linux/unix
04/06/2006, 2:00am, EDT
Thursday, April 6th
'Boot Camp' runs Windows faster, easily
Apple's decision to offer 'Boot Camp' technology to run Windows on an Intel-based Mac is dubbed as "historic" and "huge" in a new review by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg. "I've been testing Windows on a new iMac for several days and except for a couple of trifling annoyances, it runs perfectly, just like a stand-alone Windows PC. I was able to install Boot Camp and Windows XP Pro on the Mac in under an hour. After that, I installed 15 Windows programs, most unavailable in Mac versions, and all ran properly. In Windows mode, the iMac was blazingly fast -- far faster than my two-year-old H-P Windows computer. And every function of Windows I tested, including Web browsing, email and music playback, ran flawlessly." The review notes a few minor "annoyances" with running Windows on an Intel-Mac: having to reset the clock every time you run Windows, to purchase a new copy of Windows XP, using a wired keyboard and mouse during installation, and "one dangerous step in installing Windows" -- not selecting the 'C' destination drive during installation. [free link added]
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Naw, it's not, is it?! Imagine that, a new computer being faster than a two year old one. Is this guy actually a recognised tech reporter?
made me laugh.
And the performance of VPC on a Mac was, to paraphrase the comment "far slower than anyone's 5-year-old e-one Windows computer".
So, the comment Mossberg made does convey some useful information for those who have tried that route in the past (and gave up). Especially seeing that Win/PCs haven't really sped up in the past 2 years by much ;-)
If he had said it was faster and not disclosed the facts, people would have asked, "what was the PC". If he had then disclosed it, he'd be roasted for being biased and a bad reporter.
Walt is a good reporter, but had he tested it against a newer PC and disclosed that information too, it would have been more informative. However, I'm sure he just wanted to get this story out fast and he may follow up on it with a more detailed report.
As a side note: A four year old G5 desktop is still a great system. A two year old PC is just about ready for the trash and in a story like this... makes people laugh.
The number of hackers who just HAVE to try and get it to work on their PCs is very insignificant to Apple's bottom line.