Get Ready For Boot Camp

I never thought I’d see the day that I would see Windows running on a Mac. I’ve been regularly running Virtual

PC, a PC emulator, on my Mac for years, but it’s just an emulator and it significantly slows down my computer. Last week Apple made it possible to run Windows XP natively on its new line of computers running with the Intel processor.

Apple released Boot Camp last week and we immediately jumped on the opportunity to install it on my husband’s MacBook Pro. Forty-five minutes later, to our delight, it worked absolutely seamlessly. Boot Camp works as a dual boot after it installs a Microsoft partition on your hard drive. When you start the computer, it gives you the option to boot it in OS X or Windows XP.

Before you begin the install on your Intel Mac, make sure you have the latest version of OS X Tiger (version 10.4.6), the latest firmware update and 10 GB of free hard disk space, a blank recordable CD and a Windows XP installation disk with Service Pack 2. Boot Camp burns a CD with the drivers Windows needs to recognize Mac-specific hardware. The software helps you set aside hard drive space for the Windows installation without moving your Mac files around.

“Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware now that we use Intel processors, “ said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing.

“We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch,” he adds. Adding the Windows capability to Mac hardware may ease the transition for you Windows users to make a switch.

The public beta of Boot Camp is available as a free download at www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp. The final full version of Boot Camp will be available as a feature of the soon to come Mac OS X version 10.5 “Leopard.”