Hackers Win Contest; Windows XP Installed On Intel Mac

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:

As we reported in late January, Colin Nederkoorn started a contest, purportedly because he told his boss that the Intel Mac would replace his IBM desktop and he could boot Windows XP on it. Well, hackers dubbed “narf2006″ and “blanka” have managed to do solve his problem.

The solution was sent to Nederkoorn and his testers, who verified it on Wednesday. It’s a complicated endeavor, however, including formatting a Mac system and creating a custom Windows XP SP2 installation disc, which could potentially violate Microsoft’s copyright.

Even if Windows is successfully installed, there are still a number of limitations. Windows drivers for Apple’s hardware are currently nonexistent, rendering the iSight and Apple Remote inoperable. In addition, graphics support is basic, meaning no games will run.

“There is no chance you could play a game using this solution, aside from minesweeper,” Nederkoorn wrote in a blog posting. “It looks like a fix for this may be a ways off yet.” Source: BetaNews

We Say: Nearly $14,000 is on its way to “narf2006? and “blanka.” Since XP does not work with the Extensible Firmware Interface, it was obvious this was going to be a hack and not a clean solution. With Vista no longer supporting it either, at least initially, Windows-on-Mac fans are going to have to live with these type of solutions.

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