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Question

Dual-booting OS X & Windows XP - Limited to Snow Leopard?

Oct 30, 2012 8:59PM PDT

I have an October 2008 vintage MacBook Pro 17-inch*, which will shortly be revitalised with an OCZ Vertex 4 512GB solid state drive, and with the boost in available disc space, I'm exploring options for dual-booting OS X and Windows.

* Model ID: MacBookPro 4,1 - Order No: MB766LL/A - Mfg. Part No: A1261 - full spec at EveryMac:
>> http://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.5-17-early-2008-penryn-specs.html

I have installation discs for:
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
• Windows XP Home Edition SP2

My understanding is that the Boot Camp version in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will allow me to set up dual-booting between these two OS versions. My natural geek instinct would be to upgrade OS X > 10.7 Lion > 10.8 Mountain Lion, but as I understand it the Boot Camp versions in 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion only support Windows 7.

Q. Does this mean that if a successfully dual-booting '10.6 Snow Leopard + Windows XP' MacBook Pro has its OS X upgraded (> 10.7 Lion > 10.8 Mountain Lion), it will no longer dual-boot Windows XP?

BTW, I'm aware that I can run a virtualised Windows XP inside Oracle VM VirtualBox under OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion (and other virtualisation software is also available); I'm interested in the reduced-complexity full-throttle option of dual-booting Windows XP.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Dual booting
Oct 31, 2012 12:39AM PDT

You are correct in that the Boot Camp app in Lion only supports Windows 7, and above?, I'm not sure what happens when you already have XP installed under Snow Leopard and then upgrade.
If the Boot Camp app is changed out during the upgrade, then it would seem that it would not boot into XP

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Answer
Cross posted?
Oct 31, 2012 1:09AM PDT
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Answer
Your Resolved post has to go
Nov 5, 2012 6:45AM PST

Stealing a copy of Windows 7 is not something that is encouraged, supported or even talked about here on the CNET forums.

Any post dealing with this type of illegal activity does not survive for long here. You will not that yours has already been deleted.

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