Running Vista on a Mac

Published on January 29th, 2007

Running Vista on a Mac

Funnily enough, Macs are great machines for running Vista. They’re new, they’re fast and they exceed Vista’s demanding specs. They can even run OS X and Windows at the same time.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running Vista on a quad-Xeon Mac Pro. Click the link to see how it’s working out.

The Mac Pro is a very fast and capable OS X machine, but it’s an even faster Windows Vista machine.

Vista really flies on this beast, and feels like it’s faster than OS X – it boots faster, folders burst open and apps launch instantly.

(The Mac Pro has two dual-core 2.66GHz Xeon chips; 3GBs of RAM; and a medium-range NVidia GeForce 7300 GT graphics card)

I’m especially delighted with Vista’s “glass” Aero interface, which works in all its glory on this machine.

The OS is dark and handsome. It’s really quite exciting. Like the Zune’s interface, it’s artfully done. The beautifully-rendered shadow effects and transparency give Vista a greater “depth” than OS X, which looks a little flat and well… old fashioned in comparison. I know this is because Vista’s new and novel, but it makes OS X look dated.

Thing is, after I got Vista set up, I’m like, what now? I noodled about a bit, but I’ve no real use for it. My entire computing life is already in OS X. The eye candy is nice, but I’m already committed. I guess that’s what a lot of Windows users think when they look at the Mac.

26 users responded in " Running Vista on a Mac "

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# 1 CanadianGuy said, on January 29th, 2007 at 5:19 am

It is sad that we are now talking about how fast the OS will run on a machine and not the programs. Why would anyone buy an OS just for some eye candy? They should have called this XP.5

# 2 RTaylor said, on January 29th, 2007 at 5:31 am

I’ve ordered a 24″ iMac with 2G’s. I wonder how it would run on that?

# 3 Mac Guy said, on January 29th, 2007 at 5:33 am

Hey, Uncle Dave,

Yeah, I’ve had the same problem getting sound to work as well on my MacBook Pro. It’ll just be a matter of time (probably well after the release of Leopard) before the drivers for audio are worked out.

I believe I got a Vista experience rating of 4.7 on my MBP, which is better than any non-Apple desktop my boss has been able to test it on! This laptop smokes!

# 4 Uncle Dave said, on January 29th, 2007 at 6:08 am

#3: You realize I didn’t write this, right? Just posted it? While I plan on buying a Mac to replace my aging PC once Leopard comes out, I only plan on putting XP on it to run Windows programs. No interest in the DRM-crippled Vista.

# 5 Eideard said, on January 29th, 2007 at 6:26 am

After what seems like centuries of computing and several OS in the past — cripes! I’ve been online 24 years — I started up with OS X to experiment with/evaluate the first Mac Mini a couple years ago.

Gave away the last Windows machine in the house about 2 weeks ago. My buddy was pleased it had Ubuntu Linux already loaded — saved him a brief task. I kept it well beyond usefulness — because in practice I never have needed to maintain Boot Camp/Parallels/XP on our MacIntel Mini.

# 6 sh said, on January 29th, 2007 at 7:16 am

A quad-Xeon that’s not cheap….tell us what the hardware costs.

# 7 Canadian said, on January 29th, 2007 at 8:03 am

#6 – A quad Xeon Mac Pro starts at $2121.

That config gives you 2 x 2.0 GHz Dual core Xeons, 1 GB RAM (add more from 3rd party) and a 160 GB drive.

# 8 Mark Derail said, on January 29th, 2007 at 8:25 am

I don’t care about a VM Ware session running an OS.
That’s so year 2000 news.

What seems interesting is that Vista reports a higher than 4 rating – meaning the 3D graphics emulation are just as fast hardware for a high-end PC.

Now, can you run games? Like Half Life 2 in 1280×1024 & High settings, without any lag?

If Mac prices come down enough, and their emulation Dual or Quad core machines allow equivalent PC gaming, then I might

might

Consider a Mac in the future for a Home computer.

For the Home, games, movie/vids, jpg and mp3 management are the only concerns. Mac is good at all except the gaming. If they fix that…

# 9 Terry said, on January 29th, 2007 at 8:36 am

I run HL 2 and CS:Source in Boot Camp at 1680X1050 on highest settings. Emulation software currently does not work with Windows games though but Parrallels say they will within a few months.

# 10 JT said, on January 29th, 2007 at 9:04 am

This comes under the heading “Why would you want to?”

# 11 Mark Derail said, on January 29th, 2007 at 9:11 am

#9, that’s because your Mac hardware is Intel?

# 12 James Hill said, on January 29th, 2007 at 9:29 am

I got a good laugh out of the notion Vista is somehow better looking and faster than OS X, when you can apply themes to both OS X and XP to make it look just like Windows.

Chances are, this genius hasn’t realized he can turn up the speed in which folders are opened under OS X.

# 13 pedro said, on January 29th, 2007 at 9:49 am

Vista runs faster on a mac than osx.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha

# 14 GregA said, on January 29th, 2007 at 10:17 am

It just seems to me that the sort of dated mac pros are money misspent when you can get an alien ware computer that is roughly twice and fast as that mac pro for the same amount of money as the mac pro. Nevermind, 4x as much memory, and about 10x faster on the video bus.

That and even cult of mac people admit that vista now has a better eye candy than osx.

Is it me or does the osx theme look all playskool compared to the vista theme?

# 15 SN said, on January 29th, 2007 at 10:36 am

“It just seems to me that the sort of dated mac pros are money misspent when you can get an alien ware computer that is roughly twice and fast as that mac pro for the same amount of money as the mac pro.”

Or rather than buy a piece of crap Alienware you could build your own and save even more money.

# 16 Billabong said, on January 29th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

You can also teach a monkey how to ride a bike but what is the point?

# 17 miamiguy said, on January 29th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

Agree with #15 100%! Alienware!??!!!!! Pure garbage unless you are into endless tech support hell, machines delivered DOA and on and on- Best Buy in South Florida stopped carrying them because they could not keep up with complaints…I could go on & on & on & on….please please please listen-
BUYER BEWARE

otherwise,
Peace

# 18 Lauren the Ghoti said, on January 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

#13 – pedro

Thassright! Now your Win installation can become spyware-infested at blinding speed! Think of the time you’ll save on your daily critical security patches and virus scans! Hell, you might even have time left over to run applications!

———

#14 – GregA

“Is it me or does the osx theme look all playskool compared to the vista theme?”

Yeah, it’s you.

# 19 OmarThe Alien said, on January 29th, 2007 at 7:31 pm

The statement in the last paragraph is me, just flipped. My whole computing life has been Windows, it works for me, I’m comfortable in it, I record multitrack music, I do web design, I animate and all without excessive fuss. I build my own computers, so the occasional problem is quickly solved. But I would never extoll the virtues of the Windows platform over that of a Mac as I’ve never even so much as touched a Mac, therefore I lack the data to compare the two platforms.

# 20 Lauren the Ghoti said, on January 29th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

#19 – Omar -

Well, Omar, I’ve used PCs since ‘82 up til ‘00. I’ve used Macs since ‘84. In 23 years, I’ve always had at least one Mac; I sold the last PC I owned in ‘99, when I snapped that it failed my personal cost / benefit analysis. If I were a gamer, other than the Sims and the Myst series, I’d probably have an XP box, but 7 years of freedom from virus worries, spyware, the endless stream of patches…, and, of course, everyone’s favorite computing phenomenon, the BSOD. It’s like living in an alternate universe, not having to even think about those things. My Macs work without crashing, they’re secure, and there’s no drudgery involved with using them.

So, like most people who have long experience with both platforms, I went with the Mac. When I get my first Intel Mac, I’ll run Parallels – but so I can run x86 Solaris, not Windows.

One simple observation, make of it what you will; I’ve built PCs, trained users and done end-user Windows and Mac support for quite a long time. A good number of people along the way have told me how much they hate computers, how they use ‘em only because they have to, that they can’t fathom those other people who actually enjoy the damn things. Virtually all of those people were Win users who had never used a Mac. Like I said, make of that what you will.

Here’s a fact that has never changed: Windows users switch to Macs allatime; Mac users very, very rarely switch to Windows – and of those few, a significant percentage only do it because they have to, not voluntarily.

# 21 pedro said, on January 29th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

I still don’t know how people complaint about spyware, I really don’t know what that is.

…but to my point. Behold! your transformation into a very efficient PC clone is total now. You run Windows faster than OSX. And your fanboys have not detected the conversion. You can be proud, my grasshopper.

I didn’t write young grasshopper because steve jobs is way past young.

# 22 Luke Oliver said, on January 30th, 2007 at 3:20 am

Spyware is the thing that owns your PC at the moment, unless you are running anti spyware software….and if you are running unti spyware software…you know all about spyware.

# 23 JB said, on January 30th, 2007 at 8:08 am

I used to be a pc support technician. I bought my first mac a few months ago. It’s a strange feeling to get on the computer and actually get something done with minimal fuss – I actually have more time to do other things. I now recommend macs to anyone who comes to me with a pc issue. It’s much cheaper than paying me hundreds of dollars every few months to clean malware off of a pc.

# 24 pedro said, on January 30th, 2007 at 9:11 am

I ask again, what is spyware? why do you have it and I don’t? hmmmm. I maybe losing countless hours daily getting rid of it, yet I am not.

# 25 Lauren the Ghoti said, on January 30th, 2007 at 10:01 am

#23 – JB

That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout. That was the rationale behind the Mac from the very beginning; it’s a tool to make your work easier, not transform you into a computer expert.

But M$ & Friends realized early on that there were beaucoup bucks to be made by making it difficult – thus was the billion-dollar Windows support industry born. And of course, there have always been that type of person who thinks medicine has to taste bad in order to be any good, so likewise, if a computer is too easy to use (i.e. the Mac), then it must not be a “real” computer…

# 26 jckamartin said, on February 3rd, 2007 at 1:07 pm

I was wondering where PC and Mac folks met to duke it out. Now I know. For any of you who are confused, let me summarize my lifetime battle with both. I started out with Apple from the very beginning – buying one of the first 100 Apple IIs to teach high school students. Then in the early to mid 80s, Apple closed its architecture and IBM opened theirs. Apple Lisa – oh man what a painful venture. By then I had a computer store and was delighted to watch Apple get knocked off of its high horse as schools started learning that they could actually do work with a PC.and that parents weren’t buying Apple boxes. But low and behold, I had kids, and school projects, and friends that wanted videos turned into DVDs. So although I’ve been in IT for years, and almost always PC shops, I bought a G5 iMac and suddenly all the schoolwork, movies, photo albums, and DVDs get done in record time with spectacular results. No more fighting with Adobe Premier or Microsoft Movie. We still game on the 5 XP machines I own (we have to), but now we are seriously considering replacing the machine I am on now with an Intel based 23 inch iMac so we can get the best of both worlds. It is still a PC world out there ladies and gentleman, but I reluctantly admit that I would abandon my PCs for Macs if only companies wrote software for it. Until they do, I gotta keep running XP. Parents, save yourself a lot of headaches – Buy a mac for work and a game console for games.

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