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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Vista on a MacBook Pro

Vista on a MacBook Pro

There was some debate a few weeks ago whether Intel Macs would boot Microsoft’s upcoming operating system, Vista, because of conflicting boot-up systems. While the Intel Macs use EFI, a new boot system from Intel, initial versions of Windows Vista will use the old BIOS system.

Well, in the comments to the blog post below, reader RLPM posted a link to a Flickr photoset showing his MacBook Pro booting off a Vista disk image, thanks to Apple’s new Boot Camp software.

RLPM says he didn’t try a full install because he hasn’t backed up his MacBook, and presumably doesn’t want a disk error to wipe everything out.

He writes: “After installing the firmware update and boot camp (didn’t run boot camp assistant), it booted off the most recent Vista. I haven’t had time to backup my system, so I didn’t install vista, but it boots from the latest image!”

So I guess Apple’s Boot Camp software makes the whole BIOS/EFI firmware issue moot?

About the author

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is senior editor of Cult of Mac, editor of two books about technology culture, Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, and has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Observer in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

Email the author | Read more posts by Leander Kahney.

5 comments

    “So I guess Apple’s Boot Camp software makes the whole BIOS/EFI firmware issue moot?”

    From Apple’s Boot Camp page:

    http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

    EFI and BIOS

    Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries.

    This from a sidebar on the Boot Camp page:

    EFI and BIOS
    Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries.

    Gotta love the passive-aggressive marketing tactics.

    The installation CD is not booting Vista; it is booting Windows Preinstallation Environment 2.0 (Beta), a cut down version of Vista/Longhorn. The boot manager used by Win PE 2.0 supports both BIOS and EFI booting, although only BIOS booting is officially supported. For more information, search for “Boot Configuration Data Editor Frequently Asked Questions”.

    Given that the Vista installation CD has booted this far, it is a good indication that Vista itself will install. But I wouldn’t fancy running the current betas on a PC using shared graphics.

    The bios thing have nothing to do whit bootcamp.
    Intel is so smart that they have implanted both the new and the old bios.
    They have made the memory for bios bigger. The old bios is loadet from low memory and the new from upper memory. And thats how you can install any OS you like on new Intel boards ;-) Clever !!! If the OS ask’s for EFI then it will get it.
    XP / Vista: I need the old bios ! no problemo her it is !

    Can anybody let me know that how I can setup VISA in my Mac Power Book G4 Laptop? Please send me some info about that throue my mail..

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