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eWEEK reviews Apple's Boot Camp

updated 08:15 pm EDT, Wed April 5, 2006

A look at Boot Camp


eWEEK has posted the first review of Apple's 'Boot Camp', a beta technology released on Wednesday that will be included with the next release of Mac OS X Leopard. The review talks about the file format choices for users, but notes that data exchange between the operating systems is limited: "When we installed XP on our Mac, we had the option of choosing between the two, but we stuck with NTFS. Windows XP operates just fine on FAT32, but Microsoft defaults to NTFS with good reason—NTFS supports more granular access rights, built-in file compression and encryption, partitions larger than 32GB and file system journaling, among other features. Once we'd completed our Mac-to-Windows-and-back journey, we could read our NTFS-stored files, but we could not change them or write new files on our Windows partition. The Linux kernel ships with read-only support for NTFS, as well as and experimental read-write support." The review concludes that despite the limitations, Boot Camp offers Apple hardware buyers more choices: "We welcome this gesture of openness."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. aubin

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Dec 2005

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    04/05, 11:16pm | report spam | Reply |

    Why NTFS then?

    It's not entirely fair to blame Apple for the interoperability problems with NTFS; the Boot Camp documentation clearly states that you can't write to NTFS.

    If you are planning on dual-booting and sharing files, wouldn't it be prudent to use FAT32 for your filesystem?

  1. kw99

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2001

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    04/06, 12:36am | report spam | Reply |

    If you need a volume

    that is read/write from both Mac OS X and Windows XP, can't you just make a third partition that is "FAT32" for shared data? Perhaps that would be difficult to do "on the fly" without trashing the current partition scheme.

    If I needed this Boot Camp feature, it would be to run a necessary app that ran only in Windows XP. I would boot back into Mac OS X as soon (and as often) as possible, so this limitation with NTFS would not be an issue.

    "We welcome this gesture of openness."

    More like a gesture of removing the last excuse for people who like Macs (and want to buy one) but are afraid to make the leap up to Mac OS X because of their real or perceived dependence on Windows.

  1. JulesLt

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2005

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    04/06, 03:09am | report spam | Reply |

    USB Pen

    No need for a partition, just use a USB thumb-drive.

  1. LouZer

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2000

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    04/06, 08:00am | report spam | Reply |

    NTFS

    NTFS is a much more capable file system, that better supports security and large files. To say "just use FAT" is like saying "just format your OS X partitions to FAT32". If Apple's going to offer windows support, they should at least support the file systems (both ways) so file sharing is

    As for these comments:

    that is read/write from both Mac OS X and Windows XP, can't you just make a third partition that is "FAT32" for shared data? Perhaps that would be difficult to do "on the fly" without trashing the current partition scheme.

    No need for a partition, just use a USB thumb-drive.

    I thought macs were supposed to be intuitive and make you more productive. These solutions sound like something MS would come up with. If you were running both, do you really want to have to perform multiple steps just to open a file?

    h***, if you're going to say these options, why not the obvious. Buy another mac, set it up to share directories to all users, and treat it as a file server you have to copy the files between.

  1. ATPTourFan

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2003

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    04/06, 09:21am | report spam | Reply |

    OS X on PCs

    These PC mags always complain about having OS X running on plain PCs... this ain't happening. Apple makes its money off selling Macs and iPods. They're not going to get into being another MS-type -- selling an OS to anyone who wants to license it.

    The key that makes Macs so great is the fact that their awesome OS JUST WORKS on great hardware.

  1. scottrussell

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2001

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    04/06, 09:30am | report spam | Reply |

    confused

    So what scenario would require Mac OS X to write to the XP partion?

    If you use the two OS's separately (no file-sharing), you can use the superior NTFS format, right?

  1. ATPTourFan

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2003

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    04/06, 10:01am | report spam | Reply |

    re: confused

    yes, if you don't need to change files on NTFS when you're running OS X, then NTFS is fine. If you DO need to edit and write to the NTFS volume (or windows volume) when under OS X, then FAT32 should be used (or a separate FAT32 partition).

  1. Deal

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Apr 2001

    0
    04/06, 10:58am | report spam | Reply |

    One more option

    If you need to quickly swap small files, just log into your iDisk and drop your files there.

  1. alfredo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Jul 1999

    0
    04/06, 11:32am | report spam | Reply |

    I don't need or want Win

    but I'd love to run Linux. There are some apps in Linux that haven't been ported to OSX. Sure Fink has them but apps like Scribus and Quanta are too much of a hassle at this time. Having access through Linux would be better for me.

  1. rottnmutt

    Joined:

    0
    04/06, 06:18pm | report spam | Reply | delete

    Easy Solution

    Buy MacDrive 6 for XP and read and write to your mac volume. I use it all the time and it works like a champ.

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