Mac Switcher

It’s official! Now you can install Microsoft Windows XP on Apple Macs!

Apple officially released a beta version of Boot Camp which enable dual boot Windows XP and Mac OS X on Intel-based Macs. Don’t need to use the Intel Mac Hack anymore.

Boot Camp Public Beta is available for download now. The file size is 83MB. Boot Camp will also be included in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard.

Requirements

Before you can install Windows XP on Macs, you need to satisfy the following requirements:

• Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.6
• Latest Firmware update
• 10GB free had disk space
• Intel-based Mac (see the list at end of post)
• Blank CDR
• Single disk, full version of Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 installation CD

Installation

The Boot Camp will burn a CD with the drivers Windows needs to recognize Mac-specific hardware. Then, it will create a partition on your had disk for the windows installation, without modify any Mac files.

After that, insert Windows installation disk and start the installation as normal. You will need to insert the previously burned driver CD to install Macs hardware in Windows.

Switching between Windows and Mac OS X

There are several ways to select which OS to load on startup.

• Press and hold the Option key on start up. You will get two disk icons (Windows and Macintosh HD) and select the one you want to use.

  

• In Mac OS X, you will get a new “Startup Disk” icon in “System Preferences“, where you can select the operating system that you want to use as default.

  

• Also, in Windows, you can do the same from the “Startup Disk” in “Control Panel“.

  

Related Boot Camp links

• PCWorld.com - Q&A: What You Should Know About Macs Running Windows
• Apple Boot Camp (beta) Reviews. Windows Reviews by CNET.
• Security Watch: Windows security on your Mac - CNET reviews
• Macworld: First Look: From the Lab: XP-on-Mac benchmarks

List of Intel-based Macs:

• Apple MacBook Pro
• Apple iMac Desktop
• Apple Mac mini

Technorati Tags: bootcamp, boot camp, windows, microsoft, apple, mac, macs, osx

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 14th, 2006 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Software, Mac OS X. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.