A contest 'Windows XP on Mac challenge' to see who could get Windows XP working first on an Intel Mac has been won.
The contest has been won by two enterprising users who go by the monikers “narf2006†and “blanka".
How it all started :
For those unaware, a website titled Windows XP on Mac has been collecting a pool of donations for anyone who could successfully boot Windows XP on an unmodified Intel Mac. The pool grew slowly at first, but as the news of the contest spread, it passed the US$13,000 mark.
Nederkoorn first put the contest together after he ordered an Intel-based MacBook Pro for work.
“I told my boss that this would replace my IBM desktop and I could boot Windows XP on it,†he said, and to put his money where his mouth was, he put up $100. He suggested that others with an interest in seeing a dual-boot Macintosh do the same.
How it all ended :
News that Windows XP was working natively on an Intel-based iMac first came to light several days ago, when two enterprising users who go by the monikers “narf2006†and “blanka†posted pictures to an account on the Flickr photoblogging service purportedly showing Windows being installed on the system. A video followed, and the solution has since been verified by Nederkoorn and his testers.
And finally, this morning, onmac.net announced that a proposed solution had been found and had been tested successfully. The contest had been won, and it looks like "narf" is about to almost US$14,000 richer.
Nederkoorn notes that with this process in place, all three current Intel-based Mac models can run Windows with the exception of the 20-inch iMac, but he suggests a fix will be ready by the time a download is available. He also offers a variety of caveats  native graphics drivers aren’t in place yet, for example, so there is limited video performance  a blow to Mac gamers who had hoped for a solution that would let them play Windows games on their new Mac hardware.
The solution :
A custom slipstreamed CD is required to install XP on a Mac.
What you'll need
An original XP PRO SP2 CDROM It doesn't have to be bootable, but it should have a I386 directory on the root.
Implications :
The implications of this method of installing Windows XP onto any Apple Mac are exciting, to say the least.
Anyone with a little know-how is going to be able to dual boot their machines and have access to a world of applications not yet available on their OS of choice. For most people that means they'll be playing EVE Online on their iMacs and for others, they'll finally be able to run a modern PSPICE application on their Mac mini.
Apple computers are now the first machines on which you can boot all three major operating systems without (potentially) violating anyone's EULA (it's not yet clear whether or not modifying the Windows XP boot CD is technically legal or not).
What is for certain is that a more user-friendly manner of getting Windows XP onto Apple's Intel computers is going to arise from narf's implementation, and in my opinion, it will be a net benefit for everyone involved.
The contest has been won by two enterprising users who go by the monikers “narf2006†and “blanka".
How it all started :
For those unaware, a website titled Windows XP on Mac has been collecting a pool of donations for anyone who could successfully boot Windows XP on an unmodified Intel Mac. The pool grew slowly at first, but as the news of the contest spread, it passed the US$13,000 mark.
Nederkoorn first put the contest together after he ordered an Intel-based MacBook Pro for work.
“I told my boss that this would replace my IBM desktop and I could boot Windows XP on it,†he said, and to put his money where his mouth was, he put up $100. He suggested that others with an interest in seeing a dual-boot Macintosh do the same.
How it all ended :
News that Windows XP was working natively on an Intel-based iMac first came to light several days ago, when two enterprising users who go by the monikers “narf2006†and “blanka†posted pictures to an account on the Flickr photoblogging service purportedly showing Windows being installed on the system. A video followed, and the solution has since been verified by Nederkoorn and his testers.
And finally, this morning, onmac.net announced that a proposed solution had been found and had been tested successfully. The contest had been won, and it looks like "narf" is about to almost US$14,000 richer.
Nederkoorn notes that with this process in place, all three current Intel-based Mac models can run Windows with the exception of the 20-inch iMac, but he suggests a fix will be ready by the time a download is available. He also offers a variety of caveats  native graphics drivers aren’t in place yet, for example, so there is limited video performance  a blow to Mac gamers who had hoped for a solution that would let them play Windows games on their new Mac hardware.
The solution :
A custom slipstreamed CD is required to install XP on a Mac.
What you'll need
An original XP PRO SP2 CDROM It doesn't have to be bootable, but it should have a I386 directory on the root.
- The xom.zip file.
- Nero Burning ROM
- A blank CD
- A PC of course...
- 20-30 minutes
- iaStor.sys
- NTDETECT.COM
- TXTSETUP.SIF
- WINNT.SIF
- XOM.INF
- $$/system32/drivers/xomdd.sys
- $1/drivers/iastor/iaahci.cat
- $1/drivers/iastor/iaahci.inf
- $1/drivers/iastor/iaStor.cat
- $1/drivers/iastor/iaStor.sys
- $1/drivers/iastor/TXTSETUP.OEM
Implications :
The implications of this method of installing Windows XP onto any Apple Mac are exciting, to say the least.
Anyone with a little know-how is going to be able to dual boot their machines and have access to a world of applications not yet available on their OS of choice. For most people that means they'll be playing EVE Online on their iMacs and for others, they'll finally be able to run a modern PSPICE application on their Mac mini.
Apple computers are now the first machines on which you can boot all three major operating systems without (potentially) violating anyone's EULA (it's not yet clear whether or not modifying the Windows XP boot CD is technically legal or not).
What is for certain is that a more user-friendly manner of getting Windows XP onto Apple's Intel computers is going to arise from narf's implementation, and in my opinion, it will be a net benefit for everyone involved.