I'm qualifying that to *here* because I'm sure *somewhere* there is someone
that has. If there is, I'd be interested in hearing why and what their
experience has been like. I'm trying to decide what my next computer is
going to be, so I'd be interested in hearing about conversion to Vista from
Mac.
My last PC was an Apple Intel iMac (17").
Once Boot Camp Assistant was released, I created a dual-boot with XP with
little trouble. In fact, Apple has made it extremely easy to dual-boot
XP or Vista with OS X (if that is what you want to do).
While it worked rather well (even being faster than most other PCs I had
previously owned), I could not use all the Apple-supplied hardware, since
Apple has yet to supply Windows drivers for all of them.
When I started using the Vista Betas, I was at first unable to install
Vista without deleting the EFI partition. With the release of Vista Beta
2, however, I was able to use the Boot Camp installer to install Vista
exactly as I installed XP. Not having Vista drivers, I was unable to use
some of the Apple Hardware.
After experimentation, I soon learned that it is no longer necessary to
have OS X installed on the HD at all, and I tried installing and running
both XP and Vista after wiping the HD, with complete success (except for
the missing Vista drivers, of course, which I was able to download (most
of them) from the Net, since most of the devices on an Intel Macintosh are
off-the-shelf anyway.
If you would like help installing either XP or Vista on an Apple Intel
PC, let me know, and I will give you my personal experience in how to do
it properly.
I personally do not care for OS X, or any Apple OS, for that matter, so I
used XP or Vista as the exclusive OSes on my iMac as soon as I found out
it was easily possible (in fact, its just as easy to install Vista or XP
as the ONLY OS on an Apple Intel Macintosh as it is to install it as the
only OS on a non-Apple PC.
Why is this possible?
Simple:
When Apple created Boot Camp Assistant, they also issued a firmware update
for the Intel Macintoshes which enables almost ANY Intel-based/BIOS-using
OS to be installed as the only OS. Since ALL newer Intel Macintoshes have
this firmware installed at the factory, it is not necessary to install
them from within OS X. This firmware update actually creates a
BIOS-Compatiblity module in the EFI chip on the Apple logicboard, which
enables BIOS-using OSes to install.
In my opinion, the Apple Intel PCs (iMacs and up) are excellent Vista or
XP hardware platforms, IF they have a minimum of 2GB installed RAM and
256MB non-shared VRAM on the video adaptor.
It will take a LITTLE work, but none of it is difficult by any means. This
mostly comprises in making sure the necessary Apple firmware updates are
installed (if your Apple Intel PC is "gen1"), and making sure the
"Macintosh Drivers for XP" disk is burnt from within OS X. It will NOT be
necessary to use BootCamp Assistant to prepare the HD IF you are
installing Windows as the ONLY OS, replacing OS X, since both the XP and
Vista installers have the necessary partitioning/formatting tools
built-in. I have not yet been able to perform an installation of either
using Retail Upgrade media. You WILL need either a "Full Retail" kit, or
a "Full OEM" kit (or in the case of Vista, a "System Builder Kit").
Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread and newsgroup
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