Vista on a Mac? Not easy

I am one those anecdotes, a person who bought a 17” MacBook Pro because I “knew” I could load Vista once Microsoft finally released it.

I figure I will need to get Vista to run natively in order to use AutoCAD, but I was hoping to also run the same copy of Vista under Parallels (Entourage is no Outlook). Anyone care to tell me just how wrong I am?

Kamal:

Diego, this option is for those people who wants both OSX and Vista on their Macs. You are saying that it is better for these customers to buy a boxed copy and go through the hassle of installation Vista on Mac *than* simply buying a Vista pre-loaded Mac?

Even though it may sell more hardware for Apple. OS X is their operating system and I just don’t see them making it anymore easier than they need to for people to just buy a Mac to only run Vista on it.

I have a dual core 1.25 GB Mac Mini that runs Vista under both Parallels and Bootcamp. I vastly prefer Bootcamp (and truly regret paying for Parallels, FWIW). Vista with Bootcamp more or less Just Works (upgraded from an XP installation). Of course being a Mini, it has a generic keyboard, no camera, etc. so I’m sure that won’t help your situation Robert. Parallels runs Vista much slower, I can’t get the nice Vista video effects working, I couldn’t get the various sleep modes of OS X and Vista to play nicely together, and that’s when I just went back to dual booting (which doesn’t take much longer than starting a VM running Vista). Maybe I need more memory or more patience, who knows.

As for why bother booting Vista (except to run Outlook)? … for me, there’s about as much significant difference as there is between the “user interfaces” of my Toyota and my Subaru. You can switch back and forth quickly and don’t think much about the differences. When I had XP running on the Mini, there was some sort of intangibly nicer look and feel with OS X that caused me to use it for normal browsing / personal email, and I just booted Windows to use Outlook. Once Vista was running, I get a similar (maybe not as good, but not enough to care) intangible feeling of graphical goodness and I seldom bother with OS X anymore. Flame away at my cluelessness (yes I work at MS), but don’t expect Joe and Jill Public to get any more excited about the Vista / OS X differences than they do about radio, heater, and wiper controls on their car.

It will be interesting to see if Apple supports Vista in future Bootcamp betas or Leopard. I guess they’re agonizing — on one hand they really make much better designed (if not manufactured!) hardware than the PC vendors, and can get a premium price for it. Obviously the move to Intel has increased their market share significantly, presumably because people can run Windows, either by default or when the pointy haired boss makes them. Do they continue to capitalize on that but continue to sneer at the terminally unhip people who would actually use this capability? (the Bootcamp documentation is a textbook example of Apple’s arrogance and blithe assumption that security isn’t a problem for them). Or will they do what a lot of their customers want and actually support Windows like the other hardware manufacturers do? I assume they will do the very bare minimum required to tell the Windows on Mac story and keep people buying Intel Macs, but not enough to make it easy to un-switch, or switch back and forth.

Diego, if they are selling more Macs by releasing bootcamp then they can sell even more Macs if they sell Vista pre-installed Macs for a small premium.

I still do not see your logic why a half hearted solution like a bootcamp is preferrable to a full solution of selling Macs with Vista preinstalled? All you are saying is that bootcamp is good enough why spend more effort on pre-installing Vista? First you can’t make a company as big as Apple by just good enough solutions. Second, the effort is not much extra vs the extra profit on marking up Vista. And of course higher market share of Macs too.

When Apple releases BootCamp out of beta, would you pay $30 for the final version. If it support Vista? Let the teeth-gnashing begin!!!

This blog subject is premature and mischievous. Vista hasn’t even been released to the general public yet. Boot Camp is intended only to load XP which it does flawlessly.

When Apple releases their new OS, Leopard, in a few weeks time it will incorporate Boot Camp which will be Vista compatible. Until then if people want Windows on a Mac, use XP.

By the way, Vista is too cheap anyway as explained here:
http://fifthdecade.wordpress.com/2007/01/28/vista-is-too-cheap/

Robert, I’ve got Windows Vista Ultimate running just great on a MacBook. As for drivers, the best thing to do is launch the Apple driver installer on a DIFFERENT Windows machine and, while it’s sitting there waiting for you to tell it ‘Next’ COPY the uncompressed drivers it unpacks to the local HDD to a USB stick which you use while MANUALLY installing them using Device Manager in Windows Vista on the Mac. (Once the Apple installer is finished it deletes these files.)

Just a tip I’ve found to be helpful while installing those drivers.

Kamal Jain,
Only Apple makes Macs; there are no system builders in the Apple world. Including Vista on the Mac would also increase Apple’s cost and our cost since they would have to pay Microsoft. Furthermore, the majority of Mac users don’t need XP or Vista. Their machines come with everything they need by default from Apple. This is because Apple mostly targets consumers for home use. That’s because Microsoft has the business/enterprise space cornered. As they did with the iPod, Apple is targetting a different market segment than Dell, HP or Gateway, the consumer, and they are doing quite well at it.

Robert@58:

You put a very good point! But IMHO, conclusion was wrong.

First, by working on bootcamp Apple shows that it wants to raise the scope of Mac from Mac fanatics to Windows lovers too. There is in fact a whole market campaign around Mac running Windows!

Second, Apple loves to provide out-of-the-box experience, as you also implied. Why then lose bootcamp users out in the cold? It is expensive as well as a lot of hassles for Mac users of bootcamp. Bootcamp customers are Apple customers and if Apple wants to take full advantage of it, then it should try to make it convenient for users and more profitable for itself.

Third, wunning Vista side by side does not make Mac less useful for those who wants to run OSX only. So without hurting the experience of one set of consumers, Apple can raise the experience of another set.

Fourth, there is no Mac system builders. True. But there are PC systems builders. They get Windows at OEM price. They can buy Mac from Apple at volume discount. Install Windows on Mac and sell it back. I believe this is a great opportunity for system builders to expland their business.

If Apple preloads Vista, it has to SUPPORT Vista.

Let’s see here:

Load and support their biggest competitor, while not really making a damned dime off of it.

That’s what a business person would call “stupid”.

John@60:

Of course, I am not a business person. I am just a researcher in MSR.

My first comment starts from the phrase “if Apple loves its customers”. If Apple loves its customers than it is its business people job to find a way to make consumers happier while making profit for the company. Preinstalled Vista is a better option for consumers than bootcamp. Period. Who said Apple can’t make a dime. They can add a mark-up in providing this option. They can make money adding applications like Google Toolbar on Windows portion too.

As for the support, we (i.e., Microsoft) support applications on Apple, for an example we have a whole Mac Business Unit for porting Windows Apps to OSX. Diversity of available applications is a big plus of Windows over OSX and we do not mind extending this advantage to OSX. This is all in the spirit of loving customers while making money.

I have finally gotten Vista running on a Dell, it was 12-14 hours of pain. I mean I have installed XP dozens of times. First I tried to upgrade, the upgrade failed and I rolled it back, five hours of my life wasted. Okay, I decided to do a clean install, wow everything went fast only took about an hour. Hey what is this Windows.old file, why is it 40 GIGs? oh and look my old program file and root folders, try to delete them, wow they are locked and not deleteable. Okay I can live with them but I have to delete the Windows.OLD file (40 Gigs), Right click – delete, wait 15 minutes, Explorer.exe crashes. Try again, this time using DOS, Del *.* hey did it work, nope! I had installed Office and Visual Studio 2005 which complains it’s not compatible with Vista LOUDLY! Funny that Microsoft can’t get their software to install correctly with out it complaining that it might act weird. Anyway that was another 3-4 hours of my life. OK, I definitely can’t get those files deleted, I will have to reformat (according to a friend), so during the reinstall I find the option to Reformat the drive removing all vestiges of the previous OS. This time it took about 20 minutes! (Definite Plus) I reloaded Office, oops too many activations! Call Microsoft and enter a bazillion digit key, “Please hold” a rep will talk to you about why this isn’t working, I told the friendly Indian chap about my Previous OS (XP) then the failed install and my previous Vista install, my VM and then my current system. He gave me another BAZILLION digit key to enter now office works again. OK install Visual Studio 2005, and Download the SP1 patch. (2-3 Hours) WARNING: Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will not work without first upgrading to Visual Studio Service Pack 1. Huh? Also tells me to install SQL Server Express SP2, which I still have to check into. I haven’t heard of the SP2 patch.
Ok my machine is now almost ready I need to VPN into work, oh… I need to use Nortel Contivity Client to connect to the office, could it be as easy as running it in compatability mode? NOPE, it installs but will not run. Search the internet, no dice, no mention of Vista on Nortels website. I tried the Native Vista VPN but it didn’t work.
So I turned off Vista went to my FREE computer I rebuilt from a neighbors machine that they were going to Trash. Logged on loaded my VPN and remoted into work.
I have wasted a good part of 3 days trying to get Vista to do basically what XP does, I didn’t succeed, and your son is bummed about having a hard time loading it on his Mac, try loading it on a DELL.
PS
I went to Dells site and found some drivers for my D-800 most everything works, but not things like the volume keys or the some of the FN keys…
I work on a computer 12 hours a day, I don’t think consumers are going to be to thrilled with Vista if they have to put up with what I did.
Also my Linksys Media Extender won’t work with Vista for this I give Microsoft the Middle Finger.
Good luck Patrick, you are gonna need it!

Robert, loved your comment #30:

“Mart: it’s pretty obvious you’ve never used Vista. It does a lot of things that Macs don’t, particularly on corporate networks with apps built for Windows. There’s a reason Macs only have 6% marketshare and your attitude here is a BIG reason why.”

I just love the idea that the Mac’s low market share can be traced to the twin evils of corporate networks with apps built for Windows and MY ATTITUDE. Super!

Anyway, just so we’re clear, I do think that you are exactly the kind of person who should stay far away from Mac – you’ll never be satisfied with the facilities it provides for crapping things up… and it’s clearly a pretty poor replacement for, say, a sooper-awesome Acer Ferrari (VROOM!) You know what they say, once you go Windows Vista Ultimate Signature Edition, you never go back! Well, I’m sure they’ll be saying it soon…

As for the market share, I’ll just have to find a way to live with it, but thanks for your concern!

I have Vista installed on my MacBook Pro using Parallels, not Bootcamp. I haven’t noticed any problems yet, though I haven’t used it in any meaningful sense yet either.

Vista via Boot Camp works flawlessly for me on my 24-inch iMac. Sound, ethernet, wifi, bluetooth, the works. I am very pleased. I blogged about my experience, click my name to see.

No one here is learning. You are all fighting over two DRM-laden, overly-expensive, freedom-stealing OSs.

No one here has even considered Linux. What is wrong with people? I guess you love signing your freedoms away with the evil EULAs you agree to w/o reading the fine print.

Enjoy your DRM. I’ll keep my freedom.

Hey Peter@66: Actually I have used Linux an awful lot – I was a hardcore Linux geek from around 1995-2002 – Linux works well for me, but for me Mac is just nicer, and I haven’t experienced any reduced freedom so far… but I agree with you in that if the only two choices were Windows and Linux, I’d definitely be advocating Linux.

Hey Peter@66: Actually I have used Linux an awful lot – I was a hardcore Linux geek from around 1995-2002 – Linux works well for me, but for me Mac is just nicer, and I haven’t experienced any reduced freedom so far… but I agree with you in that if the only two choices were Windows and Linux, I’d definitely be advocating Linux.

Mart,

I’m glad you like your Mac, but what does the Mac do for you that Linux can’t? Forget stuff like iTunes, iCalc, and iChat, since all that can be done in Linux. I’m curious as to what keeps you on the platform?

Mart, yes, you have lost your freedom. You cannot legally copy your OS X CDs and lend them to your friends. You cannot see the source code to Aqua, or any other GUI. They won’y let you.

FWIW, Apple has said very clearly that they will do nothing to prevent the loading of Windows on Intel Macs. They will also NEVER pre-install Windows or support it. You can complain about this attitude, but Apple is not going to change this policy.

For those who still haven’t seen it, Apple’s strategy is not to compete for market share with Microsoft. That battle was lost a long time ago. CIOs will never go Apple, no matter how good OS X is.

Apple strategy is to CREATE new markets by creating products that defy categorization. These new markets will not be in business and enterprise. These will be for CONSUMERS. The potential market for consumers is far larger than the business market will ever be. If Apple dominates the consumer market with iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, and wins the living room, the enterprise market would be small peanuts it can leave to MSFT.

Until you understand that Apple intends to do NOTHING to challenge the MSFT monopoly, you will never understand what Apple is up to.

You guys do realize the driver model in Vista is drastically different that it has been in the past? I would doubt that Steve Jobs has had too many of his iPod engineers stopping to make Vista drivers for an OS he makes no money on. I guess I am also a little perplexed as to why this is a real issue anyway. I can see why a few people out there might need to do a virtual PC type thing on a MAC to test things on a business desktop, but I guess I can not see why a normal user would care to shell out $3-4000 on a piece of hardware and put an OS on it (not that they would even know what that is) that was not built for the hardware. My clients with MACs generally do not even understand basic fundamentals of using a computer in the first place.

Did you look at this post on msdn, Hans at Microsoft was also trying to help vista working on his Powerbook pro,

http://blogs.msdn.com/hans_vb/archive/2006/06/02/614799.aspx

Tons of drivers don’t work
–

Uh, yeah. Same thing that happens when you try to put OS X on a Dell.
Apple has put alot into BootCamp, with each new build, but hey…

…it’s still Windows.