Apple Boot Camp installation

Apples blessing on a Windows dual-boot option may jar long-time loyalists but should ease anxieties of those not yet using Apple machines.

Before making any decisions based on Boot Camps debut, users should note both installation requirements and beta software warnings.

Boot Camp doesnt add Windows capability to an OS X machine; it merely paves the way for purchase and installation of Microsofts OS.

Unlike virtual-machine approaches, Boot Camp doesnt give a Mac a concurrent Windows personality; it merely enables conversion between configurations.

Driver compatibility has always been the most fragile aspect of any Windows installation, and it may be some time before the verdict is fully rendered on usability of new or legacy Windows devices

Both Apple and potential customers can only hope that burn is not in the sense of crash and burn — but with real Intel hardware under the hood, the road to Windows on the Mac looks clear.

Disk partitioning restrictions would have been a bigger problem only a few years ago, but most of the machines where Boot Camp will go are likely to have the disk space to spare.

Device compatibility may prove to be the last problem solved for Windows on Mac capability…

…but Apples gradual adoption — and in some cases, propulsion — of industry hardware standards has given the company a running start toward being all hardware things to all OS users.

It doesnt just look like Windows XP: it is Windows XP, with nothing up any emulations sleeves.

Several errors occured before installing the Macintosh drivers.

Like a disembodied brain discovering its fingers and toes, a Mac that wakes up with Windows on board can expect to take a while to figure out what it has — but driver installation does the trick.

Once they get this far into the process, Windows users will see little that is not familiar.

Apples attention to ease of use doesnt stop at the doorway to Winland; the Boot Camp end game should not scare anyone away from finishing the task, unlike some more complex multi-boot alternatives.

Users must expect a certain degree of cats-walking-around-each-other caution as Mac and Windows find themselves sharing space.

Modern hardware like Bluetooth devices ran smoothly; what did not work was a hall-of-mirrors experiment in trying to run Mac OS X from the Mac parition by booting VMWare Workstation from Windows.

With ample CPU resources, though, a contemporary Mac is more than up to the task of making Windows march.

To Apples credit, Windows can be selected as the default on a Boot Camped machine; Windows users owe it to themselves, though, to give OS X a chance before they retreat to the familiar.

Choice of Windows partition details must balance best Windows performance and control against maximum interoperability

There are good reasons for using NTFS in the Windows disk partition, but there are drawbacks as well.