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Contest to Boot Windows XP on Intel Mac

condoski.com — I started a contest to get some incentive to boot Windows XP on the Intel Mac. I donated $100 of my own money and encourage anyone interested in this feature to donate as much as they are willing to pay for it. The first person in with the instructions wins the whole pot!

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 23, 2006

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  • valkraider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Lots of things could never be done. Man would never fly. Man would die if he travelled over 50mph. The iPod will never sell.

    The easiest way to get something done is to say it will never happen, and then someone will make it happen just to prove you wrong.

    I will never win the lottery.

    Seriously though, It will happen. Hell, people have ported Linux and Doom to run on just about everything except a chia pet, and I bet work is underway for that too. It will happen. The only question is when...
  • DeezKnots, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wine is being ported for OS X. I'll probably use that untill vista comes around..
  • abhibeckert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I take that back, some people who know what they're doing have tried to boot windows. But all of them said they haven't tried all the options yet.
  • bubbazanetti, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"My MacBook is shipping on the 15th of February. I told my company that we could boot Windows XP on it. I am still confident we can."

    Sounds like you will be fired soon...start sending resumes...or run a virtual XP.
  • m41ku, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've been thinking about getting some of my more technically minded friends together to tackle this challenge, and thanks to Colin I now have the real incentive to start working on this project... hopefully the donations will keep rolling in so that we can be compensated for our work.
  • buckaroo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It will happen. I've said elsewhere that I was expecting a healthy competition between those who want to boot an Intel Linux distro and Windows. As far as Windows wanting BIOS.. well hasn't Virtual PC and other emulators been giving it that for years? The rules could use a tweak:

    >> 1. Instructions must boot Windows XP, not Vista or any other version of windows.

    How about "at least boot Win XP" If someone comes up with a way to boot Win ME in
    addition, are you going to hold that against them? The more the merrier.

    >> 2. Windows must be able to coexist with Mac OS X and each system may not interfere with the operation of the other

    You should clarify this. Do you mean "one boot at a time", a la a dual boot Linux / Windows box? Or do you mean "both OS' running concurrently, a la VPC?" I think you mean the first one.


  • abhibeckert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Enough with the "it can't be done" crap. If the dev kits can boot XP, it can't be a huge amount of work to get the GM machines to boot it. No-one who knows what they're doing has had a chance to try it out. I'm all for a competition, sounds like great fun.
  • drakino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"If the dev kits can boot XP, it can't be a huge amount of work to get the GM machines to boot it."

    Well, lets see, the dev kits had a normal Intel motherboard, with a BIOS. The shipping machines use EFI. All it took to get the dev kits working was to put in the XP CD, just like any other generic x86 box. Where as Apple has a specific EFI build on the new Intel Macs that lacks any BIOS compatibility.

    I'm not saying it's impossible to boot XP on the new machines, but anything relating to the dev kits outside of OS X is unusable.
  • applekid805, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1contest done!
  • grlm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1wow! >$5k
  • moebis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We just donated $50 we're hoping to move our pc's to the Intel Mac, and if we can get XP to boot on these, even better. Ours is the link with http://www.zangani.com
  • Scott2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm interested to see it happen, although I seriously doubt I'd ever do it. Dual booting is a huge pain compared to the relatively small expense of a cheap PC and a KVM.
  • toasterweasel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Now up to $4000! This will motivate people for sure.
  • shoepal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"pique the interest."
  • DeadlyDad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You should have the dm.com link changed to an auto-redirect page that points to their homepage, so they can easily tell how many people hit their site from yours. (I know that there are /many/ ways to do this - this is just one of the easier ones.)
  • sud0n1m, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The site just received a $1000 donation from delicious monster, the guys that make the fantastic software to "Catalog, browse, and share all your books, movies, music, and video games"
    http://www.delicious-monster.com/
    The support the site has been getting is really incredible.
  • dmitrek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0~3000 dollars up to date.
  • jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Awesome, This contest will surely peak the interest of the people who are actually capable of making this work. I know that XP isn't capable of booting on an EFI system but EFI has a bios legacy mode that CAN be enabled if someone with enough talent gets interested.

    I'm poor or I'd donate, in any case I will spread the word about this contest and hope for the best. :-) I may not have an Intel mac but I sure would love to see it happen.
  • rutherfj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good luck! I put in my $25!
  • sud0n1m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Fired?? Thats a little drastic. I just dont want to have to cancel / return the order!
  • sud0n1m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Domain is now up and running winxponmac.com
  • codeoptimist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, this is a great idea. I'm sure it can be done, but the question is "when" -- this should prove enough of an incentive to speed up the process, methinks.
  • engele, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I really like the idea... I use a hidden xp box with "remote desktop" currently so that I can have exclusively a mac on my desk... It would be great to have a dual boot system. I think having XP running full speed alongside would be better though..
  • cockygoffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think Apple should be working on this. All our users have both a Mac & Windows machines. If they finally do get a dual boot machine, the boss is ready to chunk em all and go with dual boot Macs across the board. For now we wait, watch and dream...

    Thanks for running this contest...
  • Jann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Over $7000 NOW! WOW!
  • GoogGal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow...$7861 as of 2006/01/27 23:02 CST.
    Mr. Gates should contribute to this as well. :)

    http://www.BlogContestSite.com - Site for Blog contests
  • mactarkus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is a wonderful grass roots technical challenge and I am loving the attention it is getting. I can't wait to see someone pull it off and get the handsome reward. What if Apple itself released 10.4.5 today that supported a WinXP boot? What they refuse the prize?
  • mieslep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I actually think that the cause for this being problematic is not some sort of nefarious plot between Apple, Intel, and Microsoft, but rather of these guys building the next generation of hardware and software.

    After all, you can run OS-X and Vista on an Intel Mac!

    I don't know if there is an open-source project for creating a VMM environment like VMWare, but my bet is that *those* are the folks who are going to crack this one. Read my blog entry (http://philphiles.blogspot.com/2006/01/windows-xp-on-mac.html) for some of the technical specifics of why I think this is goign to be the case.

    (And once they do, I'm plonking down some money for a Mac...even though there's only one stinkin' mouse button...get over it Steven Jobs...two/three button mice have been around for ages and are far more productive than single-button mice; you just figure out a way to make them "sexy"!)

    Also, my 2-cents: I'd far prefer to have a WinXP app running alongside OS X, where I can copy/paste between the apps. There are just WAY more best-of-breed-apps out there on Windows.
  • JeremyCade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I sent my $10, personally I hope someone out there can make it happen.. I hate being limited in choice of OS
  • mieslep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Er, apparently digg's parser isn't so clever and the URL above includes the ) symbol. Here's an unadulterated link: http://philphiles.blogspot.com/2006/01/windows-xp-on-mac.html
  • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1You do realize that it's not technologically possible without re-writing the bootloader and start up procedures of Windows XP to work with EFI, a task made dauntingly difficult by the lack of the source code and by the lack of Apple's specific specs on how EFI is set up?

    Hell, they are still having problems getting Vista to run and it's written with EFI support. Take your $100 bucks and save it.. you're going to need it to buy a license for Windows Vista when/if it ever comes out anyways.
  • VelvetNightmare, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Better start downloading that ISO of Vista over Bittorrent - XP isn't going to boot now, if ever.
  • planksconstant, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0won't work
  • DanH, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0lame.

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