Well since my article regarding BootCamp and the future of Apple I’ve been itching to try installing Windows XP on my Mac, so once my MacBook Pro was returned in working order I decided to go ahead and install BootCamp.
Note: Apple states that BootCamp is preview software and as such may become unstable, so make sure you have an up to date backup and are willing to risk potential reinstallation of Mac OS X if the startup disk becomes corrupted.
Anyway, disclaimer aside, I downloaded the BootCamp disk image and ensured my machine was running the latest Firmware and Software Updates. Once BootCamp is installed, you simply run the application which you will find inside Utilities.
BootCamp will offer to burn a CD contained Macintosh Drivers, so unless you already have one, you will need to proceed with that step. Once complete, you can adjust the partitioning scheme that BootCamp will use. This is accomplished by dragging a slider to represent how much disk space each operating system will use. Since I only want to use Windows for a couple of network-able games, I chose to give it 12GB, leaving the rest for OS X.
The partitioning takes a few moments, but not too long, and then asks you to insert your copy of Windows XP with SP2 and click ‘Restart’.
From there on in, the installation proceeds exactly as a standard Windows installation, which I have plenty of experience with working as a Systems Administrator during my industrial placement.
Windows installed in less than half an hour and was up and running. Now the first minor problem – the eject key doesn’t work in Windows so you have to go into My Computer, select the CD drive and choose Eject from the sidebar tasks. Nothing major really remembering that BootCamp is essentially beta software.
After ejecting the disk you can then insert the Macintosh drivers CD you created earlier which should autorun and proceed through installation of all the required drivers which will activate things such as the AirPort card, Bluetooth, built in graphics accelerator and so on.
This proceeded without hitch and had everything up and running in just a few minutes, which is definitely better than the usual routine of installing each driver separately.
I play the game EVE Online and one main reason I want Windows on my portable Mac is so that I can play EVE on the move, as there is no native OS X client for it. Installation was no problem, and as soon as I entered the Wireless network settings into XP, my Internet connection was visible and the EVE client was able to connect.
I was able to set the graphics at full settings running at the native resolution of my MacBook Pro, which is 1440×900 and the notebook was able to cope perfectly fine; so far so good.
The ultimate test would be to install a more demanding game, which I will be doing soon so that I can play LAN games without having to cart around my desktop PC. As soon as I do that I’ll get some more accurate results up to see just how powerful this MacBook Pro really is.
iBlog 
Well I did a quick test of it using Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, which was able to run at full detail at maximum resolution and remain perfectly smooth, even during some pretty hectic battles. The ultimate test – dropping a Nuclear weapon – also passed with flying colours, which is impressive since I’ve not seen a single PC play Generals without stuttering ever so slightly when a Nuke goes off…(in game of course :P).
As I said before though I’ll post a more detailed review when I put something like Half Life 2 on there 😀
Good to see your back blogging, I wondered where you had gone.
Thanks a lot 🙂
I’m starting work as a Web Engineer soon at the same company where I did my industrial placement for Uni, but I’ll still be blogging whenever there is something useful to be said 😀
Hi,
I’m a Windows user and know about Mac almost nothing. Sorry if my question seems dumb to you. After loading Windows XP, the next step would be installing drivers. How it works with Boot Camp? What drivers Windows use? If it’s going to use Macintosh drivers are they all compatible with Windows?
Hi there
Thats a perfectly sensible question and the answer is that BootCamp provides you with a drivers CD when you run it for the first time.
If you missed that step and have already installed Windows, you will need to boot back into OS X, and run BootCamp again. There is an option for you to Burn a Macintosh Drivers CD again. Then you can reboot back into Windows XP and put the Mac Drivers disc in your CD drive.
The setup should auto-run and will install all the drivers you need, such as Audio, Network, Airport, Bluetooth and Graphics. If it doesn’t auto-run, you can just go into ‘My Computer’ and double-click the CD drive, then double click the setup file you will see.
Hope this helps!
There is a step earlier on about burning drivers to a CD. These are Windows drivers for running the Mac hardware provided by Apple with bootcamp. So whether they’re Windows drivers or Mac drivers is a bit of complicated issue…
So the short answer would be “they all work” 🙂
Thanks guys,
I hope “they all work” will work for me. 🙂
The only thing that didn’t work for me was the Apple Eject Key program, basically the keyboard eject key doesn’t work, and you need to use ‘My Computer’ to eject discs, not a major issue considering BootCamp is beta software and everything else has worked.
SD
Does anyone have problems with stuttering audio when playing a audio stream through windows media player 10? I notice that when ever I resize windows or change web pages while listening to rush limbaugh streaming video the audio stutters and sputters. This is consistent and takes place anytime the processor has to do anything; open close or resize application windows, change websites, message a person using messenger live, et al.
I have a MACBOOK 1.8ghz, not a macbook pro. Running latest version of windows with all updates..
thanks joey
Hi Joey
Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, I haven’t used a MacBook with Windows, mine is a MacBook Pro. With the Pro, I haven’t had any problems running Windows, none of the stuttering or any of the problems you are describing, and since the MacBook isn’t that different to the Pro, I wouldn’t have expected there to be any differences with the Windows experience on it.
The only major difference is of course the Intel shared graphics, but I’ve used normal Windows machines with shared graphics and XP has behaved normally, so unless there is a problem with your XP install on the MacBook, I’m not quite sure what to suggest!
It may be worth trying to reinstall XP on your MacBook, obviously being careful not to break the OS X partition or anything when you do it. Also double check that all of the Macintosh drivers from the CD BootCamp burns have installed properly in ‘Device Manager’.
Let us know how it turns out for you and good luck!
to joey:
as to stuttering audio: its the intel gma screen power save mode: i found this on another newsgroup:
Go to Control Panel —> Intel(R) GMA Driver for Mobile –> Display Settings –> Power Settings –> UNCHECK Intel(R) Display Power Saving Technology –> click Apply, OK, then you’re done!!
Apparently, others saw this as mouse lag problem while we saw it as a sound stutter problem. Anyway, whats important is there is a solution to the problem.
Hope this helps everyone who is experiencing this.
Cheers!
Thanks for the tip there matthias, would you mind if I put this up as a Hint post?
Matthias,
Thanks so much for the reply. I have to admit I accidentally found this forum again and noticed my original post had been answered. (thank god google relevantly brought me back to this website by searching on ‘windows xp on mac stuttering audio’). Thanks so much for posting a solution to this problem. I searched all over google and never could find anything relevant and now others and myself can correct this problem in windows. Ciao, Joey
[…] Credit to this tip goes to Matthias who posted it in a comment to the MacBook Pro with XP post. Posted by RyanC Filed in Hardware, MacBook Pro, MacBook, Tips / Hints […]
I made the drivers CD in Boot Camp, installed windows XP pro, ran the drivers CD and it did everything except the audio, It can’t seem to find the device. Any ideas?
Hi there
First thing to check is if you boot into Windows, then go into the Control Panel, then to System and under the Hardware tab go into Device Manager.
Once there, see if you can find the audio device in the list, it should have a yellow warning triangle next to it since the driver hasn’t been installed.
Once you find it, go into its properties and click Reinstall Driver, hopefully it will see the mac drivers which have been installed, and correct the problem.
If not, I would double check you have the very latest possible Mac Drivers CD you can get, and try reinstalling Windows again.
Good luck!
PS Which Intel Mac are you trying this on by the way?
Has anyone tried to run AutoCad 2006 on WinXP installed on a MB pro?
I can’t say I have I’m afraid!
The video card in the MBP is an ATI Radeon X1600 with either 128MB/256MB RAM so it may be worth seeing on the Autocad website if that particular card is supported at all.
I can’t seem to get C&C Zero Hour to work on my Macbook Pro? It hangs at the splash screen… How did you, Ryan, get it to work?
Well I have to say that I did notice it take ages at the splash screen the first time I tried it, but the second time I installed Windows and tried it, it worked straight away.
What you could try is to uninstall C&C Zero Hour completely, then reinstall Generals without the add on and launch that. Then try updating that to Zero Hour.
Also try the update patch for Zero Hour if you’re still having trouble, as I was patched up to the latest version so I could play network games.
Good luck!
hello. i hope someone can help me. ive tried everything. i have a macbook 2ghz running xp sp2 and bootcamp 1.1.2. my audio is working, but still stuttering, along with the mouse cursor from time to time. ive tried the intel gma power saving uncheck. still no luck. in the device manager i have a pci device that’s not found. i think that is where the problem lies. ive been trying to assign every single bootcamp driver to it. no luck.
please someone help!
Hi Justin
If you go to the properties of that PCI device that is not found, can you click ‘Reinstall Driver’ and see if it successfully manages to search for the correct driver? If the Internet connection is working in Windows, you can allow Windows to look online for a suitable driver if one cannot be found locally.
That’s the only thing I could suggest for now, short of trying to reinstall Windows from scratch, then reinstall the Apple BootCamp drivers.
Good luck!
thanks ryan
ive tried what u said. it doesnt find the driver on the internet 😦
i’ll keep on searching. someopne suggested turning off all wireless devices… still no luck!
i finaly found the solution!
i did the following:
1. start -> connect to -> show all devices -> i right clicked on all the wireless devices including bluetooth and disabled them. this immediately fixed my problem.
2. Open ‘Control Panel’ and double click on ‘Intel(R) GMA Driver for Mobile’ choose ‘Display Settings –> Power Settings’ and then uncheck ‘Intel(R) Display Power Saving Technology’. Click ‘Apply’ followed by ‘OK’
this fixed a weeks worth of headaches and close to 10 windows instalations lol.
hope this will help someone!
btw.. its the adio stuttering im talking about… found out about the pci device not found “PCI-Device isn’t any PCI-card but an onboard extension for which Apple doesn’t provide a driver (I have it on both of my Macs).
In the device manager you can right-click and deactivate it, but I’m sure it won’t change anything.”
courtesy of
Stefan
Yes they usually show up as PCI the onboard devices.
Glad you got it sorted in the end, I guess these sorts of driver related issues will be resolved once BootCamp is out of Beta and becomes part of the OS, as in Leopard. 🙂
Justin, thank you so much for a solution. I was having the exact same problem with my 2Ghz MacBook. I’ve found quite a few forum posts about this but disabling the Bluetooth makes sense. I accidentally enabled it the other day (having had no real audio problems before then) and didn’t disable it afterwards. Just about every minute or so my audio with glitch out and the mouse would lag. I’m guessing this has to do with the Bluetooth searching for devices? I’m not sure, but disabling that and the GMA power saving tech did the trick. Thanks again!
I actually found a better solutin to the audio stutter problem. Just download the new driver for the wireless network card from here: http://www.station-drivers.com/telechargement/atheros/atheros%20ar-5008-6.0.2.75-9x2kxp.exe.
That solved the problem for me and I’m still able to use the wireless network and bluetooth at the same time. Everyting turned on…
I noticed that the link above didn’t work. Go to the page below and download the driver named Version 6.0.2.75 for Atheros AR5008 Serie instead. That will work!
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/atheros.htm
Looks good, thanks for the advice there 🙂
The PCI-devices that can not be found in Windows XP is the internal modem and the IR-control. There are no drivers available for those devices yet. There will be drivers from Apple for the modem, but I’m not sure if there will be any drivers made from Apple for the IR-control. I’m sure there will be a third-party driver made available in the future though.
A while ago Derek was asking for help re: audio issues with XP:
Derek > I made the drivers CD in Boot Camp, installed windows XP pro, ran the drivers CD and it did everything except the audio, It can’t seem to find the device. Any ideas?
I don’t know if he got it sorted?
I recently had the same problem and solved it this way:
Install the lastest bootcamp drivers
Update windows software using the update windows utility
Open device manager and look for System Devices
You should notice that one of the options has a yellow alert symbol (Microsoft UAA Bus driver for high definition audio)
Right click and update driver – the driver should be installed!
Although simple this is not the first place you tend to look. I for one spent time trawling the internet for drivers, re-installing the sound drivers and the OS…Doh!
Hi guys,
I am also have the stuttering audio/mouse problems… The problem is i don’t have the ‘Intel GMA Settings’ in my control panel to apply the fix.
Have downloaded drivers for 3 different intel chipsets to try and install but tells me i don’t have the right system to install the software.
Am running XP Pro on macbook pro…
any ideas?
thanks,
Mike.
Hey, have none of the other tips in these comments helped you out?
To fix the audio problem find a copy of Boot Camp 1.1. Burn the driver disc and start it up on Windows and voila. Fixola.
Hmm, that may well sort out the audio issues, but I had problems with the latest BootCamp drivers effectively killing the Human Computer Interface drivers and leaving me with absolutely no way to control the computer, so until they fix that issue it’s better to stick with the older ones (it didn’t do that with the previous BootCamp drivers) or get creative with third party drivers and the excellent Keyboard Remapper.
Thanks everyone for your help with this, I was having the exact same problem (audio and mouse lagging). I tried Justin’s method of disabling the Intel setting which didn’t do anything. But after downloading those updated drivers, it seemed to do the trick. Thanks again.
Hey,
i just got a macbook pro and i installed generals on it. everything runs fine, except the ground in all the maps during the game is black. i uninstalled and reinstalled it several times but i get the same problem. any ideas ryan?
thanks a bunch
hi im fron argentina, i have a macbook 2.0 whith xp and too have a “mini-dvi to RCA/S-Video adapter. In OS X work fine, but in XP no. Please HELP ME! 😦
sorry my english is the worst :S
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If your mac has a Broadcom network adapter, then this is most definitely the source of the sound stuttering. Disable the wireless adapter and try to run MP10 (or any other media app). It is a very common problem and after two or more years still no fix for this Issue. I just use a second party usb wireless network adapter and it works great….but unacceptable IMO
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