Q: Why is Windows less reliable on a Mac?

It's a question I've had for a while. According to what the fanbois tell us it should be 100% Windows compatible or a better experience due to the sprinkling of Apple magic dust. The thing is, it's nowhere near 100% compatible. But the stability of the environment is what I'm curious about.

I've been running with Boot Camp in-depth now since the tail end of last year with a view to much wider adoption. Since my business went well and truly into the toilet and I also jettisoned some business activities / staff, I can't really justify maintaining a duplicate fleet of Windows machines and Macs, especially as I have to also retain a sizeable spare-machine inventory for the chronically unreliable Macs to maintain acceptable uptime. The idea was to transition most, if not all, Windows PC's to Macs running Boot Camp.

I've ran it with a wide range of software - mostly Office + design & engineering, but others such as TrueCrypt, ACDSee, Spotify, games yada yada. The Boot Camped Macs at the office were pretty much 'locked' into Windows with boots into OS X at regular intervals to check for updates - and were used totally interchangeably with the Windows machines. The home Mac situation was a little different - the systems were regularly flip-flopped between OS's.

Across 8 Macs (Pro, MBP, Air) running Boot Camp in Vista / W7 (I know it's not officially supported) in that period:

BSODs: 4
Unexplained lockups: 10

Some might say that given the number of machines, it's not an unreasonable amount in around 4 months. If we were living in 2001, I'd have agreed - but this is(was) 2010(2009).

Across the two+ times the number of Dell / HP workstations and a smattering of laptops running Vista and W7 (all also officially unsupported) doing the same things over the same period:

BSODs: 0
Lockups: 0

The lockups are actually the most irritating and as someone not used to low-end consumer gear - the kind of stability experience that the Mac Boot Camp translates to - and I'm having to compromise on my initial plans, and retain/buy more Windows-only kit than I'd anticipated.

Apple's hardware is pretty, but thermally much more critical than similar-niche 'semi-pro' machines and design of the hardware is also much more geared to form than stability. So while it stands to reason that the hardware is inferior to the workstations / workstation-class notebooks I'm using over time, thermal issues alone can't be the cause of this - since it's winter and neither my home nor my office is kept at very high temps indoors. In fact, across the Macs I use as Macs, the numbers were pretty much the same as the 'real' PC's - i.e. zero/zero over the same period. So taking environmental variability out of the equation, the subtle - but enough to be annoying - level of instability is intriguing to me.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but it almost seems as though it is geared towards negative reinforcement of Windows' inferior stability among Mac owners, but of a level which doesn't cause undue suspicion that something fishy is going on. So what causes it? Bad drivers? Or the genius of Apple? If bad drivers, why - apart from the EFI thing it is all pretty standard PC fare inside in terms of the parts, however crippled they might be at times (especially in terms of the GPU)...?

 

I can list a few
-ACPI Compatibility (DSDT,SSDT,FACP)
-Drivers (Not WHQL??)
It is not that Apple refuse to make it better
1)It requires Microsoft validation and sharing of programming standards.
2)Apple is not going to pay Microsoft money to maintain compatibility since they have their own OS
3)Their EFI implementation does not have BIOS compatibility to begin with.

 

Debug the BSODs and see if they're related to Apple drivers.

The freezes are a little trickier though.

 

Yeah, I could of saw this coming. The Bootcamp drivers still leave something to be desired.

 

Untrue. EFI is backward compatible with BIOS, that's how people can run windows in bootcamp (or a solo boot).
Since when does Apple have to pay Microsoft to write drivers for their OS?

To the OP, my personal experience with running windows on a Mac was a good one. I never had any stability issues, or BSOD's, etc.

 

Much of the reason that OS X is more stable is simply that Apple controls the OS and the hardware... and, for the most part, they write the drivers. And, generally, they do a good job making sure that the hardware they use plays nice with their OS.

Now, why does Windows on a Mac suck so much? I don't know. BIOS emulation might have something to do with it (though I suspect not). Drivers are probably a big part of it... I know from personal experience that Apple's Windows trackpad drivers for the buttonless trackpad are *awful*. Apple makes at least some of their hardware in-house, and it seems they don't spend as much time writing Windows drivers than OS X drivers.

I do know that Boot Camp has AHCI disabled, most likely to make installing WinXP easier. (Or even possible for anyone who doesn't know how to slipstream a driver, since Macs don't have a floppy drive to load a driver into the installer with)

 

If environmental issues aren't involved, i.e. the very small thermal headroom of the Macs don't come into play, then yes - they're as reliable in OS X as Windows semi-pro gear post-XP. That's not really the issue as you *expect* a non-beta OS to be stable these days. At least, if you're not using a pile of junk or something you built yourself while not having a clue.

Like most of the posts here, I have all sorts of speculations. I'm wondering if someone can, as it were, pin the tail on the donkey.

Right now, I have (on average across home and work) one spare Mac for every single laptop I own, and at least one spare for every three desktops I own - this is due to reliability issues on the Macs. I stopped paying for site service on the Macs due to service I just couldn't rely on and keep spares in-house, and rotate faulty units out to Applecare. While this way is more labour-intensive than the much more reliable and much better supported Dell Precisions/HP xw-z's, the end result is that uptime is the same and also that I have some degree of control over the post-failure situation given the inferiority of Apple service.

So what I was doing up til now is buying the Macs + spares, *and* Windows PC's (and no spares required unless I actually need multiples to use) to run, well, Windows. So in these times, the ability to use a Mac to run both is in fact very compelling both from a machine management and of course cost point of view. Which was what lead to the in-depth Boot Camp exercise.

And as of now, using Windows on the Mac - Vista or W7 - is something I have to class as a business liability in all but the least demanding roles. I'm wondering if there is a way to lift reliability in Windows without going through a system-builder-scale testing procedure - and that entails at least having a handle on why Boot Camp Windows is less stable. I was wondering if anyone could shed light on it.

 

That is incorrect.
EFI made by PC makers IS BIOS Compatible.
Apple removed BIOS compatibility because it is a Mac not a PC
If you don't believe try to make a Mac boot to DOS (Create a DOS Boot Disk) I am sure it wouldn't work.
You can run Windows 7 in a mac natively because Windows 7 implement EFI support now.
If you check the install disk there is a boot/EFI folder because PC Maunfacturers are switching to EFI now.
As for drivers, they have to pay to ensure compatibility Microsoft will run test to verify and sign the drivers.
Whenever I see comments like this I feel that Mac users don't hack around their machines much.
Distracted by the pretty shell?

Anyway can any Macbookers download install and run rw-everything and post screenshots?
I want to see how much ACPI information is missing.

 

Vogelbung,

My experience mirrors yours except that I can't even see Mac's run in OS/X without problems. Thank God I didn't buy them to find that out - but my thinking at the time was 'if they can't run their own O/S properly, how can they run Win 7 when it comes out'.

Not only multiple problems with Airport Time Capsule backups, but also with 'simple' things like getting repeatable correct colour off the same printers (different Macs) and even being able to simply connect to the network too (wired, or wireless modes).

If you don't need Macs in your 'shop', I would be dropping them with no regrets.

But, seeing as you even have a 'spare' so you can keep them up and running, I guess you need them a lot. Glad they don't have issues for you while on the OS/X side at least.

Good luck with your quest to make the Windows side behave too. But my suggestion to you is if you can find a way to do without, you'll be better off in the long run.

Cheers!

 

Anyone with a Mac can download and install RW-Everything in Windows to check the ACPI?

 

Bootcamp drivers for Windows 7 are out. new 3.1 version officially supports it

You can try and see if it helps.

 

Already installed on the W7 systems - definitely solved some of the more overt deal-breakers. You will take note however that I mention Vista and W7.

 

Sorry, but that's incorrect. Originally Macs didn't support BIOS emulation, but it was added with a firmware update when Boot Camp was announced. It is, however, tuned towards booting Windows... other OSes should work, but sometimes don't. Memtest86+ works but doesn't recognize the keyboard, for example. I believe Linux works fine.

While Windows 7 does support EFI natively, getting it to work on a Mac in that mode isn't easy or particularly useful. Also, Boot Camp predates Windows 7 and supports XP.

Sorry, sold mine yesterday.

 

I will believe you if you show me you can boot Windows Xp on Macs without Bootcamp.
The only Windows OS Macs can natively boot is Windows Vista SP1 and above and Windows 7.
Because Microsoft added native EFI boot.
Even so I am sure the ACPI compatibility layer isn't complete.

 

Huh?

Boot Camp *is* the BIOS emulation (and driver bundle). If you find a Mac that predates Boot Camp, and hasn't had the firmware update installed (unlikely, since the OS updates require it), it won't boot any flavor of Windows. Or much of anything else. (Ok, there were some third party hacks that add BIOS emulation that were around for a few months prior to Apple releasing theirs)

Yes, Windows 7 (and apparently Vista?) support booting from EFI. But, for some reason I've never fully researched, it doesn't work on a Mac. Perhaps Windows doesn't understand the GPT partition scheme? Feel free to find a Mac and try it, just select the CD icon marked EFI Boot instead of the one marked Windows when booting off the CD.

So, you're right, without Boot Camp the Mac can't boot WinXP. But, without Boot Camp, it also can't boot Win 7.


EDIT to add:
rEFIt is an alternative boot manager for intel macs... this page of theirs is a little out of date, but points out some of the problems... http://refit.sourceforge.net/info/vista.html
(Some recent Macs do have 64 bit EFI now. Hell, maybe those Macs can run Windows without the BIOS emulation, I dunno. I haven't tried.)

 

Check here

 

Ok, I stand corrected. But that requires a disk with a MBR-style partition table, which means for most people it isn't useful since OS X won't boot off such a disk.

The vast majority of Windows installs, including Vista and 7, are using BIOS emulation.

But the original point - that Macs support BIOS emulation in EFI - still stands.

 

No No I don't consider BIOS Emulation using BootCamp as part of the firmware.
If you have to have a space allocated on the harddisk itself to load BIOS emulation it is not part of the firmware.
It is like a bootloader loading code into the memory instead of retrieving it directly from the firmware chip.
Currently the PC Makers's EFI has BIOS emulation built into the firmware chip itself there is no "bootcamp" to emulate BIOS.

And that is for people who wants the Macbook for its look while discarding the OS.

 

Um... no. Nothing is installed by the Boot Camp assistant. All it does is shrink the Mac partition and create a FAT32 partition. Any other partitioning tool will work as long as it creates a GPT partition table. (Otherwise, OS X will refuse to install/update later on, which is annoying to fix)

There is a small partition on all GPT disks, which might be what you're referring to... but it's only there because the spec calls for it, and is empty.

http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/

 

The thing is you don't know how complete their BIOS is.
ACPI on Mac may not work as well as ACPI on Windows that is how the problem starts.
That is also why I wanted to see the DSDT in Macs but no one bothers.

 

I aint running anything with an Online Casino link in the page. You mad?

EDIT: I have to do some machine-shuffling soon so if I get a chance I'll run it before I reinstall / reimage one of the machines. Maybe next week.

 

zOmg! look at all the fanbois!!!

wind0rz runz bttr on macs by like 6 billion times!

z0mbg fanboi?

... they are everywhere ...

----

Personally, I haven't had any stability issues with the latest mac in windows. My previous mbp experienced GPU failure, which definitely counts as instability, and I attribute it to nvidia, since it is well known to be a widespread problem across many different laptops with different thermal designs that those 8600m gt cards were time bombs. you, of course, will attribute that instability to apple's horrendous thermal design. but i digress - just wanted to chime in and note that the latest mbp has been perfectly stable in windows. aside from stability, there are a variety of other issues i have experienced in windows, of course, but stability problems are not one of those, in my case.

i use my mbp in windows to run games and some niche number crunching / image processing applications related to my work, so the cpu and gpu tend to get spammed, but the hdd usually doesn't have to work too hard. perhaps that will help further with inference.

 

I'm surprised it took you this long to find the thread, masterfanbo... I mean chef.

It's also across the board... but especially an issue with the Pros (not the MBP's) where the real heavy lifting is done.

 

i don't know anything about the mac pro, at all. just commenting on the macbook pro 13" and 15", which you bunched in with your original stats. just trying to be a voice of moderate common sense in a world full of haters and fanboys.

 

Try much harder. Because you have it completely wrong way around and seem to be blissfully unaware of it.


Back on point:
After running more operational software under Boot Camp, I've decided the financial / maintenance hit of running systems effectively in triplicate is a necessary one - but I'm going to try a more focused approach to buying machines and not try to fill every niche. I'll resume my Windows machine acquisition and remove Boot Camp environment from the Macs, while retaining the virtualised options.

It would be good to have an answer from someone regarding this issue, but my need for a response is now no longer necessary - consider the Boot Camp effort abandoned, probably for the last time.