Boot Camp or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Windows.

After talking about it for so long I have done it. I am now running Windows XP on my Mac. In fact, I am writing this blog while running Windows XP on my Mac. Getting to this point was a long, strange journey and I'll talk about it after the jump, along with my thoughts so far concerning Windows and why I decided to go Windows after ten years on Mac OS.

The journey began back in March when I bought my current Mac. I was in need of a new computer and after weighing my options decided to once again go with a Mac, mainly because all the programs I own are for Mac. Well, that and I'm not really a PC gamer so I have no need for a fancy rig with a pixel-crunching Graphics card. Nope, my Mac Mini is computer enough for me. The biggest reason for buying this Mac was because of Boot Camp, the program that allows Intel Mac's running OS X 10.5 to run Windows. Now I could have gone with Vista but considering all the trouble my mom's friend and my sister have had with their Vista PC's (Last week my sister's laptop had a massive failure and needed a complete reinstall of Vista) I decided to go with XP. I was going to get XP when I bought my Mac but...decided to get an Xbox 360 VGA cable, 22" LCD Widescreen monitor, and some sweet speakers instead. The speakers are for my Mac because the built-in speaker sucks.

Over the next few months things just kept coming up and I kept putting off getting XP until just recently. I had a little extra and found a copy of XP for System Builders for $85 online. After confirming with a Mac Genius that it would work I snapped it up and it arrived today.

The biggest pain was having to reformat my HDD to partition it for Boot Camp. I didn't know that I had to do this with a fresh drive. I guess Mac OS just tosses stuff wherever on the drive. I have a lot of important files (Music, writing...*CoughpornCough*) I really didn't want to lose since a lot of it is irreplaceable. Mainly the writing, I mean. Seriously, 90% of the Internet is...you get the idea. Lacking an external HDD (Its on my list, I swear!) I used the next best thing: My iPod. Went into iTunes, selected my iPod, clicked "Enable Disc Use" and voila! External HDD. Files backed up I reformatted the HDD, reinstalled the Mac OS updates, made a Boot Camp partition, printed the .pdf file for Boot Camp, and popped in my Windows XP disc to begin the install.

Surprisingly it took less time to install Windows than it did Mac OS. Probably because Mac OS comes with Garage Band, Front Row, iPhoto, etc. So with Windows installed I popped in my Mac OS disc to install the hardware drivers. It was pretty funny because as each new driver was installed a new balloon would pop up in the lower right-hand corner saying "New device found." Then came the updates. Right there, on my desktop I had Windows and Apple updates running side by side and, for a brief moment, there was a glimmer of hope. If these two rival OS's can update side by side then...maybe John Lennon was right. Maybe we will see world peace. Updates installed, restart, install Service Pack 3, restart, install various programs (Firefox, Last.FM, Yahoo IM, etc) and begin the iTunes music migration. Lacking an external drive I cannot sync my two versions of iTunes to one library (Not even sure if I can with an external HDD, but I'll try) so I had to use my library backup discs.

Oh, in case you're wondering switching between OS's is simple but different depending on which side you're on. For Mac its Apple > System Preferences > Startup Disc > Windows whereas on Windows you just select the Boot Camp icon in the system tray then "Restart in Mac OS X."

I look forward to the new worlds that Windows will open up for me. Sure, I can't really play games on this setup but there are a bunch of other programs available only for Windows that I cannot wait to try. Not to mention that thanks to my Windows install and my friend's Student and Teacher Edition I now have Office 2007 and all of its sexy updates and new features. I have the Mac equivalent of Office 2003 and have been using that since it came out. I'll probably still primarily use that version but run my stuff through 2007 before publishing here. Hopefully the new features will improve my writing.

As time goes on I'm sure I'll get used to the Windows environment and...may even grow to love it. Right now I'm like the guy who's traveling abroad for the first time. Everything feels somewhat familiar but at the same time, different and its all so exciting!