canadian so priced in CAD.
$649 Mac Mini: http://store.apple.com/ca/configure/MC238LL/A?mco=MTM3NTAwOTE [apple.com]
2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x1GB
160GB Serial ATA Drive
$409 Dell Inspiron http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=di545s_r_1e&c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&kc=desktop-inspiron-545s [dell.com]
2.4Ghz Intel E2220
2GB Ram
320GB HD
The dell also gets you a mouse and keyboard for $140 less. Upgrade any of the parts and you save more versus the apple.
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
Did some ore playing to match the specs better.
$1,132.00 Mac Mini: http://store.apple.com/ca/configure/MC238LL/A?mco=MTM3NTAwOTE [apple.com]
2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Apple Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
$559 Dell Inspiron: http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=di545s_r_1e&c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&kc=desktop-inspiron-545s [dell.com]
Intel® Core(TM) 2 Duo E7300 (3MB L2, 2.66GHz, 1066FSB)
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2 DIMMs
320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache(TM)
Dell Mouse / Keyboard
No, actually, they're not (Score:3, Informative)
"The PC prices will be in a close neighborhood."
This hasn't been true for 5 years, and gets less true every day.
It fun to watch you people get modded up for something that is, essentially, an easily disproven lie.
Says to guy who got proven a liar (you) (Score:1, Informative)
"Way to spread FUD."
You mean like the "The PC prices will be in a close neighborhood." FUD that HybridJeff already proved was total bullshit?
Why do you insist on pretending your lie is anything else, or even worse, accuse others of dishonesty when you've been proven to be a liar?
Re:Why do you eschew choice? (Score:5, Informative)
They already did-- but they call it "safe sleep," and it's not easily accessible from the System Preferences.
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/pmset.1.html [apple.com]
http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html [www.jinx.de]
Re:The Vista drivers work fine (Score:4, Informative)
You are correct in that the OEM drivers built into Windows 7 do not support Apple hardware.
Just install the drivers off the OS X DVD into Windows 7 and all that hardware will work.
If your complaint is the drivers are not built into Win7, then you are complaining at the wrong company. Apple does not make Windows 7...
Re:The Vista drivers work fine (Score:2, Informative)
That's "usually" the OS turning off power to the device to save electricity.
You can disable that via the Conrol Panel applet called System, then go to Device Manager (probably a link in the left panel), select Mice and other pointing devices, click on the mouse listed, then on the Power Management tab. Should be a checkbox there you can clear out.
UAC will probably rear it's ugly head when you first invoke the System applet, and possibly when you make a change and hit Apply/OK.
We won't even get into the issues you might get if your mouse was assigned the same IRQ and DMA range as your SATA controller (It isn't pretty).
Re:Stop with the "Better quality hardware" (Score:3, Informative)
The list of complete models must be limited, or you get the chaos of half-assed support and conflicting drivers which exists in the Windows world. Apple has a reputation for ease of use, and part of the reason for that is having very specific models with very specific parts designed to work together. Once you open the gates to allow anyone to put just anything they want in the machine, you have support issues. It's a closed product with limited options. If Apple products don't suit you, don't use them. Simple as that. But you come across as a maligned Apple-hater when you could just say "Meh, not for me" instead. I would expect better from someone with a low ID.
the grand parent post purpose is to specifically shows that "better quality" as in "apple form" does not have to be as expensive as apple hardware. To that extent, the post is extremely spot-on