AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Current Mac Hardware › Does Boot Camp on the Mac Pro use 64-bit XP?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Does Boot Camp on the Mac Pro use 64-bit XP?

post #1 of 26
8/8/06 at 10:33am
Thread Starter 
I'm curious to whether the Mac Pro, which has 64-bit processors, uses the 64-bit or 32-bit version of Windows XP to install with Boot Camp.

Any ideas?
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 26
8/8/06 at 11:07am
More than likely 32-bit. The 64-bit Xeons aren't exclusively 64-bit. I doubt XP x64 will install. It's another configuration that Apple would have to provide drivers for.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 26
8/9/06 at 3:16pm
Concur - Apple doesn't have the drivers, and Conroes run 32-bit Windows primarily. Woodcrests as you know are SMP Conroes on a faster bus. I bet you could get 64-bit Windows installed on it, but I doubt you'd get graphics drivers (needs special ones in the iMac x1600 vs. normal x1600).
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 26
8/9/06 at 5:10pm
Probably not until Leopard. Maybe not even then. But what does 64-bit XP give that 32-bit can't?
Quote:
Originally Posted by appleinsider vBulletin Message

You have been banned for the following reason:
Three personal attacks in one post. Congratulations.
Date the ban will be lifted:...
Reply
Quote:
Originally Posted by appleinsider vBulletin Message

You have been banned for the following reason:
Three personal attacks in one post. Congratulations.
Date the ban will be lifted:...
Reply
post #5 of 26
8/9/06 at 5:54pm
Leopard shouldn't matter. It's whether Apple bothers to provide drivers.

64-bit XP takes advantage of 64-bit processors like Tiger does.

I bet 64-bit Vista will get drivers.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 26
8/9/06 at 8:12pm
Windows XP x64 shows up as Windows NT 5.2, and XP shows up as 5.1, so Bootcamp will probably say no.
"Humankind -- despite its artistic pretensions, its sophistication, and its many accomplishments -- owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."
Reply
"Humankind -- despite its artistic pretensions, its sophistication, and its many accomplishments -- owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."
Reply
post #7 of 26
8/9/06 at 8:28pm
Why would Boot Camp care? I mean, Boot Camp itself is a firmware update and a driver CD burning wizard with some improvements to Disk Utility (and a better GUI for partitioning). At worst, you have to partition non-destructively manually. You can run Linux under boot camp, I think. Check On Mac, they do a lot of looking into Boot Camp and their own XoM solution.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 26
8/9/06 at 8:32pm
Yeah, Boot Camp wouldn't "mind". The main difficulty is finding drivers; Apple-supplied drivers are 32-bit, so they probably won't work.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 26
8/9/06 at 8:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chucker

Yeah, Boot Camp wouldn't "mind". The main difficulty is finding drivers; Apple-supplied drivers are 32-bit, so they probably won't work.

That's what I love about the Panther-Tiger-Leopard transition Apple is doing from 32 to 64 bit. Completely painless move to 64-bit. I can keep all my drivers until I get around to upgrading naturally, and I don't even have to care if they're 32 or 64 bit.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 26
8/10/06 at 9:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski

Leopard shouldn't matter. It's whether Apple bothers to provide drivers.

64-bit XP takes advantage of 64-bit processors like Tiger does.

I bet 64-bit Vista will get drivers.

I meant not until leopard because apple probably won't ever offer driver updates on a beta.

And I think that taking advantage of 64-bit processors means next to nothing unless you've got programs that can also utilize that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by appleinsider vBulletin Message

You have been banned for the following reason:
Three personal attacks in one post. Congratulations.
Date the ban will be lifted:...
Reply
Quote:
Originally Posted by appleinsider vBulletin Message

You have been banned for the following reason:
Three personal attacks in one post. Congratulations.
Date the ban will be lifted:...
Reply
post #11 of 26
8/10/06 at 3:29pm
They've gotta update the drivers to include the 7300 GT and x1900xt for at least 32 bit anyways. So it's not a "we aren't updating now" issue, it's a "are 64-bit drivers worth it?" issue (and I say no for XP, yes for Vista).
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 26
8/10/06 at 4:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski

They've gotta update the drivers to include the 7300 GT and x1900xt for at least 32 bit anyways. So it's not a "we aren't updating now" issue, it's a "are 64-bit drivers worth it?" issue (and I say no for XP, yes for Vista).

The X1900 is already taken care of i think.
"Humankind -- despite its artistic pretensions, its sophistication, and its many accomplishments -- owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."
Reply
"Humankind -- despite its artistic pretensions, its sophistication, and its many accomplishments -- owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."
Reply
post #13 of 26
8/10/06 at 5:02pm
The purpose of BootCamp is two-fold:

1.) Provide a patch to the Mac's EFI firmware so that it can emulate a BIOS. With the patch installed, 32-bit Windows can boot as it is fooled into thinking that there is a traditional BIOS.

2.) Provide 32-bit Windows hardware drivers for things such as the GPU.

Windows x64 edition supports EFI natively, so it may be possible to get it to boot on a Mac without any patches of said Mac's firmware.

If you did get Windows x64 to boot (with or without applying the Boot Camp patch) there aren't any Apple-supplied 64-bit Windows drivers for things like the video cards. It is possible that standard OEM (e.g. ATI) supplied 64-bit drivers would work.

In short, we need someone to try this out.
it's = it is / it has, its = belonging to it.
Reply
it's = it is / it has, its = belonging to it.
Reply
post #14 of 26
8/10/06 at 6:26pm
Win64 drivers are in short supply anyways, as I understand it. That's the current issue with it.
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 26
8/12/06 at 4:01am
I read elsewhere that a guy has just installed XP32 straight on to a second hard drive into his Mac Pro. Boot Camp not needed. He downloaded the chipset/graphics drivers from Intel/nVidia and it works fine, except accessing the SATA HDD is slow so the chipset drivers aren't quite up to par yet.

I guess in that case that x64 would also work?
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 26
8/12/06 at 7:20am
It should work. Note that that guy probably installed the firmware update (or Mac Pros have it by default) that adds a CSM to EFI (which is a prerequisite of Boot Camp). There's no doubting it'll work, the issue is the Apple supplied drivers in Boot Camp are for 32bit XP. That's more of a problem for every other computer with iSights, sleep settings, closing laptops, motion sensors, etc. Mac Pros don't have that, so x64 will be easier on a Mac Pro than a Merom MBP.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 26
12/22/06 at 12:23am
I am currently running x64 on my iMac using boot camp. I also am capable of fully utilizing the gpu. I went onto nvidia's website and downloaded the driver directly from them.
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 26
12/23/06 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by theapplegenius View Post

Windows XP x64 shows up as Windows NT 5.2, and XP shows up as 5.1, so Bootcamp will probably say no.

So Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP x64 has the same version numbers? (I do know that XP x64 rely heavily on the Server 2003 codebase.)
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 26
12/30/06 at 12:45pm
I have installed using BootCamp Vista x64 (RTM version) on my Mac Pro and it works right off the bat. A few drivers are missing but everything appears to work ok and the OS is stable. I did update the ATI graphics drivers directly from the ATI site. I did NOT install the Apple driver CD except for the sound drivers.

Hopefully a future release of BootCamp will address Vista x86 and x64 drivers.

Keith W.
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 26
12/31/06 at 5:22am
BootCamp runs perfectly with Vista x64, as mentioned above. I would think that Apple would be more inclined to provide drivers for the new Vista rather than go back to XP x64.
~jvb
Reply
~jvb
Reply
post #21 of 26
12/31/06 at 6:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zandros View Post

So Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP x64 has the same version numbers? (I do know that XP x64 rely heavily on the Server 2003 codebase.)

Yes, the two are both NT 5.2.
Reply
Reply
post #22 of 26
12/31/06 at 1:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jvb View Post

BootCamp runs perfectly with Vista x64, as mentioned above. I would think that Apple would be more inclined to provide drivers for the new Vista rather than go back to XP x64.

I meant (and should have said) Vista x86 and Vista x64.

Keith W.
Reply
Reply
post #23 of 26
3/16/08 at 12:02am
I installed XP Pro 32 Bit on my Mac Pro. Then I installed XP Pro x64 by starting up by the install dvd. It works fine. You need to insert the Mac Pro disk 2 to install some of the drivers--you can't install all of them this way. So far I have a few things working. You need to visit individual websites for some of the drivers b/c some of the ones on the Mac Pro disk 2 are exclusively for XP 32 bit or Vista. You also cannot install boot camp on the windows partition b/c it is only available to xp 32 bit or vista. I am still searching for some drivers. Point is, though some drivers may not be available or hard to find, it DOES install and it DOES work.

-Mike
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 26
9/16/08 at 7:46am
hey im currently running xp pro 32 but wanna install xp x64. Is it nessesary to install xp pro 32 bit first then install x64 or can i just reformat and install a fresh copy. also which drivers didnt work and can u provide the links for them???

thank you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by seemseemo View Post

I installed XP Pro 32 Bit on my Mac Pro. Then I installed XP Pro x64 by starting up by the install dvd. It works fine. You need to insert the Mac Pro disk 2 to install some of the drivers--you can't install all of them this way. So far I have a few things working. You need to visit individual websites for some of the drivers b/c some of the ones on the Mac Pro disk 2 are exclusively for XP 32 bit or Vista. You also cannot install boot camp on the windows partition b/c it is only available to xp 32 bit or vista. I am still searching for some drivers. Point is, though some drivers may not be available or hard to find, it DOES install and it DOES work.

-Mike
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 26
9/16/08 at 11:27am
I ran 64bit xp for quite a while on my mac pro without any problems (now running vista 64bit). As I remember, I had to grab the chipset drivers from intel's site (the mac pro uses a custom *layout* but it;s a standard chipset), and make sure you grab the graphics drivers from ati/nvidia.
MBP (15, 2.33, 3GB,10.6/win/lin on 250GB)
MP (3,1 oct 2.8, 10GB. 10.6 on 4x1TB RAID10, Win/Lin on 1x2TB, 2407WFP on 1x5770 + 2xSamsung 910t on 1xGT120)
also a lot of other systems :-p
I met a...
Reply
MBP (15, 2.33, 3GB,10.6/win/lin on 250GB)
MP (3,1 oct 2.8, 10GB. 10.6 on 4x1TB RAID10, Win/Lin on 1x2TB, 2407WFP on 1x5770 + 2xSamsung 910t on 1xGT120)
also a lot of other systems :-p
I met a...
Reply
post #26 of 26
9/16/08 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hastyle View Post

hey im currently running xp pro 32 but wanna install xp x64. Is it nessesary to install xp pro 32 bit first then install x64 or can i just reformat and install a fresh copy. also which drivers didnt work and can u provide the links for them???

thank you.

You can install 64bit directly. Hell, you dont really need the bootcamp assistant you know. just partition the drive, boot off cd, install. Hold down option when you boot to get a choice or install rEFIt
MBP (15, 2.33, 3GB,10.6/win/lin on 250GB)
MP (3,1 oct 2.8, 10GB. 10.6 on 4x1TB RAID10, Win/Lin on 1x2TB, 2407WFP on 1x5770 + 2xSamsung 910t on 1xGT120)
also a lot of other systems :-p
I met a...
Reply
MBP (15, 2.33, 3GB,10.6/win/lin on 250GB)
MP (3,1 oct 2.8, 10GB. 10.6 on 4x1TB RAID10, Win/Lin on 1x2TB, 2407WFP on 1x5770 + 2xSamsung 910t on 1xGT120)
also a lot of other systems :-p
I met a...
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Current Mac Hardware
AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Current Mac Hardware › Does Boot Camp on the Mac Pro use 64-bit XP?