“Microsoft revealed today [at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF)] that it will not support EFI booting for Windows Vista on its launch. The news will be a shock for owners of Intel Macs who had hoped they would be able to dual-boot between Windows Vista and OS X. Intel Macs only support booting via EFI,” Dan Warne reports for apcmag. “Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is the modern and flexible successor to the 20-year-old PC BIOS. It is responsible for initialising hardware in the PC, and importantly, device drivers are stored in the EFI flash memory rather than being loaded by the operating system. It is a major change for the PC industry and both PC makers and Microsoft have been slow to make the switch. Because the Apple Intel Mac platform is entirely new, it does not have any legacy support concerns. It was hoped that 2006 would be the year PC makers would make the switch. Microsoft’s lack of Windows support is a huge blow to Intel’s hopes, and removes most of the incentive for PC makers to implement it in the short term.”
“That’s terrible news for Intel Mac users who have been hoping that they could dual-boot Windows and Mac OS X on their new Macs: not only are their processors not 64-bit (and thus will never be supported by Windows EFI booting) but Windows Vista won’t boot on EFI anyway,” Warne reports.
Full article and link to unedited recording of Microsoft’s revelations about Vista at IDF. (21.6MB, MP3)here.
“Apple Senior Software Architect Cameron Esfahani said that his understanding is that only 64-bit versions of Vista will support EFI. To this point, all of the Intel Macs have used 32-bit chips,” Ina Fried, reports for CNET News. “‘I don’t think so’ he said, when asked whether Inte Macs should easily run Vista. Esfahani was speaking at the Intel Developer Forum here–to a packed room despite the session being the last of the conference. In addition, while EFI has the prospects for supporting many older types of software and hardware, Apple has not included much of that “legacy” code in its EFI implementation. ‘Windows is a legacy OS,’ he said to laughter and applause from the crowd. ‘We don’t have legacy support.'”
Full article here.
“I’m not sure why Microsoft decided to drop EFI support after having promised up until now that it would be included in Vista. Intel, the creator of EFI, has really been pushing it and with support from both Apple and Microsoft, it wouldn’t be long before it completely replaced the BIOS. There’s no doubt that this announcement has Intel more than a little bit miffed. One would also think Microsoft would realize the great opportunity it has here to make inroads into the Mac market. Apple’s computer sales have been rising recently under the halo effect of the iPod so their marketshare is significant. That also means that a lot of new Mac users are recent Windows converts and I’m sure that many of them wouldn’t mind running both operating systems. In any case, it will be interesting to see how this turns out,” David Johnston writes for RealTechNews.
Full article here.
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Looks like Microsoft are going to differentiate Windows from OSX by making Windows as backward as possible.
Seems like an odd way to run a software business.
Iam really pleased to see the the IT developer world is waking up to the huge difference that has developed now between the quality of stuff from Apple and MS.
GO APPLE!
Makes perfect sense from MS’s standpoint. They will still be able to protect their Mac software space my maintaining sales of Virtual PC AND they will will not lose as many current PC owners to switching. Why is everyone so surprised?
No Phil C,
you’re not alone. But that’s not the point.
There are a lot of people out there who have to use Windows.
I know an architect who couldn’t work without the software he uses –
and it only runs on Windows.
He’ll switch to Macs just as soon as he can run his software on them.
He dislikes Windows PC’s.
“OS X obviously works with both BIOS and EFI with no discernable problems” I’m not so sure about that. I don’t think OS X on generic PC hardware works flawlessly yet and of course ppc macs never used BIOS so I don’t think we can say OS X runs on bios just fine. Unless the dev kits were BIOS, which is possible.
As far as I know, there are no benefits to BIOS other than that it’s there, it’s been tested, stuff (sorta) works with it. EFI seems to be much more versatile than BIOS and better at remembering how to use devices before the OS boots. I actually see this benefitting windows more. On windows I’ve had issues where my OS tries to send info off before my wireless card driver gets loaded, and I get stuck in a dead mate situation. Stuff like that doesn’t happen on macs, in my experience. So MS should be the ones trying to get to EFI ASAP.
Please stop with the comments like “Keep Winblows off my machine! Why would you taint a mac with that crap?” Most of us hate windows (I know I do) but some people have legitimate reasons for it, and some of us just want to do it. We want the possibilty to be there, we want to do a little hacking if it’s required. We are hard core computer nerds who like to play with our stuff and get it to do anything and everything. A lot of mac users are mac users because they just want a machine to do some stuff for them and do it right every time, and that’s OK. They are artists or designers or writers or musicians or edittor or any of the million things a mac can help you do. They are not computer nerds; if an old fashioned hand driven machine could do the job better, they would use that. I am a mac user because when I want a computer to play with, and I want it to not fall apart whenever I look at it wrong. If an old fashioned hand driven machine could do it more easily, or even a bit better, I would find a way to make my computer do it, because it would be more fun. I have no great need to run windows, but just seeing it boot on an iMac would be my idea of a fun night. (note: I have other less nerdy things that qualify as fun nights, like movies, concerts, clubs, heavy drinking, waking up in places I don’t know, so don’t think I’m just a comp nerd.)
Hey, what were you all expecting? We’re not developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers…
This is a bigger story about Micro$haft than it is about Apple. I look at this as another reversal of direction for what they are including in Vista. The new features keep coming off the table one by one…
MDN Word – “behind” – as in Micro$ucks is woefully behind in their Vista development.
M$ already has the OSX Code,as they need it for Office & you just know there just picking it to pieces, trying to figure out how to ad it to OS. But, with the updated Windows 95, sorry Vista, they can’t get it to work unless they kill the support for EFI booting.
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/
this is simply a way to slow people from switching to mac, being able to load vista on a mac would have people that are curious about mac able to buy one to try it out while still retaining windows capability…and over time would realize the beauty of the mac os and switch totally
microsoft just stopped that from happening, they are scared…100%
So, if I look at this correctly Vista has really become the New Micrsoft Plus for Windows XP. It has new themes and some multimedia elements to make the windows experience a little bit better. Rather than show it as an add-on for XP they are presenting it as a whole new operating system. It’s really sad that you can get all the new Vista features by spending little to no money for XP add-ons. Yahoo Widgets, Windowblinds, and Google search have been available for a long time. I guess innovation is in the eye of the beholder.
I hope Apple does more to encourage the Darwine application community.
Any noise from Applel about X11.app on the Intel chip?
We could kiss windows good-bye forever if that was fully implemented.
um if 64bit Windows Vista will run with EFI aren’t 64 bit Intel Macs expected in the Vista timeframe anyway? I’ll certainly be getting a 64bit Intel PowerMac when it comes out, then I hope to run Vista on it so I can run Cakewalk SONAR.
Jay, sorry, I meant to say that OSX run on Open Firmware (not BIOS) and EFI with seemingly no real problems (above and beyond what you get on first generations products). So if apple can get two systems on their OS why the hell can’t Microsoft?
It’s simple people.
If Vista uses bios you can buy it installed on a new computer or you can buy it and instal it on your 2 year old Dell POS. Lots of extra potential sales for Microsoft.
If Vista uses EFI the only sales are to brand new Computers. Big loss of sales for Microsoft and much longer transition from XP to Vista.
No anti Mac conspiracy here.
Paraplegic kittens wonder where the founders of Connectix – is that what they were called? – you know, that company that MS bought to take ownership of Virtual PC…yeah, those folks…we wonder were they are.
Why?
‘Cause we would like for them to re-create that wonderful virtual world on an intel-mac
Never, NEVER, underestimate the killing potential of a paraplegic kitten.
Apple can provide OS X for both Intel and PPC machines. Microsoft can only design Windows for BIOS machines.
MS has to do this because they have millions upon millions of people that are using “older” hardware. Many of them will consider Vista for their one year old machine.
On the other hand the 64 bit machines will get EFI Vista, because they are not the “older” hardware (i.e. 32bit).
So you dual booters are really just hoping that we get the 64 bit Merom/Crusoe chips, or whatever Intel is calling them, in our Macs this fall.
Dan Warne writes like a sensationalist boob.
READ IT CAREFULLY! THEY ARE NOT DROPPING THE EFI!!!
IF YOU NOTICE, “They are only offering EFI on the 64-BIT versions”
Microsoft is encouraging people upgrade their LEGACY HARDWARE!
ONCE PEOPLE SEE THAT THEY CAN USE THE 64-BIT VERSION ONLY IN NEW HARDWARE, THEY WON’T TRY TO USE THEIR OLD 386dx-40 TO RUN VISTA.
Of course, it’s not Microsoft’s fault that Apple decided to downgrade to 32-BIT processors. That’s APPLE’S PROBLEM.
Stupid OS tricks.
Reboot cool mac into windoze. Get a virus that eats your files. Panic. Reboot into OS X. OS X won’t startup because some virus ate some critical file. Two OSes screwed. One computer unusable.
whatever.
you RARELY if ever get viruses if you keep XP up to date. And I’d imagine security has been tightened since XP.
All you doomsday maccies are delusional… perhaps as a means to justify your existence.