I have installed and configured Windows XP on my Mac. I was so giddy with excitement it was like it was the first time I ever installed XP…only better! The install was quite simple and ran quickly. I was suprised at how well the drivers Apple included worked. I can see them improving over time to include proper key-mapping, but at this interation I was plesantly supprised. Additionally, I ran the Half-Life 2 Demo and was plesantly supprised with the performance. It ran well with 2x Antiailising at native resoultion (1440×900).
Reasons I might keep the dual-boot around:
Games – Now that I have a computer than can play modern games, why the hell not?
Neato factor – The jaw dropping effect of a friend of mine was hilarious. I was running HL2 when he came into the room and starting talking about how much he loves the game. I then exited back into XP and waited for all the cogs to fall into place. Once it clicked that this was XP on a Mac he just stood there stunned. 🙂
Reasons I might delete the Windows partition:
OSX works better for/with what I accomplish day to day. It just fits better with my workflow, no virus’, spyware, excessive tweeking, etc. I can’t see myself using it much.
Quicksilver – This is worthy of its own post!
Toys – iSight, Power Management, Volume, Backlight, Remote etc work better in OSX (For now!)
Way too easy to reinstall – I catn delete the partition easily, and recreating it wasn’t that hard. I could keep a ghost image around (if that would work) if I ever needed it again.
As mentioned on TUAW, this news is huge for large organizations. I work for the IT dept at SLU and the first thing said was, who needs to buy anything other than a mac? This article at TUAW has it right on the head.
