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Apple Boot Camp brings Windows XP to your Mac |
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Written by Eric Watt
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Apr 05, 2006 at 06:21 PM |
With Boot Camp, Apple provides a user-friendly method to install Windows XP on your Intel based Mac. Now you can run all three major operating systems on one computer.
With the recent switch to Intel processors, people have been trying to get Windows XP to install on their Mac computers. Due to some slight differences beyond the processor, this has not been easy. A recent solution was found which allowed the installation of Windows XP onto an Intel iMac, but the methods used were not ideal. The process required many changes to the installation files, and many devices were not supported due to driver conflicts. The complexity of the solution made it usable by only the most savvy of computer users.
All that has changed now that Apple has released a method to install Windows XP SP2 onto your Intel-based Mac. Called Boot Camp, the new software will be included with the next major release of Mac OS X, but can currently be downloaded from Apple as a public beta. The software appears to be much more user-friendly, providing a CD with all necessary drivers and a very user friendly partitioning function to prepare your computer for Windows. The program does require you to own a full installation copy of Windows XP SP2, so any upgrade versions you own will not work. For a full list of requirements, visit the above link.
Given the large install base of Windows computers, one of the largest barriers to greater market penetration for Apple was the need to run current software, much of which is written for Windows. Previous methods to address the issue of interoperability used virtualization software, which tends to run much slower than native code. With Apple Boot Camp, newly purchased Intel Mac computers can run all 3 of the major operating systems, making Apple a much more attractive purchase option. Now, where did I put my credit card...
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