Winner announced in Windows XP on Intel Mac contest

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
The contest:



http://windowsxp.onmac.net/The%20Contest.html



The forum:



http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=64



The photo proof:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/32436196@N00



Looks like (if this is legit and I think it is) 'Narf' is going to be paying the taxes on a cool $12,598 bucks!



Dave
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 112
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Looks legit. Wonder if he'll post the instructions by tonight. Narf2006 says it requires heavy hacking of the NT Loader. This won't ever be an easy install (well...it'll be like OS X on PCs.)
  • Reply 2 of 112
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Looks legit. Wonder if he'll post the instructions by tonight.



    I'm guessing till he is assured he's getting the cash he isn't gonna say anything... As some have said maybe the contest cash was a BAD idea since so few were willing to work together (and split the cash I guess) and also it kept just about EVERYONE mum on what they were 'up to' in trying to get things to boot...



    I for one was looking forward to the contest deadline since then people would be more willing to work as a team to make things work.



    Now as for how I feel seeing XP booted on an Intel iMac... I'm not sure... Oh for **ME** it's great - but the unwashed masses... I dunno...



    Dave
  • Reply 3 of 112
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Looks good, but there are still lingering questions (like the Windows build number showing in the screenshots). Once he does a writeup we'll see what develops.



    I still want a virtual machine type setup rather than dual booting, but this is a step in the right direction and will easily help switchers feel confident in the Mac purchase.
  • Reply 4 of 112
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Xool

    I still want a virtual machine type setup rather than dual booting, but this is a step in the right direction and will easily help switchers feel confident in the Mac purchase.



    I'm with ya 100%



    That would truly be the best of both worlds... and this solution would more than likely come from the fine folks at VMware and while 'they can't comment on unreleased software' - A few forum posts by VMware employees seem to give some hope to VMware being supported (to some degree) on OS X.



    Dave
  • Reply 5 of 112
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    VM will definitely come eventually. I'd give it another year or 2 and I'm sure we'll have a few VM software to choose from.
  • Reply 6 of 112
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member


    When it rains it pours!



    Now we have 2 unique ways (neither proving the 'fix' just yet... But thats what happens when reward / contest money gets in the way...



    News: http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13965

    Site: http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/misc/legacyboot/



    Given the comments I've seen on WinCentric forums etc I have a feeling Apple will be selling more hardware in the not too distant future. Comments like "if I could boot Windows, I'd buy a mini / macbook pro / iMac" are becoming quite a bit more common...



    Dave
  • Reply 7 of 112
    akheron01akheron01 Posts: 152member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DaveGee

    Given the comments I've seen on WinCentric forums etc I have a feeling Apple will be selling more hardware in the not too distant future. Comments like "if I could boot Windows, I'd buy a mini / macbook pro / iMac" are becoming quite a bit more common...



    I know, I've been hearing so much of exactly that, what's sad is how many of these people will be a little surprised to realize their Windows partition has been doing little more than gathering dust for several months.
  • Reply 8 of 112
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    That's really impressive, but are the graphics accellerated? That was my main doubt in this whole thing, because the GPUs seemed to still be using Mac-specific firmware for some reason.
  • Reply 9 of 112
    Buying a Mac to boot windows is STOOOOOOOOPID!!!
  • Reply 10 of 112
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    The more narf is dragging his feet on this, the more I think this is a



    1. Post pictures of XP booting on Intel-based Mac

    2. ...

    3. Profit



    thing. And that last photo he put up really looks fake.



    Maybe narf is an Apple employee trying to drive Mac sales by pretending that booting Windows is close to being a reality.
  • Reply 11 of 112
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacAficionado

    Buying a Mac to boot windows is STOOOOOOOOPID!!!



    You don't buy a mac to boot windows but being able to boot windows may actually allow you to buy a mac.
  • Reply 13 of 112
    bitemymacbitemymac Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Telomar

    You don't buy a mac to boot windows but being able to boot windows may actually allow you to buy a mac.



    Nothing special about iMac booting windows... It's an intel reference board design just like Dell. What would get me excited would be booting OS X on Dell..... I would definately buy a dell labtop to boot OS X, but wouldn't buy iMac to boot windows...... atleast buying a dell coreduo labtop seems to be cheaper than getting the macmini coreduo.
  • Reply 14 of 112
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Originally posted by Xool

    I still want a virtual machine type setup rather than dual booting, but this is a step in the right direction and will easily help switchers feel confident in the Mac purchase.




    i agree 100% too. if this is fully legit this will totally rock.
  • Reply 15 of 112
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    ArsTechnica has just posted a story confirming that "narf" has won the $14,000 prize for person first able to get Windows running successfully on an Intel Mac.



    clicks for joy



    This is absolutely huge news, I think, because I am sure there are going to be a lot of fence-sitters who will be completely swayed by the opportunity to run all three major operating systems on one machine.

    The ultimate in cross-platform computing.
  • Reply 16 of 112
    AppleInsiderAppleInsider Posts: 63,192administrator
    A contest aimed at developing a solution that would allow owner's of Apple Computer's new Intel-based Macs to run both Apple's Mac OS X and Mircrosoft's Windows XP operating systems natively on their computers appears to have a winner.



    In a message on the Windows XP on an Intel Mac contest Web site on Wednesday, the contest runners proclaimed that the "Contest has been won," and promised additional updates at a later time.



    The winner of the contest, known only as "narf," will take home a cash prize of $13,854, which was accumulated through donations from 100 or so contest supporters and companies such as Digital Express, Delicious Monster, and Uneasy Silence.



    All further donations will go into an account to sustain the open source project that will be launched alongside the winning solution, contest runners wrote on the Web site.



    One of the rules of the contest was that the winning solution would have to allow for dual-booting -- an installation and boot method that would allow Mac OS X and Windows XP to coexist on the same computer, prompting the user to decide which operating system to boot each time the computer is switched on.



    According to an article on ArsTechnica, the solution developed by narf is "fairly complicated." The tech site notes that users will need a Windows PC to complete the process, which is likely to defeat the purpose of the hack for most people. However, anyone with a bit of computer knowledge, access to a PC and 30 minutes to spare, should be able to get the solution working.



    The solution will reportedly work on Apple's new iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac minis.



    With the ability to boost Windows XP, Apple computers are now the first machines on which users can boot all three major operating systems without (potentially) violating anyone's EULA, Ars notes. However, the legal implications of modifying the Windows XP boot CD -- which is part of the process -- are not yet known.
  • Reply 17 of 112
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bitemymac

    Nothing special about iMac booting windows... It's an intel reference board design just like Dell.



    The firmware types aren't the same, which makes it a big deal.



    Quote:

    atleast buying a dell coreduo [sic] labtop seems to be cheaper than getting the macmini coreduo [sic].



    Can you please back this up? Even with special deals & coupon codes, I haven't seen another claim of a core duo Dell for under $1100 or so, and I think that was a base model. Not a bad deal, but not cheaper than a mini duo.



    I think there's too much platform bigotry and exclusivism going on here. I don't think it is stupid to want to run Windows. Frankly, there are plenty of apps that don't have a Mac counterpart, and similarly functioning programs aren't necessarily adequate substitutes. Until there is a good substitute that allows Windows software to run within OS X Intel, this would be a necessary first step to make the Mac a viable platform for a lot of people. Something like this would make it easier for some people to keep a fall-back position in case they don't like OS X. OS X is very nice but it still has annoying things that make it hard for people that have used Windows for a decade to get used to.
  • Reply 18 of 112
    vox barbaravox barbara Posts: 2,021member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacAficionado

    Buying a Mac to boot windows is STOOOOOOOOPID!!!



    Well, to put it slightly different:

    Purchasing an Apple Computer to run Windows is amazingly

    stupid
    .



    [Maybe in a different computer universum, which i

    probably have no clue about, this dual boot obscenity

    does make sense. Well, i know that there is some unknown

    yet awaiting to be uncovered by myself. In the meanwhile

    i'll proudly enjoy my Mac OS X]
  • Reply 19 of 112
    jms698jms698 Posts: 102member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    That's really impressive, but are the graphics accellerated? That was my main doubt in this whole thing, because the GPUs seemed to still be using Mac-specific firmware for some reason.



    According to Macworld:



    ... native graphics drivers aren?t in place yet, for example, so there is limited video performance ? a blow to Mac gamers who had hoped for a solution that would let them play Windows games on their new Mac hardware.



    ?There is no chance you could play a game using this solution, aside from minesweeper,? said Nederkoorn. ?It looks like a fix for this may be a ways off yet.?
  • Reply 20 of 112
    Why would anyone want to run the Windows OS natively on a Mac. Running it in Virtual PC would be the only option for me. The reason, those nasty viruses in the Windows world that have been created to wipe your boot blocks and distroy your harddrive. Could you imagine using Windows and have it crash and then realizing it wasn't just your Windows partition wiped out but your entire computer. But I guess some people want to live on the edge.
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