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mrmister · Mar 10, 2006, 01:14 AM

"Microsoft revealed today that it will not support EFI booting for Windows Vista on its launch. The news will be a shock for owners of Intel Macs who had hoped they would be able to dual-boot between Windows Vista and OS X. Intel Macs only support booting via EFI."

http://apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/E666E...25712C008166C4

It's a huge issue...and/or a huge opportunity for some *incredibly* talented bootloader programmer. But it means no Vista/OS X dual booting for the forseeable future.

ryanbrown345 · Mar 10, 2006, 01:27 AM

Originally Posted by mrmister

"Microsoft revealed today that it will not support EFI booting for Windows Vista on its launch. The news will be a shock for owners of Intel Macs who had hoped they would be able to dual-boot between Windows Vista and OS X. Intel Macs only support booting via EFI."

http://apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/E666E...25712C008166C4

It's a huge issue...and/or a huge opportunity for some *incredibly* talented bootloader programmer. But it means no Vista/OS X dual booting for the forseeable future.

Big Mac · Mar 10, 2006, 01:41 AM

Nice.

TheBum · Mar 10, 2006, 01:42 AM

This will lend a whole new meaning to the "MacBook Pro whine" once the accusations start flying.

mduell · Mar 10, 2006, 01:44 AM

Andrew Ritz also revealed that there will never be any support for booting Windows via EFI on systems with 32-bit processors.

After all those times I asked "Why do you want 64-bit in a laptop", now I have my answer.

851 days until I order my 64-bit MacBook Pro.

n8236 · Mar 10, 2006, 02:07 AM

I sure hope some talented programmer will eventually get it to work, but I don't think I will miss Windows much. The Wndows OS is far inferior imo given I've used PCs since the infancy days of the DOS Shell.

By not supporting EFI, it gives ppl another excuse not to go Apple and that's perhaps what they're doing to protect their PC market where the profit margins are bigger.

aristotles · Mar 10, 2006, 02:15 AM

This being done to protect what's left of their music market by locking people into WMP 11. MSFT is afraid that some people would relegate their OS to a games OS and run most of their productivity apps in OS X.

Morn · Mar 10, 2006, 02:24 AM

Argh, you'll need a very clever boot loader that will use a certain level of virtualization to deal with the boot up bios commands and the UGA video bios apple is using. It may take the resources of a commercial company to do this in any decent time frame.

Must be that darn Jim Allchin's doing, he was against the idea of windows running on intel macs and has a history of being against the mac business unit. Good he's retiring soon.

Abbas · Mar 10, 2006, 03:05 AM

I guess I wont be getting a Mac notebook anytime soon now. Although I love OSX there are a few mission critical apps for me that arent avaiable on OSX and I NEED to have Windows to work with them.

-a

Morn · Mar 10, 2006, 03:45 AM

Well QEMU will certainly run it much faster than virtual pc on a powerbook...... If the apps don't require speed it'll be fine.

Yawn · Mar 10, 2006, 05:29 AM

Duh, who friggin cares? If you wanna screw yourself with Windows, just buy a generic cheap PC.

Peabo · Mar 10, 2006, 05:33 AM

They've already managed to get Vista to boot. They just need VGA support (I think) otherwise the screen remains blank. Just because Vista doesn't support it, doesn't mean it can't be hacked.

Morn · Mar 10, 2006, 05:39 AM

Originally Posted by Yawn

Duh, who friggin cares? If you wanna screw yourself with Windows, just buy a generic cheap PC.

Why should you have to buy 2 seperate things when one device could do both.

Abbas · Mar 10, 2006, 05:45 AM

I really dont mind having two desktops but you cant carry two notebooks every time you travel!

-a

D'Espice · Mar 10, 2006, 05:57 AM

Trust me, it's just a matter of time until some hacker will figure out a way to boot Windows on Intel Macs. After all, they figured out how to boot OS X on non-Apple hardware. Give it some time and relax

n8236 · Mar 10, 2006, 06:44 AM

Originally Posted by D'Espice

Trust me, it's just a matter of time until some hacker will figure out a way to boot Windows on Intel Macs. After all, they figured out how to boot OS X on non-Apple hardware. Give it some time and relax

I concur.

Though I am quite disappointed MS didn't take the plunge to evolve the computer, freakin' @ssholes.

Big Mac · Mar 10, 2006, 07:23 AM

As I said in the Lounge thread, this may be the nicest thing M$ has ever done for Apple.

WOPR · Mar 10, 2006, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by Morn

Why should you have to buy 2 seperate things when one device could do both.

Exactly. I resent having to buy a George Foreman Grill AND a lawnmower, there should be a device that does both!

Eriamjh · Mar 10, 2006, 08:02 AM

Apple and microsoft must be colluding!

I guess this means that Virtual PC will probably be out before Vista can boot a Mac.

Maflynn · Mar 10, 2006, 08:12 AM

Should this surprise anyone - MS continues to over promise and under deliver on its products. They continaully shave off features more so as the deadlines are missed.

My question now is (and its sincere) what exactly is so new in vista. Its years behind schedule and they've dropped a lot of the sexy new features such as using a new file system, I forget the specifics but where n't they going to sql as the engine to drive their new file system which would greatly enhance searches?

Morn · Mar 10, 2006, 08:26 AM

When have they ever, MS is a bunch of conservative thinkers.

Skeptik · Mar 10, 2006, 10:45 AM

It doesn't sound like an afterthought to me. Was someone keeping quiet about this until Apple sold their new Intel Macs?

TheBum · Mar 10, 2006, 10:51 AM

The irony is that Microsoft is one of the architects of EFI. I find it funny that they're not supporting their own co-invention considering how they like to shove their other technologies down people's throats.

bcaslis · Mar 10, 2006, 10:59 AM

This truely stinks. Why was Apple saying up until now that they wouldn't do anything to stop Windows from running if they knew it wasn't going to work! Of course they don't announce this until they've already shipped my MacBook Pro and it's in transit. I have no interest in Windows by itself but I wanted it for compatibility with new devices that either are never supported on the Mac or take a year to get support after release.

Maflynn · Mar 10, 2006, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by bcaslis

Why was Apple saying up until now that they wouldn't do anything to stop Windows from running if they knew it wasn't going to work!

Steve Jobs said when they mentioned the platform shift that they would not stop another OS from running. That doesn't mean they would condone or provide tools to allow this. Since MS just announced this latest feature drop I don't think apple knew about it

Mike

aristotles · Mar 10, 2006, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by Abbas

I guess I wont be getting a Mac notebook anytime soon now. Although I love OSX there are a few mission critical apps for me that arent avaiable on OSX and I NEED to have Windows to work with them.

-a

mission critical apps.... right...... you mean games don't you?

Applications will run fine in a virtual environment like QEMU or VMWare assuming it gets ported to OS X.

Alternatively, you could dual boot to linux and run VMWare there.

aristotles · Mar 10, 2006, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by bcaslis

This truely stinks. Why was Apple saying up until now that they wouldn't do anything to stop Windows from running if they knew it wasn't going to work! Of course they don't announce this until they've already shipped my MacBook Pro and it's in transit. I have no interest in Windows by itself but I wanted it for compatibility with new devices that either are never supported on the Mac or take a year to get support after release.

Show me where Apple said anything that they would officially support windows. All they said was that they would not prevent anyone from running windows.

I believe a week ago, someone from Apple said they would not prevent anyone from running windows in a virtual environment. Everyone knew XP would never work but even people inside MSFT were hinting that Vista would support EFI for all processor. I guess they lied on their blogs.

Yeah, Apple announced it now after your mbp shipped just to screw you over.

You do realize that you can run windows in a virtual environment don't you?

aristotles · Mar 10, 2006, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

As I said in the Lounge thread, this may be the nicest thing M$ has ever done for Apple.

Your such a bloody zealot aren't you.

tooki · Mar 10, 2006, 12:18 PM

MS has already said that they will be producing a native-for-Mactel version of Virtual PC. Since it'll be a Classic-like virtual machine*, not an emulator, it'll run Windows at essentially native speed. This should be more than enough for most users, especially if MS is smart and patches through DirectX to the GPU somehow.

Another option for the average user will be DarWINE, which lets Windows apps run without having to run a copy of Windows.

tooki

*This is how the Windows version of Virtual PC works.

jamil5454 · Mar 10, 2006, 12:22 PM

Originally Posted by TheBum

The irony is that Microsoft is one of the architects of EFI. I find it funny that they're not supporting their own co-invention considering how they like to shove their other technologies down people's throats.

There's a possibility Microsoft is doing this to spite Apple users.

Chuckit · Mar 10, 2006, 12:27 PM

Cutting off their nose, you mean?

Maflynn · Mar 10, 2006, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

MS has already said that they will be producing a native-for-Mactel version of Virtual PC.

I think they said they're evaluating such a product not committing to such a release. I think the odds are more likely that vista will get EFI before we see VPC.

Linky

olePigeon · Mar 10, 2006, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by WOPR

Exactly. I resent having to buy a George Foreman Grill AND a lawnmower, there should be a device that does both!

A lawnmower that dices small rodents and other furry critters, then throws them on a self contained George Foreman Grill. It's brilliant!

Dakar · Mar 10, 2006, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Cutting off their nose, you mean?

I doubt it. Most people who would modify their mac to run windows would probably use a bootleg copy of XP.

Millennium · Mar 10, 2006, 12:48 PM

True dual-booting may not be possible, but that's far from the only solution when you need two operating systems. A hardware virtualizer such as VMWare should do the trick nicely, and at full speed since there's no need for emulation. You'd need to emulate the BIOS, but this should be much easier to do inside an app as opposed to trying to emulate it in a bootloader.

hemant · Mar 10, 2006, 01:00 PM

I think they might release a version of Vista (priced at a premium) just for the MacTel machines. I dont see why they wont jump on the oppertunity to capture the MacTel market.

goMac · Mar 10, 2006, 01:28 PM

The are already software BIOS's being used to boot Linux on the Intel Macs. Its only a matter of time before one of these software BIOS's adds Windows support.

bcaslis · Mar 10, 2006, 02:14 PM

I never said Apple committed to running Windows. However, if someone at Apple already knew there were technical issues with running Windows then they should just say that and not this "well, we won't do anything to stop it" line.

Really, you know of an emulator that will run Windows on a MacBook Pro? If so you are the only one who knows this, please share the product with us. People are trying to get this running but haven't succeeded yet.

Originally Posted by aristotles

Show me where Apple said anything that they would officially support windows. All they said was that they would not prevent anyone from running windows.

I believe a week ago, someone from Apple said they would not prevent anyone from running windows in a virtual environment. Everyone knew XP would never work but even people inside MSFT were hinting that Vista would support EFI for all processor. I guess they lied on their blogs.

Yeah, Apple announced it now after your mbp shipped just to screw you over.

You do realize that you can run windows in a virtual environment don't you?

Dog Like Nature · Mar 10, 2006, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by bcaslis

Really, you know of an emulator that will run Windows on a MacBook Pro? If so you are the only one who knows this, please share the product with us.

Have you tried Q?

mduell · Mar 10, 2006, 02:56 PM

Here's another take: Given that Apple is the only one mandating EFI with 32-bit chips, is it really any surprise that MS isn't supporting it?
EFI is already supported in all MS's 64-bit OSs (XP x64, 2003 x64, 2003 IA64) and will be support in Vista x64; is enabling and testing EFI support for 32-bit machines worth the effort for such a small slice of the market (Mac owners who want to boot Windows)? Microsoft says no.

mduell · Mar 10, 2006, 02:57 PM

Here's another take: Given that Apple is the only one mandating EFI with 32-bit chips, is it really any surprise that MS isn't supporting it?
EFI is already supported in all MS's 64-bit OSs (XP x64, 2003 x64, 2003 IA64) and will be support in Vista x64; is enabling and testing EFI support for 32-bit machines worth the effort for such a small slice of the market (Mac owners who want to boot Windows)? Microsoft says no.

Millennium · Mar 10, 2006, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

The are already software BIOS's being used to boot Linux on the Intel Macs. Its only a matter of time before one of these software BIOS's adds Windows support.

That's not a BIOS emulator, though: it's a new bootloader.

Ken_F2 · Mar 10, 2006, 04:39 PM

EFI support is coming in the 64-bit version of Windows Vista in 2H 2007.

Beginning in August, all Macs should feature 64-bit chips.

Chuckit · Mar 10, 2006, 05:10 PM

You reckon the mini will feature a 64-bit chip?

mrmister · Mar 10, 2006, 05:16 PM

Who the hell moved my thread to the LOUNGE, of all places? Maybe it wasn't MBP specific enough--but the LOUNGE? WTF?

tooki · Mar 10, 2006, 05:48 PM

This isn't MBP-specific at all. At the moment, the Lounge is the most generic place for this kind of thing, and where such discussions have traditionally taken place.

tooki

Eriamjh · Mar 10, 2006, 08:42 PM

Actually, I think this MS announcement is great. The nerds have failed so far regarding getting windows to boot on mactels. Initially, I thought that Windows would be booting on these suckers within a month, but this EFI thing has stumped them all.

Obviously, no other company is using EFI. Dell, Gateway, et. al are not wasting any money putting EFI on their machines and MS is not spending a penny on it either. Apple is ahead of the competition and no one is even trying to catch up.

I know don't expect windows to be running on a Mac for another 6+ months.

Eug Wanker · Mar 10, 2006, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

You reckon the mini will feature a 64-bit chip?

2007 maybe, but I'd be surprised if it went 64-bit in August 2006.

Then again, I was surprised it went dual-core...

goMac · Mar 10, 2006, 10:30 PM

Hackers have Windows XP almost booting on an iMac DC (so far they've got the installer completely working, which is based on the NT kernel).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32436196@N00

Eug Wanker · Mar 10, 2006, 10:36 PM

I wonder how much of a MacBook Pro or an iMac would require custom drivers, even if Vista did boot.

Anyways, I wouldn't hold my breath for Vista on a 32-bit Intel Mac. And even if it does somehow happen, If it takes any hacker-type fenagling, it just may not be worth it.