In my dream situation, I've got a home server created from a Mac Pro. The native Mac OS X would run, with Parallels running instances of Windows and Ubuntu and whatever else I need. I would stream all the media I have from there to any other system in the house. I'd test new OS and application deployments inside VMs. I'd stay on top of every new vulnerability and emerging protocol and never have to worry about not having the right OS for the job.
Ahhh, what a nice a dream.
Mac OS Snow Leopard: Great news for Windows 7
Summary
Snow Leopard offers an even more streamlined Mac experience than Leopard and noticeably faster interface responsiveness. The application performance, however, is slightly slower than it is with Leopard.
Topics
Overall, the new Mac OS does not warrant a "wow", but it is still definitely worth the US$29 upgrade price.
Snow Leopard offers an even more streamlined Mac experience than Leopard and noticeably faster interface responsiveness. The application performance, however, is slightly slower than it is with Leopard, at least on the MacBook Pro we used as our test machine. As the OS is now a pure 64-bit operating system, expect the application performance to improve over Leopard as you add RAM or use it with a high-end desktop.
Mac users can read more about Snow Leopard in my colleague Jason Parker's full review, which is mixed. On the other hand, for Windows users, especially Windows 7, the release of Snow Leopard is straight-on great news.
I recently blogged about running Windows 7 on a 15-inch Unibody Macbook Pro, which required some tweaking with Boot Camp 2.1. Snow Leopard comes with Boot Camp 3.0, which makes installing and running Windows on a laptop a much more pleasant experience.
See also:
- Snow Leopard upgrade: What's in it for me?
- Apple confirms malware protection in Snow Leopard
- Snow Leopard might crash your apps
First of all, the new Boot Camp includes all the drivers necessary to run both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 smoothly on the Mac hardware.
(Note that you only need to run the Boot Camp Assistant, BCA, if you want to dual-boot OS X and Windows on the same machine. The utility will then create a new partition for the installation of Windows. In this case, make sure you run the BCA first when the computer boots up to avoid file errors. If you want to run just Windows and skip OS X altogether, you can boot from the Windows 7 install DVD and start the installation the way you would install the OS on any PC from scratch.)
After the installation is done, Boot Camp 3.0 can be installed from the Snow Leopard DVD. Then, without further ado, you got yourself a great Windows computer.
The second really nice thing about Boot Camp 3.0 is the fact that it includes a software driver to make Windows able to read the Mac partition (somewhat like MacDrive minus the ability to write). This means that when you dual-boot OS X and Windows, Windows now can browse and read files that reside on OS X's partition without any extra software install.
The last major improvement of Boot Camp 3.0 that I am very happy about is the battery life. Windows 7 now has much improved battery life compared with what it had with Boot Camp 2.1. I haven't tried Windows Vista or Windows XP, but Windows 7 now has about the same battery life as Snow Leopard.
Other little things have also been improved. The double-tab right-click works right away and the multitouch pad is now less sensitive (though still a little too sensitive). With Boot Camp 2.1, it was so sensitive you just couldn't use the "tab to click" feature because of the extremely high risk of making accidental clicks. The sound and video chat are also much more stable now than before.
If you want to nitpick, there are two little odd things Windows users will find on Mac hardware. First, the MacBook's keyboard doesn't have the "Backspace" key, which comes in handy when you want to remove text. Second, the Boot Camp control panel doesn't include an option to change the sensitivity of the multitouch pad and there's no separate "tab to click" options for the right and left clicks, either.
Other than Boot Camp 3.0, Snow Leopard comes with two other tools that make a Windows computer work better with a MacBook Air. The first is called Remote Install Mac OS X and it allows for installing the new OS remotely onto a MacBook Air. The other is the DVD or CD sharing that allows the MacBook Air, which doesn't come with an optical drive, to use the PC's DVD or CD drive as one of its own.
Overall, I have to say Boot Camp 3.0 takes the Windows experience to a new high on Mac hardware. To me, this is about as exciting as the release of Windows 7 itself.
So there you go, Windows fanboys, don't say Apple never does anything for you. And Apple fanboys: the truth is that inside every new Mac there's a PC just waiting to jump out.
This article was first published on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 79 Talkback(s)
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MariusSilverwolf27th Aug 2009 -
Or...
...Or you can build a real server, for less than your Mac, and run VMWare ESXi on it for free. And get vastly more scalability, OS compatibility, and performance. The only thing you will be missing is OS X. Just a thought...
Chemosh66727th Aug 2009 -
nt
nt
frgough27th Aug 2009 -
RE: Mac OS Snow Leopard: Great news for Windows 7
The "delete" key, found where the "backspace" key is found
on standard pc keyboards, behaves identically, i.e., the
character to the left is removed.
The forward delete, i.e., character to the right is removed,
is accomplished with the fn+delete key combination on
Apple laptop keyboards. On full Apple keyboards, the
forward delete is its own, separate, key and is found where
"del" key is usually located.
My experience via Windows running virtualized is that
delete=backsapce and fn+delete=del works consistently
there, too.
DannyO_0x9827th Aug 2009 -
NonZealot27th Aug 2009 -
Delete isn't the only key missing
It is also missing home, end, pgup, and pgdn.
For the few months I had a MBP, I tried to
train my brain to use the Fn+whatever
equivalents. But I could never get used to
these combinations and it really interfered
with editing text.
I can't understand why Apple didn't add a full
keyboard to the 17" MBP. That (plus an eSATA
port) would make it about the perfect laptop
for me.
Richard in Phoenix27th Aug 2009 -
You could do what I do
Carry a full size keyboard with you everywhere you go.NonZealot27th Aug 2009 -
No laptop keyboard is worth using
That's why I carry a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 with me
everywhere I go.
I just can't use any other keyboard now, it's really spoiled me.
grail@...27th Aug 2009 -
TAB to Click?
You mean TAP, right? Tab to click would be an interesting
keyboard maneuver, and would really annoy people.
I wish the world of blogs still had copy editors.
cgarrett27th Aug 2009 -
RE: Mac OS Snow Leopard: Great news for Windows 7
If OSX is so good why do you have to dual boot into windows...????? do you actualy want to do somework????
dave@...27th Aug 2009 -
Why dual boot?
For me, the answer is that it is ultimately about applications. I use the bundled OS X iLife apps extensively. There are also apps that run only on windows that I like better than their Mac equivalents. For the simple personal tasks that benefit form a spreadsheet application I prefer Numbers. But Excel is the industry standard so I use it as well.
Why should I limit my choices to one or the other, particularly when I can have both on a single hardware platform?
I also believe that comparing and contrasting different ways of doing things makes me smarter than I would otherwise be and thus is good investment.
zdnet-gregc27th Aug 2009 -
flexibility
As a web developer, I can do everything I need to do on my MacBook Pro.
However, there are consultants that I work with who won't use anything
but Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL Server and a whole bunch of
other tools that will only work in Windows. I could run Windows in a
virtualized environment, but I prefer to open big projects natively. It
actually makes me more well-rounded than the other folks who only
stick to Windows tools. That's always an advantage.
brokenspokes28th Aug 2009 -
Real developers use Windows.
I've been in the business a long time, the real developers are almost always on Windows. There are a few Java guys I know that use Mac's, but usually Mac's are used by the art grunts.
And the people running Mac's always seem to complain about them too, it's kind of funny. There is this wonder little world of bliss that Apple fanboys on these threads like to pretend exists, but in the real world, in real offices and agencies - the Mac's are generally the most problematic machines, they slow down quite a bit with a few applications running, the OS really doesn't crash except for the kernel panic from time to time, but applications certainly crash.
And there are CONSTANT issues with software just not running on them, where I work, the 1 guy on a Mac has a Windows machine sitting next to it that gets used often.
However, you never, ever, see the Windows guys needing to use the Macs.
In the real world, Mac's just aren't that good. They are great consumer devices for people that simply surf the web, make movies and manage pictures, word processing, but they are also very pricey for this... if you can afford it great... I got my mom an iMac, and although it's been problematic with drivers and other stupid issues (time machine generated a read/write error on the disk, had to remount it for some odd reason), she is generally happy with it.
trance2tec29th Aug 2009 -
Question about BootCamp
Ooo, I forgot about BootCamp! Is there any way of getting BootCamp 3 legally without having to pay for Snow Leopard or is Apple going to charge me Cdn$35 for their Windows drivers?NonZealot27th Aug 2009 -
No
"Is there any way of getting BootCamp 3 legally without having to pay
for Snow Leopard or is Apple going to charge me Cdn$35 for their
Windows drivers?"
When did you buy your MBP? Do you qualify for the even cheaper
upgrade (if offered in Canada)?
Is your zealotry is so bad that you can't spring CDN35 for an OS
upgrade + new version of bootcamp to improve your windows
experience?
You might be able to post intelligently about the Mac OS X experience
when you have some.
Richard Flude27th Aug 2009
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