Any Macbook/Macbook Pro owners using Boot Camp?

Hey guys, I just had some questions for those with Macbooks or Macbook Pros that are currently using the 1.1.2 beta of Boot Camp.

I'm going to be touring soon, and in Japan for a couple of weeks and I really want to be able to play a game or 2 to pass the time. There's definitely going to be some times when I am seriously bored ... and I'll need to get in some Max Payne 1 or 2 (with mods of course), Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas, or maybe even some Farcry. Stuff like that. Hell, I might even dust off some old school games to play ... like Mafia.

I know that's small fries for wanting to install Windows XP just for that, but I can't afford a Nintendo DS lite, I just spent all my cash on this fancy Macbook Pro.

At times like this, I wish my Xbox 360 was portable, haha.

I've got my Windows XP Home SP2 disc ready, and the Mac drivers disc ready .. but I'm hesitating on installing after reading on the Apple site that if anything goes screwy, Apple Care won't cover it ... I'm taking it that they say that because the product is still in beta form.

Does anyone appear to be having any issues at all after using Boot Camp? I just don't want to take the chance of something going sour on the Mac side since I have to play live with my laptop ... I'd freak out if a program just suddenly stopped live in the middle of playing a song.

Sorry to seem like the guy who is to whimpy to go thru with something ... I've just got to make sure that I don't screw my Macbook Pro up ... I just spent my savings on this badboy for my music career. If it went belly up, I'd probably swallow a bullet.

Anyways, thanks for any advice or comments ... I'm interested in seeing how everyones machines are doing running Windows XP. Also, I don't plan on running in Windows XP for more than a couple of hours at a time ... the longest being 4-6 hours maybe. I didn't know if that was a concern or not, as I thought I read somewhere that you should run XP on it for certain periods of time.

 

Um.. They mean AppleCare won't provide tech support. But I'm sure they'll help you rebuild your mac if you happen to hose the OS X install also (not sure how you could do that).

No issues here besides the fact that I accidently installed some incorrect USB drivers that hosed my isight and additional abilities like right click and such.

You won't get crap for battery life, they don't have the drivers working for the battery management yet. So like, 1.5-2 hours I think. Not sure about how long you could get with gaming...

But there should be no effects on your OS X partition. It's 2 seperate partitions, and one should not effect the other. Just don't run any advanced hard disk util stuff on the windows side, that CAN cause problems.

 

Sure. Do you think that defragmenting in Windows would be an issue by chance? I'm sure that it probably won't in the final release, but I wonder about this beta.

I've never been involved in a beta program before, as I've always been afraid of the risks. Yes yes, I know I'm a wuss, haha.

 

You will be fine. Worst case scenario is that you would have to maybe format and install OS X from scratch, but that's easy. Just be sure to backup your important data. As for defragmenting, I would not worry. If you are only going to be playing a couple of games, your drive probably won't get heavily fragmented anyway.

 

Yeah, normal defrag should be fine. But some other utilities may do more defragging or something that will effect the whole drive...
But ya, should be easy to recover anyway.

 

I'm running Boot Camp to play games just fine on my MBP, which seems to be identical to yours judging from your sig.

AppleCare won't provide technical support since Boot Camp is a beta product, but as the others said, issues on the Windows side of the machine should not affect the OS X side so you can just reinstall things. Worst case scenario if it did would be that you have to reinstall OS X I guess, so do keep backups on an external hd - but it's not something I worry about at least, the risk is not big enough for that.

 

As everyone said... it is quite unlikely that BootCamp/windows will foobar OS X. But if it does, you can always reinstall it from the DVD, just keep a backup.

 

Thanks for commenting guys, I'm gonna install the Boot Camp beta today. I hope that all goes well!!! Just 2 more questions to ask you ...

I'm having to use the same Windows XP SP2 disc from my PC that died recently. Do I have to go to the Windows site and unregister anything at all? Was my XP disc locked to my old PC, or can I use it for my Mac also?

Also, when I start up Windows ... should I go to the Windows Update site and grab all the newest updates? It shouldn't screw anything up right?

Sorry for the n00bish questions guys ... thanks for all your help.

 

regarding the XP SP2 disk, was it an OEM disk? that may or may not make a difference. I installed win XP on a second machine (after removing from the first one) and had to call MS to activate it. You should be able to, but it may take a relatively painless call to MS. it will provide you with the number if activation doesnt go through.

regarding the updates, that sounds like a good idea

 

It is an OEM disc actually, so does that mean I'll have to call up Microsoft before installing? I hand built my old PC, and the place where I bought the parts from gave me the Windows XP Home SP2 disc with my purchase. What does OEM mean anways, I know it means Original Equipment Manufacturer ... but what does that have to do with Windows?

 

OEM means that it's bought together with a PC and it's much cheaper than a normal license. I think you will be fine, the installation / activation program will let you know if you need to call Microsoft or if you can update directly and you will have 30 days to do it. After 30-days it will require you to do it and disable WinXp.

 

Well, I keep getting the BSOD when trying to install the drivers off of the disc. My Windows XP installation went fine ... without a breeze ... but trying to install these drivers is making me go crazy. I keep getting a BSOD and then it reboots on me ...

I think I'm just gonna start up boot camp and delete the partition ... I'm not in the mood to put up with this crap, this is the whole reason why I left Windows XP. Guess I'll just have to buy some games to play on my Mac instead of using the boot camp to play my old Windows games.

I just searched "BSOD Boot Camp" in Google and came up with TONS of posts with people having these same issues ... I guess that's why it's in Beta right? Glad to see that I'm not alone on this ...

Hopefully they get this worked out by the time Leopard is released .... I know now that I will never use a beta product again.

Thanks for the help anyways guys ...

 

UPDATE!

I just tried the drivers again, and turned off my wireless router ... all seems to work great now!!!

Woo hoo!!!!

Now if I can just get the damn wireless connection running, and to work with my WPA2 Personal security ... I'll be all set.

 

Well it looks like WPA2 doesnt want to play nicely with the Windows side of things ... so I had to make a WEP 128 bit hex security setup ... which finally both my Mac and Windows can connect to. Woo hoo!!!

I just played a bit of Counter Strike : Source on here ... and I was surprised to hear some noise outside of my headphones ... it was my fans. They've never turned on until now, kinda freaked me out for a second ... haha.

I'm SOOO happy that I went with this Macbook Pro, it's an amazing machine. And so far, the dual boot thing seems rather smooth. I only use Windows if I want to play a game, and that's it. No music listening, or web browsing at all ... just good ol'd games. I'm blown away by having the option to have Windows XP on here ... if you ask me, that option alone is going to get some noobies over to the Mac side. I don't want Vista, and none of my friends do either ... so they're staying with XP, but want something new badly. I'm now telling them all that they need to go Mac this round ...

Funny thing tho, Windows sure looks UGLY after I've been messing around on this Mac for almost 2 weeks now. I kinda feel dirty messing with Windows now ... really dirty. I hope that the Mac gets some decent games sometime soon tho, anything that I can do to cut Windows out of my life would make me happy. I'd really love to see more puzzle games for the Mac, quality ones like Lumines, Hexic, or even Bejeweled.

I saw there's some GL Golf game for the Mac ... I wonder if it can somewhat satisfy my Golden Tee fetish.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you guys know that I was a bit freaked out at first about the drivers disc screwing up on me, but after trying a second time ... things are smooth, real smooth.

Thanks for all your help guys!!!

 

Welcome to the Mac Glad to see you enjoy it.

 

Curious, I also felt strange when using Windo]ws with bootcamp. Somehow it just doesn't seem to belong there at all.