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ghporter · Oct 4, 2007 , 08:59 PM

WEP is poo. On a stick. It's really awful-so insecure that anyone can download a tool and begin cracking your traffic within minutes. Really that bad. Now there are a few things about WEP that Macs do differently from PCs. For some reason, Apple decided to "make things easy on users," and handle WEP key input differently from the rest of the industry. Everyone else interprets input as hexadecimal by default, but not Apple. AirPort devices interpret input as plain text by default. You let the AirPort device know you want the input interpreted as hex by prepending a '$' to the input. THIS may be your problem. If you're adding the '$' at the beginning of the key as you enter it in Windows, it will be wrong. Windows handles keys as hex by default and any character other than 0-9, a-f (or A-F) is invalid and the whole input is ignored. Try entering the WEP key with just the hex characters and see if you can connect.

Then start looking at upgrading or updating to use WPA, which is quite secure.

lucky777s · Oct 11, 2007 , 08:17 AM

Hi all,

the equipment:
iMac 24 white, bootcamp 1.4 beta, OSX 10.4.10, 2GB ram, 25GB partition created

I burned a CD of XP sp2 from an ISO file in Disk Utility app.

Bootcamp recognizes the CD and reboots. I get the windows dos screen where it lists options to choose from but cannot choose anything with my arrow keys and that screen quickly disappears and sends me to a blank black screen where it says starting BCDW ..ok with a command prompt blinking below.
Have to do a hard reboot with the power button on the back of the imac and hold option to get mac osx back.

Is this the usb keyboard issue? Or is it looking for the Mac drivers? I am guessing that BCDW stands for BootCampDriversWrite? or something. Can't find any mention of this anywhere. Is it just a bad CD?

Any help is appreciated. tia

ghporter · Oct 11, 2007 , 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by lucky777s

Hi all,

the equipment:
iMac 24 white, bootcamp 1.4 beta, OSX 10.4.10, 2GB ram, 25GB partition created

I burned a CD of XP sp2 from an ISO file in Disk Utility app.

Bootcamp recognizes the CD and reboots. I get the windows dos screen where it lists options to choose from but cannot choose anything with my arrow keys and that screen quickly disappears and sends me to a blank black screen where it says starting BCDW ..ok with a command prompt blinking below.
Have to do a hard reboot with the power button on the back of the imac and hold option to get mac osx back.

Is this the usb keyboard issue? Or is it looking for the Mac drivers? I am guessing that BCDW stands for BootCampDriversWrite? or something. Can't find any mention of this anywhere. Is it just a bad CD?

Any help is appreciated. tia

Where did you get the ISO file? It certainly doesn't sound like you have a "legitimate" copy of Windows from the way you describe it. BCDW doesn't ring a bell with me either. It sounds very much like you have a corrupt version of XP-maybe it was messed with before the ISO was created. The Windows installer is able to see a Mac keyboard and mouse with no problems at all, which also makes me believe that what you have is not kosher.

Finally, we certainly don't support pirating anyone's software. It's possible to buy XP for a reasonable price (significantly less than the cost of OS X) and thus be legit and honest-and get the support you may need when real problems with Windows might crop up. Bogus copies of Windows will cause you all sorts of problems, from not being able to install crucial updates to having your data corrupted by some jokester who provided a hacked ISO to you just so he could mess with you.

lucky777s · Oct 11, 2007 , 09:23 AM

I have my legit cd key, but never had a full install disk from the PC maker. It wouldn't have been SP2 anyway. I updated that much later.

The iso is from a friend and I would just use my own cd key. Don't see the problem. May not be technically allowed, but I don't see why I should buy a fresh copy when I have already bought the os once.

lucky777s · Oct 11, 2007 , 03:55 PM

Did some searching for this 'starting BCDW..ok' line I am getting. Seems it stands for some pc burning method for iso's. Bootable CD Wizard. Have to ask my friend how he made this iso. If noone else is seeing this screen then there must be something in the way he burned the iso because all I did was use Disk Utility to burn that iso to CD.

As for my keyboard being recognized I don't think that is the case. I can't eject the cd or enter anything at the command prompt or select any partition when that screen does appear for a brief time.

ghporter · Oct 11, 2007 , 06:00 PM

It's better to slipstream your original XP disc with SP2-check out the sticky thread at the top of the forum for details. It's painless, fairly easy, and you'd be using your own disc, reducing the potential ethical issues to almost nil...

bentoon · Oct 26, 2007 , 03:26 PM

I am installing Leopard right now on my macbook pro
should I XP or Vista?
I hear all different things

(I use writing = finalDraft, scriptware,
& 3D = games, 3Dstudio max, Virtools)

Thanks,
B

ghporter · Oct 26, 2007 , 08:07 PM

XP as far as I'm concerned. Smaller, easier to get, cheaper, apparently more stable, WAY more working drivers...and it's not the resource hog Vista is, either. Personal opinion, just my 2¢ worth...

danbrew · Oct 26, 2007 , 08:57 PM

Without question, Vista. Been running Vista ultimate with Bootcamp and a MacPro for months and it is rock solid. Had previously installed XP Pro and had driver issues with the MacPro hardware.

mizer357 · Nov 3, 2007 , 02:00 AM

found this forum when this thread came up in a search:
http://forums.macnn.com/104/alternat...sues-power-xp/

i'm currently on a 17" mbp, running tiger 10.4.9, boot camp 1.4 beta, and xp sp2. i'm a fairly saavy, long-time windows user, and moved to the intel mac for it's ability to run mac OS and windows natively. initially i was thrilled, but now i'm a little worried. i've been experiencing cpu spikes while the computer is completely idle when windows is left on for longer periods of time. processor usage goes near or all the way to 100% and the machine eventually becomes completely unresponsive. this is repeatable, as it's happened every time i've left windows on overnight, and sometimes occurs only a few hours after booting up. the behavior also reared its ugly head a couple of times on-site with clients, which really doesn't work for me. the thread linked above is the only one i've been able to find on the web that says anything useful on the matter. the only foolproof way for me to keep windows on for extended periods without a problem is to physically remove the battery and run on AC power. as mentioned in the thread linked above, the battery, in some way, seems to be the culprit.

my question is in three parts:

1) is this issue present on your macbook or mbp? the question is primarily directed towards people who use windows on their mbp's for extended periods of time (at least a full day's worth of work). i'm trying to figure out of if it's possibly a widespread issue or just a configuration bust on isolated machines.

2) if so, is anyone aware of a solid fix besides physically removing the battery? booting into mac os first, disabling the acpi battery driver, installing the microsoft hotfix, or reinstalling the boot camp drivers work for the short-term in one way or another but don't really seem to "fix" the problem.

3) are leopard users running the "final" release of bootcamp with XP experiencing this problem? again, looking for responses from users who keep windows up for a little while.

thanks for the help.

ghporter · Nov 3, 2007 , 08:50 AM

I don't use Windows that much anymore-I have OS X to handle all my mundane tasks (admittedly not too many or too taxing-mostly Word and Excel plus browsing). But I haven't seen anything mentioned that's specific to running Windows for long periods as opposed to just running Windows for a while. In other words, I don't see what you're experiencing as a "widespread issue."

Are you running the latest drivers? That should help a lot-especially if you have updated your battery's firmware as well. It doesn't really look like the battery as much as the interaction of the battery and the computer's battery manager that's at fault-and of course only in the Windows context.

Again, since I don't see this as "widespread" I don't think any Leopard users are really having problems like this-they'd have posted them here by now!

mizer357 · Nov 4, 2007 , 11:52 PM

thanks for the response ghporter. after making sure all my drivers were updated, i'm still experiencing the problem. i'm going to have to try the leopard upgrade at some point. booting into mac os first, or removing the battery and running on ac should keep the problem at bay in the meantime.

smithy · Jan 20, 2008 , 07:23 AM

I was wondering if anyone else had a problem with XP crashing in Bootcamp when you I was wondering if anyone else had a problem with XP crashing in Bootcamp when you use Fn+F2 to decrease the screen brightness? It used to happen a lot in Bootcamp 1 .2 with the brightness slider thing but still happens sometimes now I've the Bc 2.0 drivers in. Only happens on dimming the screen, not brightening.

I'm pretty sure it boots up again, but then screen doesn't come on so needs to be switched off and on again....pain in the arse.decrease the screen brightness? It used to happen a lot in Bootcamp 1 .2 with the brightness slider thing but still happens sometimes now I've the Bc 2.0 drivers in. Only happens on dimming the screen, not brightening.

I'm pretty sure it boots up again, but then screen doesn't come on so needs to be switched off and on again....pain in the arse.

cheers,
Smithy