Windows on an Intel Macintosh - some thoughts and a first look
reviewed by Ted Bade
Most dedicated Mac users have at one time or another wanted to run a program that is only available for Windows. It might be a silly game, a utility program that would appeal only to some people, or piece of specialty software. It’s not that we are dissatisfied with what is available for Mac OS X, but there is a special little need, interest, or curiosity.
Up until Apple released the Intel-based Macs, there were very limited options. You could purchase a Windows-based machine and use it for those special needs, but that solution was for people willing to part with the cash for the hardware and who had a place to put it. Emulation programs, such as Virtual PC were another solution. They are a lot cheaper then hardware, but you always get a speed hit with emulation. Programs run dreadfully slow; don’t even try to play a game in emulation! But it was good enough for many purposes.
When Apple announced the Intel-based Macs, many people realized that getting Windows and thus Windows-based applications to run on these new machines was a possibility. A person with an Intel Mac would have the best of both worlds. You could live and work in the safe and easy to use Macintosh environment, with the ability to run those specialty apps when needed. But because this wasn’t emulation, but actual hardware, you don’t get the emulation speed hit. Also, since you were going to buy a new Mac anyway, there is no cost of extra hardware to consider. What could be a better solution?
There are a lot of things that make Windows a less-than-optimal OS for computers. That’s why I use a Mac. One of the more significant items is all the malicious software that is rampant on the Internet. I don’t recall the exact number, but I hear a PC (running Windows) connected to the Internet has only to wait a matter of hours before some form of malicious software finds it way onto it. Mac users are complacent about these things, because none affect the Macintosh at this time and many Mac users feel that Mac OS X is significantly safer in these regards than Windows.
This means Mac users who consider using some form of Windows on their Intel Macs need to educate themselves on dealing with malicious software. Since the PC side and the Mac side share the same hardware, it is conceivable that malicious software could damage the Mac side along with the PC side. I have thought a lot about this and have come up with a couple of ideas I think will help reduce the problems.
First of all, unless what you need to run on the Windows side requires using the Internet, turn it off in Windows. If you need to download a file or a piece of software, do it using your Mac OS X programs, then transfer the file over. Also, don’t use the Windows side for email or significant web usage. Software is often transferred via email attachments and is known to use your address book to pass itself along to you friends. The virus cannot use an address book that is empty.
If you want to add programs to your PC side that will help with malicious software, consider checking out what your ISP offers. Many large ISPs offer a version of protective software to their Windows-based customers for free. If you are only using the Windows side casually on the Internet, these products may do very well for you.
Getting Windows to run on an Intel-based Mac should be a no-brainer, correct? The processor is already supported. However, there is on major problem and this is why you need a solution to run Windows (or some other foreign OS), on your Mac. It all has to do with how your Mac communicates with its hardware.
If you are familiar with computers, you have probably heard the term BIOS. This is the name of the chip that interfaces hardware to the CPU. Intel developed a newer more efficient type of chip called EFI (http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/). Apple, of course, embraced this new technology when they decided to use Intel chips. Microsoft Windows expects to see a BIOS chip, and won’t work unless there is one. Originally, Microsoft’s new OS, called Vista, was going to use the EFI chips, but they decided to stick with BIOS at the last minute. As it is so eloquently said on the Apple website about the BIOS:
EFI and BIOS
Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries. (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/)
So before you can get any version of Windows to run on an Intel Mac, you need to solve this issue. Right after the release of the Intel Macs a contest was created to get someone to figure out how to do this. The first solution to doing this was a bit involved and required significant knowledge on the part of the user. But it worked. A few “How To” web sites were created to help. http://www.macworld.com/2006/03/firstlooks/xpmini/index.php Another site has a video on how to do it: http://features.uneasysilence.com/mactel/
Another solution is a software package named Wine. This package was produced originally for the Linux community to allow them to run applications that required Windows on their Intel Linux machines. There is a group of people modifying this package to work on Intel Macs under Mac OS X. I took a look at where it stands and it is really still in development. If you are willing to deal with early versions, you can play with what they have so far, but I don’t think it really works yet. Check out the Darwine (Darwin Wine) web site: http://darwine.opendarwin.org/ I think this solution would be really cool, when it’s finished.
Boot Camp
Then one day we woke up and noticed that Apple was announcing a product called Boot Camp. This gem of a product lets you partition your Intel Mac’s hard drive and install Window’s XP (Service Pack 2 or later) on the other partition. Your Mac works like two machines, one that is Windows and one that is Mac OS X. You don’t run both at the same time, but choose which one to boot when you start your computer.
I was impressed on how easy it was to install Boot Camp. Apple’s manual was easy to understand and the process is simple enough that just about any user could figure it out. First you partition your hard drive (so much for Mac, so much for Windows). Boot Camp software makes this easy, You use a slider to divide the total capacity of your hard drive. What is significant about this is that you don’t have to reformat the drive to do it. You can simply partition off any unused part of your hard drive for use as a Windows partition.
Next you burn a CD/DVD containing the drivers to let Windows use your Macintosh hardware features like the CD/DVD drive, Airport, Bluetooth, and so on. Insert an empty disk into the Mac, click the burn button in the Boot Camp software, and the disk pops out.
The next part is the hardest. From Boot Camp, you get your Mac to boot into the Window’s partition. It’s up to you to have a valid CD/DVD version of Windows XP Service Pack 2 to install the system. Why is this hard? Well it meant that I had to part with money to buy a copy of XP. Ugh! After that, installing XP is a long drawn out process that took well over 1/2 hour. You need to stick around to click on all the little windows that come up asking you silly questions. And, of course, you need to enter a valid Key for XP.
Once you finish the installation, the computer reboots and you are running XP on Apple hardware! Stick in the CD your burned earlier with Boot Camp and it installs the hardware drivers you need. It also installs a “StartUp Disk” control panel in Windows that acts like the Mac OS X Preference Pane of the same name. When you are in Windows (or Mac OS X for that matter), run this utility and you can immediately reboot your computer into the other OS. People who were around during the transition from Mac OS 9 to X will remember using this utility a lot while adjusting to Mac OS X.
When you boot your Mac, you can hold down the Option key. After a moment you are shown a screen that displays two hard drive icons, one labeled Mac OS X and the other Windows. Use the arrow key to select which one you want to boot into.
When you partition the hard drive, you need to choose between Fat or NTFS. Since Mac OS X recognizes Fat format, this is a better choice if you plan to move files from the Mac side to the Win side, (or the other way around), since the Fat partition will appear on your Mac’s desktop. Simply drag files or applications onto the Windows partition, and install them next time you boot into that side. I would create a directory specifically for dumping files into.
The disadvantage of Boot Camp is that you choose to run either Mac OS X or Windows. You can’t run a Windows application in the background while your work on something using Mac OS X. The advantage of Boot Camp is that all the hardware resources of your Mac are available for whichever side you use. Which means it is better for memory or power hungry applications.
Parallels Workstation
Another ready to go solution is called Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X (http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/0). This application uses a process called Virtualization that allows your Macintosh to run more than one virtual machine along with Mac OS X. Obviously this solution would tax your Mac’s RAM and resources. However, it means that you can run a Windows Application at the same time as a Mac OS X application.
I tried out this solution as well. Right now you can download the beta version of this program for free and try it out. Installation and use of this program are no where as slick as Boot Camp, but it does work. It’s like VirtualPC but without the emulation speed hit. Another big, big advantage of this Parallels Workstation is you are not limited to only Windows XP. This program will let you install and run any version of Windows as well as other non-Microsoft Intel-based OSs, such as FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, or MS-DOS.
At the time of this review, the manual has a lot to be desired and is a bit difficult to use. It isn’t incorrect, it’s just not very clear and somewhat difficult to follow. But I expect this will be corrected as they continue to develop the beta.
To install this solution, you first run the Parallels Workstation software to create a virtual space to install the “Guest OS” into. (They coined that term and I think it is an excellent way of referring to the other OS you are using). Once this is done, you insert the CD to install the OS of choice. You can even install from a CD image rather than a real CD. I had a CD and had a bit of difficulty getting the program to let me change to using a hardware CD, then getting it to recognize the CD. It did eventually. The installation process is lengthy, and in one instance, my Mini screen went blank, either it was a crash or the screen saver came on and crashed the installation. Whatever happened, with the screen dark, I pressed they keyboard to turn the display back on and the Mac rebooted. Since I couldn’t see the screen, I have no idea what happened.
Once the installation is done, this program is pretty cool. You run the Parallels program, then choose which Virtual Machine (VM) you are going to run. If you have the resources, you can run more than one Virtual Machine at the same time!
You can run your Virtual Machine in a window or full screen. The VM interface includes controls for the VM, allowing you to stop the OS, restart the VM, control how it boots and uses various pieces of hardware. I plan to do a full review of this package when the final version is released. I am sure that most of the bugs will be worked out by then. They are constantly updating this product. For instance, it now uses the cube effect (like that of fast user switching) to switch between your guest OS and Mac OS.
As I write this article, rumors are flying on the Internet concerning what solution Apple will provide with Mac OS X 10.5 when it is released. Obviously there is the Boot Camp solution, which is quite elegant. Rumors say that Apple is considering either a Virtual Machine solution (similar to the Parallels Workstation or a solution similar to Darwine, which simply allows a Mac user to run a Windows application without having to install Windows.
For the time being, there are two real solutions. Which would be best for you? It all depends upon how you plan to use your Windows side. If you need horsepower and RAM, than the Boot Camp solution is the best. All the resources of your Macintosh are dedicated to running Windows and its application. A more casual user, who isn’t running processor or RAM intensive applications would do very well with the Parallels Workstation Virtual Machine solution. While you share your Macs’ resources between all your applications (including a significant amount given to running Windows), you can easily flip between applications, even being able to cut and paste from one environment to the other. Either solution is an excellent choice.
I hope this information has been useful to you. If you manage to try either or both yourself, please drop me a note with your experiences or concerns or visit the macCompanion Forum with your comments. This is a whole new realm for Mac users and we can all gain by sharing our experiences.
