Pure Windows on new MBP?

It is possible to have Windows ONLY on the new MBP. I understand that bootcamp is simply a set of drivers, I was wondering if it is possible to extract those drivers? sounds,graphics,keyboard,wireless etc...and handle the MBP like PC?

 

As far as extracting the drivers from Boot Camp, I don't know. In order to have JUST Windows, the quickest way would be reformatting the whole drive and installing windows onto it... thats going to require finding either a boot disk that will reformat the drive to NTFS or FAT32, or taking it out (a much harder means i'm told).

 

so...as long as we can find all the drivers needed for the MBP hardware...we don't need OSX?

 

See I was afraid of this, I asked about this on another thread. I asked were Windows switchers going to use the Mac as a "Mac"? I have been a Mac user for 9 years and I used to use the Windows platform. After being fed up with such a high maintenance system I left a switched to the Mac. I have used Virtual PC to run certain business apps written in Windows but that's it. I would never want the Mac hardware to be used solely for Windows.

Why not just buy a Wintel PC and be done with it rather than trying to change a physical Mac into a Wintel PC? It's costly and more trouble. The Mac hardware can't be that cool to put in so much trouble. Bootcamp and Parallels makes sense but to drop the whole Mac system doesn't. Keep in mind that Apple doesn't make Windows machines nor do they support them. They don't support Windows with bootcamp either so any Windows support involving bootcamp Apple won't deal with that either.

 

When you install Boot Camp, it lets you create a drivers CD. Once you have that CD, you don't specifically need anything on the OS X side any more.

I think you do still need it somewhere because the MBP uses EFI and not BIOS, so having just a single Windows partition might not be possible; but you could at least shrink the Mac OS X partition down to the bare minimum perhaps.

I can't say I'd see the point of getting a MBP though with no intention of running OS X on it though; MBP + price of a Windows license is pretty expensive when compared to just getting a PC laptop. The price difference is worth it if you run OS X, but if not, it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

I believe the architecture of the macbook also supports booting from BIOS, but I may be wrong. BIOS is a very old technology, so the space/time required to have it work is quite minimal.

Even if you do have to have OS X to run boot camp, then you could always just do a reinstall of OS X with the absolute bare minimum so that it only takes up a few gigs of space, then install bootcamp and give windows the rest of the hard drive.

Honestly I can't say that I see the draw in doing this. It's nice that more people are interested in Macs now, but unfortunately there's still a large group that are unwilling to let go of windows and even just TRY something new.

Like I've said before, if you hate OS X that much, then you should just buy a crappy consumer notebook because it's obvious you don't know anything about quality.

 

You really aren't being fair; and I'd also say that the attitude like this is what I think contributes to people seeing Mac users as elitist snobs, etc.

The original poster never said they hated OS X; to be fair, they simply asked if it was possible to run only Windows on a MBP.

But frankly, even if they DID hate OS X, that isn't a reason to say they don't know anything about quality, and this is really not a fair accusation to make to anyone.

Like anything, it's personal preference. Someone can just not really like OS X, or more specifically be perfectly comfortable with XP or Vista. It doesn't mean you need to attack their sense of quality/taste.

-Zadillo

 

the new MBP is one of the most performing 15.4 laptops out there, its 1 inch thick, 5.4 something pounds, 3 hours of battery life...yeah it is that cool. If there are any PC laptops like that out there i would buy it w/o hesitation. Unfortunately there aren't any, so this is the only way hehe.

apple would seriously get so much more business if they fully support windows.

 

oh...thx for the responses, I don't hate OSX, I actually think it's a really good system, its easy, simply, elegant...but unfortunately majority of the software,game doesn't support OSX. so...vista is the only way for me to go.

I do however hate fact that MBPs don't have right click.

 

To be fair, I think Apple has really been doing a lot to support Windows. Frankly, I was amazed when they first announced Boot Camp; I had been sure that the whole thing with getting Windows to work on a Mac was going to be left up to hobbyists; didn't expect Apple to make their own software for it.

Boot Camp is going to be an official part of Leopard, so full Windows support should be coming, but as it is, Windows is pretty much supported even in the beta form.

I'm still curious if there's going to be anything more besides just Boot Camp though; like if they will offer their own virtualization system, or if they will leave that up to Parallels and VMware Fusion.

-Zadillo

 

Yeah, although to be honest, I've actually come to really like the two-finger right-click concept. On my PC laptops I actually always find right clicking to be more awkward because I have to shift my thumb to right click, but with two-finger clicking i just hold two fingers down on the trackpad and click the mouse button with my thumb in the same position as normal, and it does the same thing.

I've gotten to the point that I prefer that when using a trackpad.

And of course, right clicking with an external mouse works normally.

 

so no pure windows? on the other hand, how hard it is for other multi billion corp like dell or Hp to make an elegant mac design windows laptop so they can make more money?

 

If there's one thing I wish PC notebook manufacturers would emulate on the Macbook is the large trackpad. Some of the Toshiba laptop trackpads are so small that a finger would cover half of the trackpad.

 

I don't totally follow the question.

Do you just mean how hard is it for companies like Dell or HP to make a machine that looks like the MBP?

I can't speak for Dell, although I think their Latitude designs are ok. The current Dell Inspirons are actually vaguely inspired by the original PowerBook G4 (if you've ever wondered where that white band around Inspirons came from), although clearly not the same.

I think Dell might be getting better though, especially from seeing the shots of the new Dell tablet, and the renderings of the Dell XPSM1330.

As for HP, I think their consumer notebook lineup actually looks very nice right now, and I think they are probably some of my favorite PC notebook designs currently.

For some reason all the other companies except Sony though seem to be reluctant to do a more elegant design though; one thing I like about the MBP is that it is just a very "pure" design; even the bottom of it (compared to almost every PC laptop I've seen, where the bottom is usually kind of a mess of screws and vents and Windows certificates and so forth).

 

Apple did a great job in designing their Macbook Pro from a business and economic point of view. The curent design has been used in the last couple of years; all the way back to the Powerbook G4s, yet more and more people are buying Macbook Pros and non-Pros. Apple also saved money by not having to design an entirely new chasis for the Macbook Pro. I think a lot of business companies are envious of Apple.

 

Yeah. I do like the evolution the original chassis has seen since the original PowerBook G4 debuted in 2001:



The original design was cool for its time (especially being only 1" thick when that was pretty much unheard of for a full-size laptop). But I like the current design, the one that debuted with the latter PowerBook G4 aluminum revisions, as it is smoother and more uniform - I never fully liked that "white strip" with the original PowerBook G4, and never understood why Dell mimicked that as well with the current Inspiron design.

 

Why would you want to get rid of OSX anyways? Its a great OS even though I've been a PC and Windows user my whole life, I have to admit OSX is pretty easy to use. I cant wait until I get a Macbook or Macbook Pro, no more Windows for me!

 

I don't think it is impossible. BUT, if you are asking about it, you probably don't qualify for trying. It would involve first using OS X to set up the partitions and extracting the drivers, and then from the windows side or using an utility from the CD, either reformatting the OS X partition or increasing the size of the Windows' one. There is a very likely possibility of bricking the system of course, but I suppose a full install of OS X could handle it. Anyways, as it have been already discussed, I see no need of doing away with OS X. You'd need it at least for upgrading drivers. Since money doesn't seem to be a concern, buy it with the biggest HD available, do a fresh install of OS X with the minimum space that is possible, and leave it that way.

 

Honesty, Windows is pretty easy for me, even when problems occur, I know where to go and what to do without thinking, I am not one of those people who just click restart and hope for the best. plus windows is so much more customizable than mac OSX.

OSX is simple easy for sure, internet, music, video how hard can it be. But that's all it can do for me.

I like to do clean installs, and have everything my way...that's why i don't want an OSX if i am not gonna use it.

 

I read boot camp installation notes, during the windows installation you can completely erase the MAC partition, I just don't know what is going to happen after that. And that is why i asked if the drivers inside the bootcamp can be extracted, cuz if it can be, then i don't really need OSX to keep my drivers updated.

 

Well I'm a Mac user and I can tell you that Asus makes a comparable notebook for your needs. See 2 things are wrong with what you say. Previously you said that Apple would get more customers if they supported Windows. That's pointless, because then why would we need OSX? Mac OSX would fail if that happened. Secondly if people like yourself keep supporting Windows and ignoring Mac OSX then developers won't make gaming software.
You have to be willing to change platforms to get developers to make the software you need. It doesn't help if completely get rid of the Mac system from it's own hardware to install Windows only. You are contributing to lack of software development on the Mac.

Apple does support Windows but only on software that they make for the platform.

 

I'm just curious what do you mean by customizable after clean installs?

 

hldan, realistically, unless there's a radical change in marketshare, game developers aren't going to magically start developing more Mac games. Hell, more PC game developers are even looking at consoles now, so even PC gaming is becoming a tough sell for some devs.

But I think that it is actually a good thing for the time being to get more people buying Macs even if that means using Boot Camp to play PC games.

The more people that have Macs, the more that a game dev might be convinced to make a native Mac version.

Generally, once there is a healthy installed base of people who would buy Mac games, they might buy them because it is preferable to be able to play the game natively in OS X rather than booting into Windows. That convenience factor could be enough of a reason to do it.

 

Zadillo you are absolutely right but my point is the OP wants to completely remove OSX and his argument is that there is not enough software for Macs especially in games. Well there's plenty of software on the Mac side albeit in many choices better than what's in the Windows world but if we don't support the OS there won't be support from developers.
Yeah, it's true buying the Mac hardware will make developers "think" that people are using them as Macs which is certain for the most part but the OP will most likely never be a Mac gaming customer and developers won't keep producing if sales are declining.

I hear the argument every single day that people love Macs except for the fact that they "can't play games" which is not true and "there are no games" which is not true but what is true is that games are limited so computer gaming is still big and the market is not declining as you say it is. I play Quake 4, Doom3 and COD 2 on my Mac G5 and I play over the internet for the most part and online gaming on a computer is much easier than playing it using a console.

 

u know, by the time OSX support as much programs as windows it will probably be just as BUGGY and unstable as windows. If majority the people use mac OSX, guess what OS all the hackers/spammers are going to focus on? Its teh inevitable trade off.

 

This has been a common argument, but it is based on the idea that Windows had the problems it had SOLELY because of popularity. The reality was that Windows' problem was popularity combined with a lot of sloppy holes, bad practices, etc. MS has taken those issues to task with Vista especially.

With OS X, a lot of those really blatant problems weren't ever really part of the system...... same with Linux. Not to say that these OS's are 100% bulletproof; they aren't; but they don't have some of the blatant problems Windows did that allowed them to be so easily hacked/attacked/exploited.

 

As someone who uses both OS's, I think the OP is asking a totally reasonable question. The MBP is a beautiful piece of hardware, is very light for its size, and is available with an excellent screen with a size/resolution ratio which to me may well be worth the price of admission alone (a matte 1440x900 at 15.4 is not available on any other machine that I know of, at least in the USA). If someone wants to buy the machine and not use the Mac OS, then that person should go for it.

 

Right, if Apple sets the machine up to allow for it to happen. What you do with your own hardware is your own business but I don't think Apple makes their computers so OSX is easily erasable and formatted for FAT 32. Why would they? They are not just trying to sell their hardware, they want to sell their OS as well. I like the Mac hardware first and foremost but I like some of the overpriced Sony hardware as well but I can't buy one of those and install OSX on it and get rid of Windows and the Macs shouldn't be designed to do that either.

 

^ very good point

 

Honestly, I'm somewhat in the same boat. Personally, I have nothing against OSX. I am totally fine with using it (i used it at my school a bit) but at the same reason feel an attachment to many vague windows-only programs that I think I'd miss a lot (mostly free ones). However, going to college next year, the MBP is literally the perfect laptop excluding the price and matter with OSX. If Macs ran windows then

but now... its still pretty

 

Majority of software/games don't support Vista, either. I mean, sure, most of it runs in Vista, but it's not REALLY supported. I love gaming (the only reason I have a PC) and REFUSE to buy/use Vista. XP is a great gaming platform that I'll let go when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Frankly, if HP and Dell hadn't forsaken XP on their consumer stuff, I'm sure I wouldn't still be looking for a new laptop. I guess I'm grateful then, because now I can consider an MBP!

However, since you want a Vista-only computer, why don't you consider a Sony? The Vaio FZ is kinda nice. HP also makes nice looking and well-packaged computers. I think you're wasting your time with Apple hardware, because having a single clicker and a Mac keyboard isn't going to be much fun on-the-go.

 

huh, what programs that you can run in XP can't run in Vista? This XP/Vista argument is same as XP/98 argument...there is no point staying behind, Vista is now and future, xp is the past.

Yeah sony / hp makes nice looking laptops, but the inside components are crap.

 

First, you probably want to keep at least a small OSX partition just to deal with firmware, bootcamp and other upgrades for the hardware.

 

whats the minimum space required for ...OSX + some internet surfing.

 

Good question, not a whole lot of if you just have OS X itself and install Firefox or something. A lot of the space taken up by a standard OS X install includes stuff like iLife, extra printer drivers, etc.

 

so...would 15g be more than enough?