Boot Camp: Questions and Answers; Troubleshooting issues; Benchmarks; more

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 6:40 a.m. PT

7 min read

As we continue to dive into the world of Windows XP booting on Intel-based Macs, we reiterate the use of caution when using the beta status Boot Camp on non-experimental systems. Apple will not provide support for problems caused by Windows XP installation.

Remember to make a firmware restoration disc before beginning the Windows XP installation process.

Questions and Answers [See Ted Landau's article from yesterday for more questions and answers]

Q. Can a retail Windows XP disc without Service Pack 2 (SP2), or the copy of Windows XP included with Virtual PC be used with Boot Camp?

A. Yes, but you will have to apply the SP2 update to the Windows XP disc, generating a slip stream copy. You can find instructions here.

Q. Is there a chance that files stored on the Mac OS X partition will be affected by security issues that manifest in the Windows XP partition?

A. Technically, malware will be able to modify the contents of the Mac OS X partition. However, it would have to be extremely sophisticated, with the ability to read and write files to the Mac OS Extended drive format. In other words, the chances are very slim.

Q. How do I switch between Mac OS X and Windows XP startup disks from Windows XP

A. In addition to holding the option key down at startup to select between Windows XP and Mac OS X partitions, Apple has placed a Startup Disk pane in the Windows XP control panel, allowing you to set which drive partition will boot on the next restart.

Q. How does sleep behave with MacBook Pros? Can the lid just be opened and closed?

A. Sleep works properly on the MacBook Pro -- closing the lid invokes sleep. When the system is awoken by opening the lid, the normal Windows user login screen is presented.

Q. What type of driver is Apple using for the ATI X1600 video card?

A. The ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 driver included on the Mac drivers CD lists ATI as its developer, affirming our earlier speculation that Apple cooperated with ATI for development of the driver.

Q. What does the "Command" key do under Windows XP?

A. The Command key invokes the "Start" button.

Q. Should the Windows XP partition be formatted in FAT32 or NTFS format?

A. If you format the Windows XP partition as FAT32, it will be both readable and writable from within Mac OS X -- but it will also be limited to 32 GB in size (make sure the partition you set when initializing Boot Camp is 32 GB or smaller if using FAT32)

If the Windows XP partition is formatted using NTFS, it will be readable -- but not writable (by default) -- from within Mac OS X, and can be larger than 32 GB.

There are some potential security upsides to NTFS but performance should not differ significantly.

Q. What Apple hardware will not work with Windows XP?

A. According to Apple, the Apple Remote Control (IR), Apple Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard or mouse, Apple USB Modem, MacBook Pro's sudden motion sensor, MacBook Pro's ambient light sensor, and built-in iSight camera will not function correctly when running Windows XP.

Troubleshooting concerns

Problems starting up Windows after driver installation If you have problems with Windows XP startup after attempting installation from the Macintosh Drivers disc, and receive the error screen with a list of boot options including "Safe Mode" and "Boot Windows Normally," and "Load using the last working configuration," try selecting the option "Load using the last working configuration." In many cases, this will allow a normal boot to continue, with the expected Windows disk check that may fix some errors that occurred either during Windows XP installation, or copying of the drivers.

If the boot failure occurred after driver installation, try re-running the driver CD installation.

If you cannot successfully double-click on the drivers disc to launch the Installer, go to the Windows location entry field and type "D:" then press return -- this should bring you to the root directory of the drivers disc.

Problems installing over previous hack As we noted yesterday, if you previously attempted to install the popular Windows XP "Bootloader" hack, you will not be able to apply to firmware update required for using Apple's newly released Boot Camp software, which enables Windows XP booting on Intel-based Macs.

In-house on our MacBook Pro (which has a partition scheme created by the aforementioned hack), the firmware update process fails to complete, with no progress bar appearing when the required restart is performed. In order to apply the firmware update, you must format your startup volume and use the default partition scheme, then re-install Mac OS X, then re-update to Mac OS X 10.4.6.

There is another solution to this issue, posted to the OnMac forums, that involves correcting the partition scheme, clearing NVRAM and blessing the original boot loader. This is a somewhat problematic process that may result in having to reformat anyway, but it's worth trying first if you have a full backup handy.

MacBook Pro battery issues In-house our MacBook Pro had some battery issues under Windows XP. At one point, during normal operation from the battery with a nearly full charge, the MacBook Pro suddenly shut down. Also, at full charge, the charge time is listed at about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The MacBook Pro's battery is listed as "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Method Battery" and uses a Microsoft developed driver.

MacBook Pro cannot right-click -- solutions The MacBook Pro cannot right-click. The right-click functionality works if the "Button configuration" section of the Mouse Properties (located in the Control Panel) is set to "Switch primary and secondary buttons." Unfortunately, this won't allow you to left-click anything. If you accidentally check this option and can't left-click to reverse the switch, remember that you can tab to that option then press the space bar to toggle the option on and off.

There is a downloadable utility called "Apple Mouse Utility" by an independent developer that some users have reported success with. It enables use of the control-click combination in substitution for a right-click.

Another solution is to use the keyboard combination Control-Shift-F10 after left-clicking the item you would like to right-click.

Adjusting MacBook Pro screen brightness The normal screen brightness keys will not work under Windows XP. Instead, you must use the following keyboard combinations:

Shift-Control-F1 to lower brightness

Shift-Control-F2 to increase brightness

Problems installing -- even after successful firmware/OS update -- fix Some users are reporting an issue where the Boot Camp Assistant refuses to proceed with installation even after firmware has been properly updated on an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4.6.

Brad Freeman writes:

"I tried to install Boot Camp on my iMac Intel today and it keeps popping up a dialog telling me I must upgrade my system software first. I already was running 10.4.6 and installed the Firmware Update. I even tried downloading and reinstalling the Combo Update, repairing permissions, etc.. but still get the same error message. I am very disappointed right now especially after reading about many success stories."

If you are experiencing a similar issue, make sure your startup disk has a single partition in the Mac OS Extended Journaled format.

Benchmarks

We ran a quick series of PCMark '04 benchmarks on a MacBook Pro running at 1.83 GHz with 1 GB of RAM. Although PCMark reported our MacBook Pro as having 256 MB of VRAM, it actually uses the ATI X1600 with 128 MB of VRAM.

We compared our MacBook Pro to a Hewlett-Packard with a motherboard model 309F, a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, and 2 GB of RAM. PCMark listed an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 video card with 256 MB.

In the below chart, the MacBook Pro is the first (light gray) bar, and the HP laptop is the second (light brown) bar.

As you can see, the MacBook Pro held its own, even with the similarly equipped Hewlett-Packard laptop packing twice the RAM.

The German Mac site MacTechNews also ran some graphics benchmarks using the 3DMark software, revealing a score of 1518 for the MacBook Pro, compared with a score of 3334 for an Athlon XP 3500 with a GeForce 7800GT, and a score of 1558 for an Athlon XP 2800 with the far inferior Radeon X800 Pro -- obviously Apple still has some work to do on the X1600 driver.

Positive experiences

MacFixIt reader Clinton Dyches writes:

"And mein Gott! It works! The '39 minutes' to completely install XP is still somewhat a joke but after installing XP and the Mac drivers disk -- it works like no emulation package I've seen. All printers work... AirPort card... And it's fast (compared to emulation... Can't wait to see benchmarks). Every USB device I've thrown at it has worked... And I have a satisfied giggle when I see that 'NO NAME' drive on my Mac desktop.

"No longer waiting on a Virtual PC upgrade - no more kludging around with OpenOS Wintel."

"Running on my 20" Intel iMac at the moment but will install on MacBook Pro tomorrow.

"I genuinely love the name 'Boot Camp' - you must go through the hell of installing and using Windows but, if you need it, you'll be well-equipped for it. Kudos to Apple for both making this possible and keeping it under wraps."

Gerard Lucas writes:

"I just installed boot camp on my new MacBook Pro (1.8 GHz). Works very fine. The process is easy to enable; Of course the installation of Windows XP is rather time consuming, but once installed, runs very fast. When you are on the Mac OS X You can see your other partition that contains all the data of your "windows partition". I am very very satisfied.. I could even setup my computer to access my airport station. The only thing I don't know yet is how to see my printer which is on the USB port of my airport station."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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