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Tips for Boot Campers
So you've put Windows XP on your Mac. What now? As someone who
has to constantly switch between the two, I have a few tips. There are problems inherent in dual-booting, as opposed to
running a virtual machine inside another OS (virtualization has its own issues of course). The big one for me is the
issue of data storage. While I need to use USB memory sticks at work to move data from my iBook to a PC for printing,
if it's a simple data sharing issue at home, this is easily remedied. I've been trying out FolderShare from Microsoft, and it works great. The OS X client is
quirky, coated in brushed metal, but works like a dream. Right now it's in beta, and thus free, but expect this to
change. Another alternative is a .Mac account and the XP utility for mounting your .Mac "drive." The nice
thing about this is you can treat it just like a hard drive, but with all the latency issues you'd expect with a WebDAV data store... Still, there are plenty of online storage options
out there.If you want your XP to look more like a Mac, the contest winner appears to be FlyakiteOSX. Making it work like a Mac is a bit different. You know, Home is My Documents and so on, and each platform is totally different under the hood, yada yada. More important is to just understand the difference between the two and deal with it. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of data points out there for switching from a Mac to a PC. Statistically that's just not a big pool to draw from... There's a mostly useless CNet article from 2002. And there's a much better piece from Rolf Howarth in 2004. Rolf made the switch to XP and documented the affair. Skip through the hardware issues to the software bits though. Again, it's a little out of date (XP handles wireless pretty well nowadays, in my experience)... Oh and Jeremy Zawodny switched to a PC laptop last year and appears to enjoy it. Anyway, there are lots of differences. Mostly it's a change of geography, with the need for some extra security thrown in. Instead of the menu bar up top, it's the tray down below.
If you're feeling homesick for something like Quicksilver, we've had this discussion a lot on Download Squad, plus other modifications. Choose your poison. If you want to enable Microsoft's version of Fast User Switching, you can. Downloading the Google Pack is helpful, as you get a Spotlight-esque search tool and a task switcher. Gnosis has a ton of XP resource links for you to peruse as well, which range from troubleshooting to massaging more performance out of the OS. One idea to feel at home in either OS is to use nothing but cross-platform, open source apps. It's an idea anyway.
Hey, it could be worse. Try switching from UNIX to Windows.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsGolf manApr 12th 2006 3:26PM
I'll tell you by secret - making Windows on MAC is useless thing. For what? To tell friends that you can launch Win? Windows for PC, MacOS for Macs! That are there places!
Kamil WalasApr 12th 2006 4:43PM
A simpler solution to data exchange is to format a partition (i did this on an external FW drive) in MS-DOS format. No problem so far.
milkmageApr 12th 2006 5:36PM
hey golfman.. would you rather buy me one computer or 2... saving $ is not useless... for the occasional windows user - it's a great solution.
SiddApr 12th 2006 8:36PM
call me ignorant....but has osx been virtualized/dual booted on a PC?
cause i dont ever recall seeing that
Jason knightApr 12th 2006 8:49PM
Golf man, you couldn't be more wrong.
I use Flash and Photoshop all day long on a PC laptop. Why? because the interface, workflow and most importantly, speed is superior on a PC and blows away the mac G4 laptop. When I go home, I'm forced to write music using Logic 7 - Made by Apple for macs only. Why? Because it blows all the other PC audio software out the window.
Introduce the intel Macs. With the increase in speed, I would move to one of these beautys, but with no support form Adobe, on the new Intels I have to stay on a PC. At night, I'm back on the Mac to write music. LAME.
Introduce Bootcamp. i can now purchase an Intel Mac, continue to run PC applications during the day, go home and boot up into mac world and write music - And when Adobe gets their act together and releases software that runs natively on the new macs, I'll make the switch at my leisure.
So, I may be one of the few, but you are dead wrong with your assumption. My life just got a whole lot better. I'm waiting until the 17inch pro's come out and you'll find me first in line when they do.
Jack HApr 16th 2006 1:59AM
Rumor has it that bootcamp is only a taste of what is to come with the future Mac OSX Leopard. Apple is rumored to be working on a codename project Chameleon, virtualization software that is integrated into the OS itself.
Sure having XP in a Mac Window is great, but I think Apple will do something more amazing, Like 3D User Switching, but for OSes as well instead of just Users.
With Apple focusing on compatability with each new release of OSX, the possibilities are limitless.