[cold aspiration]

So I am new to this boot camp experience and am awaiting my MBP. While thats on its way, I want to prepare for installing boot camp on it. I know all the obvious positives to it, however, what are some of the drawbacks to installing boot camp (despite the obvious one of deleting OS X system fils on accident). ?

I read somewhere that apple does not offer ANY tech support for computers that have installed Boot Camp since it is beta .. "a windows virus could have screwed it up." Is this true?

I have my old Windows XP disc but how do I know what version service pack that I have? Everywhere, it says that I need XP with SP2. How do I check?

I know this must all sound a pretty noobish but I can't find anything that explains these things. Thanks for the help

[Jeff Lebowski]

Your Windows partition won't mess with your OS X partition. Any viruses you get on XP will effect XP, and will not effect OS X.

[mduell]

A really nasty virus could just start going batshit on random parts of the disk, which certainly could harm the OSX partition (even if it can't read the HFS partition).

[ghporter]

Mduell is right-you MUST use a good antivirus on ANY Windows installation.

Depending on how old your XP disc is, it may or may not have SP2. Read the thread about slipstreaming to learn about a tool called "nlite." It will be able to tell you what version your XP disc has. If it doesn't have SP2 you can download the service pack here. Then you can use nlite to slipstream it into a bootable full install disc. This assumes you have access to a Windows computer, of course...

[stwain2003]

Let me tell you this folks. A virus is a virus is a virus. A Virus will find a way to your OSX partion because it's on the same HDD as the Windows partition. Trust me...

[Tomchu]

You don't need AV on Windows if you're smart and careful.

I haven't run AV in Windows since uhh ... 1995, and I've never had a Windows virus.

[Photo678]

Originally Posted by Tomchu

You don't need AV on Windows if you're smart and careful.

I haven't run AV in Windows since uhh ... 1995, and I've never had a Windows virus.

I second that.....i never run AV on my windows computers as i need all the performance i can get, and have never had a virus........as stated, you just need to be aware of what you are downloading and installing

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Photo678

I second that.....i never run AV on my windows computers as i need all the performance i can get, and have never had a virus........as stated, you just need to be aware of what you are downloading and installing

Ah yes. Let me rephrase my sentence: If you're not stupid, then your OS X partition won't get a virus.

[cold aspiration]

hahah thanks guys. But what about the techinical details like does apple really refuse technical support just for using boot camp?

[Macola]

Originally Posted by cold aspiration

hahah thanks guys. But what about the techinical details like does apple really refuse technical support just for using boot camp?

Well, Apple won't support Windows--why should they? But they're bound by the terms of the warranty to support the Mac itself. Now, if you take a sledgehammer to your Mac as a result of extreme frustration from using Windows, there's not much that Apple will do to help

[ghporter]

Apple doesn't provide technical support for Boot Camp because it's beta software-you use it at your own risk. But beyond that, all it does is provide a partition on your Mac's hard drive for you to install Windows XP, and the mechanism for you to dual boot with an OS that doesn't use the same boot mechanism as OS X. What's to support-it's like you're installing XP on a new, fast PC (except with better styling and a better OS, and... well you get the idea).

Apple won't provide tech support for Boot Camp issues, but unless you goober up the Mac partition on that drive, they shouldn't have any problems with providing Mac support.