Apple Boot Camp 1.2 Beta Review

Almost exactly a year ago, I reviewed Apple's Boot Camp, an intriguing beta solution for dual booting an Intel-based Mac between Mac OS X "Tiger" (see my review) and Windows XP (see my review). At the time, Apple said that Boot Camp was a publicly available beta of a future feature of Mac OS X "Leopard," the next version of Mac OS X. Since then, Apple updated the original Boot Camp a few times in minor ways, but delayed Leopard. (It's now expected in mid-2007.) Last week, the company unexpectedly released Boot Camp 1.2 Beta, adding compatibility with Windows Vista (see my review) and better hardware support. I hadn't expected to see Vista support in Boot Camp until Leopard shipped.

(Note: For a more in-depth look at this product, please do refer to my original Boot Camp review. This article assumes you're familiar with the initial version.)

Installing Boot Camp 1.2 Beta

As with the initial Boot Camp release, the process of installing this software, and an associated version of Windows, is a multi-step process. Since last year, I've purchased an Apple MacBook notebook computer, so I used this system to install Boot Camp 1.2 Beta. And since I'd been holding out hope that I could run Windows Vista on an Intel-based Mac ever since Apple announced the switch a few years back, this seemed like the logical time to see whether that dream could come true.

Sadly, in my case, there were a few hurdles to jump through before I could make it work. I don't hold these problems against Apple or Boot Camp, but it might be instructional for others in the future who run into similar issues to understand what happened. Here's the story: After installing the Boot Camp application in your Utilities folder, you work through the Boot Camp wizard as before. You burn an updated drivers CD first (which includes drivers for both Windows XP and Vista) and then decide how to partition your hard drive.

Because I'm using a notebook computer, there's only a single hard drive in the system, but I updated it last year to a 160 GB unit because I'm using the MacBook for a lot of digital media work. I only had about 25 GB of free space, but that would be fine, split in half, for a basic Vista install, so I told Boot Camp to configure 12 GB for Windows and the rest for OS X. At this point, Boot Camp normally performs the partitioning, asks for the Windows install disk (CD for XP, DVD for Windows), reboots the system, and gets to work.

In my case, Boot Camp told me that it was unable to perform the partitioning I had requested. I tried various partition sizes, and removed large files and attempted partitioning again, but always had the same results. The issue, as it turned out, was that OS X had somehow placed some unmovable system files near the end of the disk. (Question: How did it move these unmovable system files there in the first place?) The only way to move them would be to do it offline; that is, I'd have to defrag the disk by booting the system with another disk. Long story short, I tried, but I'm not exactly running a Mac shop here, so I gave up, backed up the MacBook's data (including my crucial master copy of my music library), reinstalled OS X from scratch, and reinstalled Boot Camp. (Incidentally, a later restoration of my data went better than expected.)

This time, the partitioning proceeded normally, thank you very much, and Boot Camp happily allocated 15 GB of the hard disk to Vista. After that is done, you click Start Installation, as before, the system reboots, and Vista Setup runs. It's still odd seeing Windows installing on a Mac, but everything works normally as expected.

Once Vista boots into the desktop, you can eject the install disk, which is difficult, unless you plug in a two-button mouse, since the default OS X keyboard shortcut for right-click (CTRL + left mouse click) doesn't work in Windows. Then, you insert the drivers disk you created. And here's a bit of really good news: Unlike the first Boot Camp, this new drivers disk actually installs drivers for every single device in the system (at least in the case of the MacBook on which I tested). That's neat, and there are some cool side effects to this support. For example, the Apple Remote can be used to partially control Windows Media Player and Media Center. (Due to the limitations of Apple's remote, however, you can't navigate menus with the remote, only toggle between Play and Pause, Fast Forward and Rewind, and change the volume level.)

Using Boot Camp 1.2 Beta

As with the previous version, Apple uses a decidedly minimalist approach to dual-booting. Instead of a menu at boot up, you have to remember to hold down the Option key on your Mac's keyboard to choose between OS X and Windows. If you neglect to do this, you'll simply boot into the default OS. You can change this default via the new Startup Disk control panel, which Apple conveniently (and correctly) locates right in Control Panel, System and Maintenance on Vista. (It's located in System Preferences in OS X.)

This simple control panel lets you choose between the various bootable partitions on your system. In my case, there are two: Paul's MacBook (OS X) and Windows. Just select one, close the window, and you're set.

Since Macs and PCs use the same underlying hardware now, you can expect Windows Vista to run about as well on a Mac as it would on a comparable PC. My MacBook has a 2 GHz Core Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, and integrated graphics: In Vista, performance is excellent, and you get the full Aero treatment.

I noted above that Apple now supports the Apple Remote in Vista. There are other nice hardware compatibility touches added in Boot Camp 1.2 as well. For example, if you slide two fingers across the trackpad while in an application like Internet Explorer, the current document will scroll, just as it works in OS X. And while right-clicking with the trackpad doesn't work as it does in OS X, you can, in fact, perform a right-click with just the trackpad: Just place two fingers on the trackpad surface and then click the trackpad button. Neat.

One area that's proven problematic is the Mac's keyboard. Apple uses a different layout than other PC makers, where some keys (like ALT) are in different locations and others (like PRTSCN) aren't present at all. If you want to use Vista with a desktop Mac, my advice is to simply use a high-quality Windows keyboard, like those made by Microsoft. But on a notebook computer like the MacBook, you're going to have to relearn some keyboarding skills, which could take a little while. Apple does supply a help file that explains the differences and limitations. But I'd like to see a simple way to map keys. Print Screen would be helpful on the MacBook, for starters.

One thing that might rub some users the wrong way is that Apple installs its Apple Software Update utility in Windows. While writing this review, it popped up to tell me that new software was available. Thinking it must be a software update for Boot Camp, I took a look, but it was just trying to get me to download QuickTime and iTunes. That's the kind of heavy-handed thing Microsoft used to get in trouble for, and while I appreciate Apple's desire to advertise, I don't really think this is a great idea. Software Update should only offer you updates for software you already own.

On the Mac side, your Windows partition appears on the Mac desktop alongside your Mac partition(s). You have to give it a name from within Windows, as you cannot rename it from the Mac, but you can drag files across from the PC side to the Mac, though not vice versa, at least on an NTFS partition. (You can't drag files either way from within Windows, when that is running, without a third party utility: You can't natively access an OS X file system from Windows.)

Conclusions

Despite some small issues, Boot Camp 1.2 Beta is an excellent solution for running Windows and OS X on the same machine. Apple has done an exemplary job of improving this useful software over the past year, and now that it supports Vista as well, I have no compunction in recommending it whole-heartedly. If you've been eyeing one of those beautiful Macintoshes over at the Apple Store but don't want to give up all the useful Windows software you use, you now have one less reason not to give it a shot. With Boot Camp 1.2 Beta, today's Macs provide the best of both worlds: You get Mac OS X, with its high-quality iLife suite of digital media solutions, and Windows, with its unsurpassed gaming and application libraries, all in one box. That's the kind of switch I could easily rally around.

--Paul Thurrott
April 10, 2007
Updated April 11, 2007