WinXP and OSX dual boot in MacBook Pro
Finally I’ve succeeded in installing Windows XP in MacBook Pro. Now it can dual boot between Windows XP and MacOS X. There’re few issues with windows xp but being able to boot smoothly between these 2 OSes are really amazing. I’ve followed this HOWTO where more and more information is being added every few hours. I think most of the minor problems will be solved soon. If you want to install it for your self or want more information this wiki is the best place to go. Here I’m posting the photos of major installation sequence and some problems I encountered.
Installation
1. Downloaded winxponmac0.1.zip
Windows XP Pro CD that came with my Samsung Notebook is SP1 but the patch works only with SP2. So this is what I did:
2. Downloaded WinXP SP2 separately.
3. Used the free tool nLite to integrate the WinXP SP2 with the XP Pro CD (SP1) and created the WinXP SP2 CD source.
4. Then followed Step-by-step-instruction
- Burned the customized WinXP CD.
- Partitioned the disk using OSX CD.
- Installed OSX.
5. Started Windows XP installation.
6. I encountered a problem with the partition listing. I was presented with following options.
- C: Partition 1 (EFI) [FAT32]
- unpartitioned space
- E: Partition 2 [unknown]
- unpartitioned space
According to the guide the correct option should be as following:
- E: Partition1 (EFI) [FAT32]
- C: Partition2 [Unknown]
- F: Partition3 [Unknown]
If you choose the Partition2 then you’ll get follwing error:
7. To solve the above problem I selected the first "unpartitioned space," then pressed "C" to create a new partition. As described in this solution. After this things went smoothly.
8. Finally it’s installed
9. System Properties
10. Device Manager with unrecognized devices.
11. Downloaded the drivers from here. Ethernet works fine. Wireless doesn’t work. Wireless also works. If I press restart it will shutdown.
12. Browsing my blog.
13. Boot Choice: Mac OSX
14. Boot Choice: Windows XP
Now there’re few driver issues I’m quite sure they’ll be solved soon.
Update: You might be interested to check What’s next for Intel Macs?
If you want to try for yourself and support this site consider buying intel Macs from Amazon:
iMac 20 inch iMac 17 inch MacBook Pro 2GHz MacBook Pro 1.8GHz
This post has 99 comments
March 23rd, 2006
5 golden manbabies to you good sir. I for one welcome our new dual boot overlords, fiestacast-a-licious.
March 23rd, 2006
Is this compatible with black people?
March 23rd, 2006
Does this mean I can run Notepad and Safari on WebTV? I like to check my email on the internet sometimes.
March 23rd, 2006
Is it still true that the fan function under Win XP does not work?
March 23rd, 2006
Well i guess they do work fine
March 24th, 2006
How about the other way around… running OSX on a PC??
March 24th, 2006
How come babies swim so good when they just borned?
March 25th, 2006
You can also currently run windows xp as an application within osx on an intel mac. The product is called Q, it’s the osx86 version of QEMU plus a really REALLY nice gui only available on osx86.
I’m using it now to run windows xp sp2 on my macintel. It’s about as fast as vmware is on a linux host when you install windows xp pro as a client os. In other words, you can’t run games in it really, but it’s great for business applications when you need them (if there isn’t an equivalent for OSX intel available). Also good since it’s somewhat faster than rosetta for things like photoshop and illustrator – they run natively in windows under Q on my macintel, but they run in emulation on my osx machine as mac versions. Sort of wacky huh?
Q is free and available at:
http://kberg.ch/q/index.php?sid=254368&p=0
you need to download the latest UNSTABLE build, NOT the stable one (Which is ancient and wont’ install any windows versions at all). version 871 and I’m sure future versions install windows xp perfectly, but it must be xp sp2 and you must have valid key etc.
there’s nothing like running windows as an application under OSX – the coolest thing in the world to see on your monitor. Puts windows in it’s place heh heh heh
good luck!
March 25th, 2006
oh yeah, and to the guy who asked “how about the other way around, osx on a pc”, it’s been done for months. Thousands of people use OSX every day as their main operating system and it’s running on their dell pcs or home built pcs. I even have a blog about it online…
anyway, check out http://www.osx86project.org for a forum all about it, or go to maxxuss.tk for information directly from the brain of the hacker who brought OSX to the rest of us. There are lots of downloadable dvds of it as well, but highly illegal to post about that of course so I’ll let you figure out how to break the law if you choose to do so.
Cheers
March 27th, 2006
Do you see a question mark for a split second right before the shiny Apple logo appears? I see that on my MacBook, but I don’t see it on any of the videos showing iMacs dual booting.
March 28th, 2006
How does it run? The speeds how do games or video fare on this laptop?
March 29th, 2006
Werd! Thanks for the post. I’m UP! Or Down! (depends on which social circle is reading this)
March 29th, 2006
Peter:
yes, the question mark appeared before the apple logo but it’s gone after installing the Chipset driver.
April 3rd, 2006
I have put osX on my IBM Thinkpad r40.
April 4th, 2006
Has anyone tried to install the new 10.4.6 on their Macs that are now running Windows as dual boot?
does windows still work after the update?
April 5th, 2006
Jeg hilser til klovnen. Jeg liker klovner veldig godt! Jeg har vört põ sirkus og sett klovner.
April 5th, 2006
so, since itunes uses your ethernet MAC address for authentication/machine identification, does your dual boot macbook pro count as one or two computers?
April 13th, 2006
Your blog is interesting and informative. Thank you
April 14th, 2006
Pretty neat solution I agree, though there is a better one. I’ve been using the Parallels virtualization solution since beta 1..it’s now on beta3 and I have to say… I think it knocks the Bootcamp solution into a distant second. I’ve got two virtual machines on it- both performing flawlessly on on my MacBook- and with Beta 3 fedora core 5 is stable too. I’ve posted some pics on my blog at http://blog.sheddan.co.uk – the performance is near enough native speed- if I had to guess I’d say as fast as my old Toshiba Centrino @ 1.4ghz, if not a little bit faster. The beta testing process seems to be very feedback orientated, with a new beta appearing regularly.
There promising the ability to run the virtual machines in full screen, as well as have multiple machines open. Machines fire up in under 20secs (a little longer for fedora- what with it running through all its startup gubbins). Once machine is up and running both it and OS X run smoothly. It’s only $39.99 (with vat its around £34gbp) and with the companies forward focus and constant inovation and improvement I think this product will only get better and better.. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
April 28th, 2006
This 17′ Macbook Pro is out! It has better resolution. I think it will work even better with Vista.
July 4th, 2006
Wow, this is very cool!
I definetly have to try this when I get my Mac book pro!
July 12th, 2006
Hello
Has someone found other drivers for the macbook intel ?
like the webcam or Video Controller Driver
thanks & bst rgds
July 26th, 2006
I just came upon this site while I was trying to partition my mac. Very Thorough, thanks!
December 13th, 2006
Hey! I am going to buy a mac book i think is good enough but i just wanted to know about the games, if a create the partition in my hard drive i could play the games without a problem using windows? the performance of the computer changes too much using either of the OS??
December 13th, 2006
This is a great step to setting up a machine to cover all bases, thanks for the great info.
I like Mac’s because of the security, photo editing speed, etc but since most applications I work it, since my career is in IT, I need to be able to work with Windows. Having a dual boot Mac is the ultimate setup in my opinion. I foresee a MacBook in the near future rather than a new PC based IBM or whatever.
January 3rd, 2007
Hello guys i would like ask u question one thing. Can i boot to window on my laptop is ibook g4.
it is cpu speed is 1.3 and memory is 512mb and 40 gb. Do u think my laptop going work??
January 3rd, 2007
can you also dual boot xp and osx in macbook? not the pro one. because it also has intel right.
January 3rd, 2007
Muju:
you cannot boot windows in G4 natively, but can install windows on the Virtual PC inside OS X (this would be very slow although).
Russcal:
yes, you can dual boot xp and osx on macbooks too! now the there’s Bootcamp from Apple!
January 8th, 2007
Help…..I installed boot camp and tried to install Win xp Pro on it and i get to the
point where it wants me to hint “Enter Key” to continue installing, Key obard dose not respond.
Tried to use USB Keyboard it still dose the samething. The worset part is that when i boot it it looks for the CD and wants it to install i could not even go back to the MAC OX 10.4.7 to boot up.
appreciate the help
Thanks
January 9th, 2007
Brian,
I’m not sure what’s wrong with your installation, can anyone help him? Here is the Boot Camp FAQ from Apple, hopefully it will be useful to you. The installation requirements among other things are, latest firmware update for your intel mac from apple, and you can only install winxp sp2 (no sp1 or earlier).
February 1st, 2007
PLEASE HELP!!!
Do we need 2gb ram on the Macbook black to run windows with parallels along with mac os. Will it be really slow if I keep it with 1gb. Do I need to updgrade to 2gb. Please respond back asap
February 1st, 2007
Jerry,
Definitely you should go for 2GB. I’ve tried Parralel’s Coherence in MacBook Pro, with 1GB RAM, and can tell that it’s still slow to switch between OSX to WinXP applications.
I hope this response is fast enough
February 22nd, 2007
so has anyone played Half Life 2 in WinXP on their MacBook pro yet? Seeing this article..and hoping to play Half Life 2 on my MacBook pro is the only thing keeping me from selling my MacBook.
March 23rd, 2007
Hey there,
I’ve just bought the 17″ Mac Book Pro with the 2GB RAM. I’m going into a new contract next month where the company only supports Microsoft. OS, unlike my current contact where they support Miscrosoft, Mac, Solaris, & Linux.
I bought the Mac Book Pro for a few reasons being able to dual boot. I need to use both OS for different reasons, for my business and for hobbies.
My only concerns with my new contact is the VPN software the company provides. As they don’t support Macs, I have to get Windows XP Pro on there. Has anyone had an experience with VPN connectivity through XP Pro on their Mac Book Pros?
Any other advice should I know about?
Thanks
March 24th, 2007
Hi Terry,
congratulations with the new purchase. For the VPN you might want to look at VPN Tracker (I haven’t tried it myself though). If your company is using IPSec VPN then they promise compatibility with over 300 VPN firewalls devices. BTW, PPTP VPN is built-in to OSX and works flawlessly.
June 19th, 2007
In my experience, it’s fine. I tend to run XP in fullscreen mode (boot powered by Parallels). I get occasional XP crashes, which I can escape by restarting or “powering off” the virtual XP machine, which takes me back to the Mac OS. Then, I can restart XP if desired.
My biggest practical problem is getting really familiar with the Mac key/command sequences. Practice, practice, practice – and it’s fun!
July 1st, 2007
Is it revesable?? IOW using same process can i put osx on intel?
October 5th, 2007
ok…
here’smy problem….I’ve install XP on macbook pro and now OSX wont boot anymore and canot install it back again…????
I am new to mac so if I am missing something
can someone tell me cause this is getting to my head right now!
wanted to update the firmware but cannot start the process….I think I need some help!!!
anyone had this glitch too???
anything could help I am sure!!!!
thanks
January 24th, 2008
hi alle can i help my ay have problem and my macbook pro because ay have instal win xp and my leopard mac is delet from pc how can help my how ay do tahks ay want my leopard back and my pc
February 4th, 2008
I want the opposite of this HOWTO, I need to install MacOSX on WinXP computer, i.e winxp is already installed, and I don’t want to lose anything there, and then to Install MacOSX, and to be “able” to choose the boot system.
February 18th, 2008
Hey!
Got 1 problem, i got a macbook. And i run win xp on it. But the problem is i dont know how to adjust the brightness & contrast. Cause the comands on the keyboárd arent the same now. Usually its – and + key that you push on but they dont work now.
Would be gratefuk if someone could tell me how i shall do it?
Thanx!
February 18th, 2008
*grateful ;P
March 9th, 2008
I have Windows XP Pro SP2 CD.
I tried to follow howto. but it has failed..
I running this procedure with my MacBook Pro 2GHZ
Please help
July 26th, 2008
Had to do a reinstall on my Mac Pro after upgrading the hard disk drives, so thought I would try putting XP on it before i put OSX back on it ready for work again. I just used the XP CD from my very old Sony Laptop (back in the day when they did give out an XP CD) and after a few hours managed to get it on after reading though various guids on the internet.
I installed Adobe Photoshop CS3 as I have a windows copy on my laptop too, and am a bit annoyed to see that XP seems to my eye to run CS3 a bit faster. I regally scan 5×4 negatives at high resolution, so am working with 1GB+ files most of the time, and for the usual procedures I perform after scanning in the negs it definitely took less time than it normally would on OSX……….
I have read many posts from programers on the net voicing frustration that OSX is not especially optimized as it could be for speed………maybe they could actually be some truth in it.
September 28th, 2008
Does winxponmac work for WinXP SP3 discs also?
May 10th, 2009
please i got a macbook pro passworded and i want to install mac osx on;were do i get this os installer.
May 13th, 2009
I went ahead and partitioned my disk. When I am on the mac side, is there anyway to edit the files on XP side? I am able to see, even open the files, but I am unable to write new ones to the XP from mac. It just says that “desktop” cannot be modified. Thanks!
July 19th, 2009
i installed windows xp on my macbook pro… the windows screen is all stretched though (horizontally to fit the widescreen) any idea how to fix this?
August 3rd, 2009
The reason for dual boot is if you are a developer, administrator, or Net Admin.
You need to test whatever you did on windows or if someone has an issue you need to be them and test it.
Grow a brain…….
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