Or how to dance with the devil in the pale LCD light.

One of the first things I did when I received my new MacBook Pro was install MAME. This is not relevant to this article in the slightest, I just happen to like Arcade games. The next thing I did was install Windows. On my Macintosh. Yes, hell froze over and I was enjoying skating with Beelzebub himself. And it felt good.

The question I am asked all the time is ‘WHY?!’ Yes people say it to me in capitals, sometimes ejecting whatever food or drink they are consuming at the time. It’s not pretty. The answer is simple - games. Microsoft, through the abuse of OpenGL and establishment of Direct X is ruling the roost when it comes to PC games. Mac games, if they arrive, come to the party late, shirt adrift, smelling faintly like they need a shower.

If I’m in Windows, it is for games, for anything else I use OS X. Creativity, writing, blogging, Photos, Internet or just anything else; it is OS X all the way. Windows has been reduced to running as a console OS.

YMMV but I’m making the assumption you need Windows on your Mac for some reason, right? I’m going to walk you through getting Windows running as Dual Boot on your Mac. What this means is if you are running OS X and want to run Windows then you need to reboot your Mac to do it. The reverse is also true.

Wired has a brief overview of the options:

Run Windows on a Mac

In June 2005, Apple announced it was going to start using new Intel processors in its Macintosh computers. In doing so, the company kicked off the great craze in Mac desktop computing — virtualization.

Since most modern operating systems are built to run on these chips, owners of an Intel-powered Mac can run Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris or some other operating system alongside Mac OS X on their Apple hardware.

This how-to will concentrate on getting Microsoft Windows XP running on an Intel Mac.

This is because, for me and probably you, you want Windows running at full speed. I don’t want my games hampered by Virtualising Windows - that is running Windows inside OS X with no reboot required. If you want that option go buy Parallels (www.parallels.com/) or Fusion (www.vmware.com/products/fusion/). Games demand full speed though so the option I am describing here is Apple’s very own Boot Camp (www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/).

First you need a new version of Windows, and by new I mean Windows XP SP2 or later. You cannot install a vanilla XP or XP SP1. You can install Vista too but for now you are better off sticking with stick with XP SP2. Buy it, download it or get a licence from your place of work, however you want to go about it is up to you. Now once you have Windows and a serial number you are on to stage 2 - Apple drivers.

Leopard will include Boot Camp, until then we need to go pick up the software from Apple’s website (www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/publicbeta.html). So go get the driver package, I think it is 132MB at the last count. Install it using BootCampAssistant.pkg, and … nothing happens. Don’t panic. Print out Boot Camp Beta Installation & Setup Guide.pdf. Then go to Applications, Utilities and open Boot Camp. It starts to walk you through the options after you click through the agreement screens.

Get a blank CDROM and create the Apple driver disk. Let the disk verify so you know that it’s good. Now start the Windows installation routine! When you get to the part where you Partition you hard disk, Microsoft says you should give Windows XP at least 10GB of space to run in. Personally I would give XP 32GB as minimum, and 50GB as my recommended size. You want some space for games, right? Remember the amount of space you have given Windows, insert the Windows XP SP2 disk.

Continued in part Two … tomorrow.

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