Apple: Mactels won't support Vista

as long as there is a robust, stable virtual PC available that can run every other OS on an as needed basis...

3 major platform transitions in 6 years (classic anyone?)

PC access was my BIG HOPE for Apple!

Arrogant bastards - businesses CAN'T depend on their bloody computers - face facts macs have LIMITED USEFULNESS despite being superb at some things...

Watch the stock tank now...

SAFARI can't even browse the fricking web properly - (I have FIVE browsers on my mac & STILL have to keep a PEECEE for business website access) so what kind of business can survive without access to what is now the status quo for information?

Opportunity LOST yet again...

I bought my Apple confident (given the promises to support EFI) that I would able to run some reasonably fast form of MS Windows. If Microsoft and/or Apple knew this was not going to be the case then we have been mislead. MS are stalling on their emulator and have not released an update for Office - is there some collusion??Someone from Apple should come clean.

Wile Mactels will not support BOOTING in Vista you can certain that VPC or a VMware type product will be functions sooner than later. This is preferable to booting in Windows because most Mac users do not want to boot in Windows but occationally run windows apps. If the stock drops because of this....get more stock.

"Arrogant bastards - businesses CAN'T depend on their bloody computers - face facts macs have LIMITED USEFULNESS despite being superb at some things... "

Please. I Admin a 200 server, 2k user Windows Active Directory infrastructure (along with 2 others) and I can use my Powerbook (and have) for my day to day operations.

So, tell me how businesses cannot depend on Apple's computers. Heck, the 5th largest computer company manages just fine, and they even run SAP and PeopleSoft....

"SAFARI can't even browse the fricking web properly - (I have FIVE browsers on my mac & STILL have to keep a PEECEE for business website access)"

No issues here and I'm all over the web. I use Safari or FireFox - prefer FF, but both do an adequate job.

"I bought my Apple confident (given the promises to support EFI) that I would able to run some reasonably fast form of MS Windows."

So, you bought a machine with the intent of running someone else's OS software that is not even released yet. Real good strategy. Just return the thing or sell on eBay.

I still don't get it - MS already supports EFI on 64-bit vetsions of Windows and Vista. What's the big deal about including it on the 32-bit version?

Or Apple F-ed up with the Intel transition. Should have went AMD who has REAL 64-BIT CPU's that outperform these new core things right now. Then you could be booting XP on your Macs......

After Intel releases the next gen CPUs (64-bit), this will be done quite easily. There will be hacks from Germany or Sweden that will enable it. I think this might be a bit of public positioning on Apple's part, since this is certain to happen in time.

"I bought my Apple confident (given the promises to support EFI) that I would able to run some reasonably fast form of MS Windows. If Microsoft and/or Apple knew this was not going to be the case then we have been mislead. MS are stalling on their emulator and have not released an update for Office - is there some collusion??Someone from Apple should come clean."

The only comment from Apple about being able to run Windows was that they would do nothing to prevent it. They made no promises that there would be an officially-supported way to do it.

Like itguy05 says, why isn't Microsoft supporting EFI on the 32-bit Vista? That seems odd.

Anyway, as others have said, it is far more desireable to run Windows in some sort of fast emulation rather than to have to reboot. People are already doing it using QEMU already. Just hold on for a while and there will be many ways of running Windows apps.

Buying a Mac "confident ... it would be able to run ... Windows" was at best a leap of faith.

Apple has NEVER promised its hardware would run Vista.Company statements on the matter always made me think they were discouraging people from expecting native support for any flavor of Windows.

And where's the evidence that Microsoft is "stalling" on anything? Apple only announced its Intel transition plans nine months ago; Mactel hardware has only been shipping for a couple of months, ahead of schedule. Rewriting big complex apps for a new hardware architecture takes time. Or are Adobe (Creative Suite, etc.) and Apple itself (Final Cut Studio, etc.) in on the collusion, too?

Microsoft's past practice has been to leapfrog development of the Mac and Windows versions of Office, staggering the releases for each platform, most recently with Office 2003 for Windows and Office 2004 for Mac. Microsoft is now focused on its next release of Office for Windows, set to dovetail with the releas of Windows Vista later this year. In the meantime, Office 2004, the latest-greatest (or "-greatest") shipping version of MS Office on any platform) runs fine under Rosetta.

Frustration is understandable, but don'y lay it at the feet of a vast conspiracy.

I simply do not understand why people are so fixated on using dual boot systems. I have personally used many dual boot systems in the past, before virtualization became so popular. I can tell you, they are clunky and a pain in the behind. So we cannot boot into Vista or XP. Who cares. Wait until VMware releases the Mac versions of their products. Not only will we be able to run Vista or XP, we'll be also able to run Fedora, CentOS, BSD, Solaris, and just ANY operating system INSIDE MacOS X at the SAME TIME. No need to reboot the computer. Need to run an old Windows 98 application. Simply, launch VMWare, install Windows 98, and your off. Best of all, NO emulation. Everything will run at native speeds.

Some of you might prefer Dual Boot systems over Virtualization. Personally, I do not understand that. On my PC, I have Windows XP running with CentOS running inside VMWare. This allows me to do my web development on my Macintosh, upload it to CentOS, and test it on BOTH XP and my Mac at the SAME TIME. My only complaint is that I cannot ditch the PC entirely. If I could, then I'd be able to run all three Operating Systems at the same time on the same computer.

So for those of you who are upset about not being able to setup a dual boot system. I say , give virtualization a chance. It's the best way to go overall.

I honestly do not care. If VMWare is ported or we get another piece of software with similar of better performance, I will be able run the odd piece of software that I cannot get on the mac.

There are enough popular games on the mac. We don't need crappy games that never sell many copies anyway.