Windows 7 on "Unsupported Macs" w/Boot Camp

Well the short answer is, from what I found with an Early 2006 20" CoreDuo iMac and a Late 2006 Core2Duo iMac, it seems to work without issue, and no driver hunting is necessary. Here's the catch, Windows 7 64-bit will not work. That is obvious on the 32-bit Early 2006 CoreDuo, but I found it won't boot the installer on the 64-bit Late 2006 model either. This may have to do with the fact that it has a 32-bit EFI, though it was my understanding a 32-bit EFI could still boot a 64-bit OS. I don't know if 64-bit Vista worked on the Late 2006 machine, but who would want to run Vista anyway? For some real self torture, I'd like to give the totally unsupported Windows XP x64 Edition a shot on one. My bet is driver hunting will be hell. Anyone else have any experience with Windows 7 on an "Unsupported" Mac? Or with XP x64? I'd be interested in comments. (And I know. Why would you want to waste a perfectly good Mac running windoze on it? But I also know some have a need.)

Awesome Chuck Quote

"Linux, PC's, we're Mac guys, Chuck, we're, we're uh, IT Artists." - Lester

Geeks.com Not Such A Bargain

I used to really like doing business with geeks.com (aka compgeeks.com) because the deals were quite good. Now I only use them only when I can't find the parts elsewhere. It took 3 days before my last order even sipped, and it has been delayed in shipment. The shipping choices are overly expensive and poor. The "cheapest" is FedEx Ground which takes forever, even after the company gets around to sending out the order. Their prices are offset by the abominable shipping prices. I wouldn't care if it was slow and they offered a cheap (even USPS) choice. But paying over 20% of the product price for crappy shipping isn't worth it, especially for used products. Don't order from them if you need a part on a deadline unless you are willing to a ridiculous premium for expedited shipping. Some might say blame this one the shipping companies, but it is up to the sellers to find good option, and to help ditcate what they are willing to pay for shipping not pass the problem on to the customer. It's like an eBay "bargain" where the shipping costs two or three times the price of the product. I post this poor review in hoping that someone Googling them might find it. Oh yeah, and don't bother with the codes for discounts they never work. Their selection is what it used to be either. All in all you guys went from an "A" a few years ago to a "D". Get your act together!

Windows 7, The New Hardware Hog

I thought M$ was going to redeem itself for ME II, but the first thing Windoze 7 managed to do was prove they can't count. Some may remember back to the self name NT 3.5 and NT 4.0, then came Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), Windows XP (NT 5.1) XP x64 and Server 2003 (NT 5.2), Vista (NT 6.0) and now 7 (NT 6.1)...Wait, what? Windoze 7 is not Windoze 7? I'm confused? So what will Windoze 8 be (or not be)?
Either way I thought "7" was going to shrink the footprint, and layoff the need for excessive hardware. It needs a high end graphics card just to render the UI, and even with a lot of graphics memory, "7" like ME II takes system memory away to deal with it Aero graphics, that I could care less about. How is it Apple keeps making their OSes smaller and faster that can render a better UI with more tricks with less graphics hardware? Better coding? That's my bet. So I installed "7" in Boot Camp on a Mac Pro with an 80 GB partition reserved for it. With only the OS installed, and the requisite drivers (no updates, no anti-virus even) it took up 32.5 GB's of HD space. That is nothing short of insanity. There is no need for an OS and it's drivers to take up 32.5 GB's of HD space, especially when after I upgraded to Snow Leopard I got back over 10 GB's of HD space. That's right I got space back. What is M$ thinking? They really need to rethink their strategy. I'm sorry for the folks in big business, etc using archaic proprietary software, but you know what guys? You are holding the industry back. It is time to do what Apple did. Toss away you old OS, especially such a bloated one as Windows. Build a new one from the ground up. Add a Virtual Machine environment with XP (like in "7") for backwards compatibility (just don't require unnecessarily hardware for that VM, XP runs fine without it). Face it Microshaft, you're in bed with the hardware companies, you just want people buying more RAM, bigger HD's, ridiculous video cards, and insane processors, just to make your OS look good (which is made easier since you set the bar so low with Shista). (And since your asking it does seem to run good on a Mac Pro, but for all that hardware, it should.) Why can Linux and OS X solve the same problems and require so much less?
I also must add, that the complaints about "7's" sound support are justified. M$'s own tools tells you that you popular on-board sound cards are compatible, and to run software update to get it, well in XP doing a driver search was a pointless waste of a long time, in Vi$ta, it was one of the few things that actually worked, and with "7", nada. It doesn't even seem to try. The M$ tool said that the sound card was compatible, but after exhaustive searches for "7" drivers for your card, they won't install, on one machine I managed to forcibly install the sound drive and get it to work. When I looked at the sound card selection from the disk it seemed like only a dozen or so drivers were available, and missing were more prominent ones (must be the same idiot who took out native driver support for the most popular 3com network cards out of Vi$ta). It is inevitable after so many years of XP, that move to "7" will happen (because Vi$ta sure isn't a viable option), but it is nothing more than lipstick on a hardware hog.

What I hate Most About Shopping...

I have in the past been a retail salesman. I learned from some of the best. In the time I was on the selling end, the most important thing I learned was to serve the customer the best that I could. That meant getting them what they wanted for a price they were happy with. It didn't mean selling them the most expensive thing I could find, and it didn't mean selling them what I or the company wanted. That wasn't my job, and as it turned out my bosses like that about me. They knew I was a soft sell type, but my style worked, and I moved product. I also was smart enough to know when I was making the wrong approach or was not going to make a sale. People don't generally trust salespeople, and as much as those companies tried to teach us about making an approach, it does not really work. The worst part about shopping is often the salespeople. It isn't always their fault either. Either the store feeds them tripe through bad corporate videos, or they do not educate their employees at all. They are told to sell some piece of crap in a box that they know little or nothing about. Furthermore, with the wages they a paid it is unlikely they will take the time to do any research on their own time. The worst ones of all are the ones armed with only a little knowledge and use their uninformed opinions to decide what products they will or will not sell. That is where I do hold an employee accountable. It is not a salesperson's job to interject their opinions into a sale. It is certainly not their job to tell someone they should not but something mostly because they do not like a product. If they know the product is junk that is one thing, but if they do not like a product too bad, do your job and sell it. I sold stuff I did not like, but I always tried not to sell things I knew to be junk. In the end if that is what the customer wants that is their problem. There are a lot of low-end bush-league salespeople out there, especially at the chain stores, just remember the tripe they are feeding you may not be a "best buy".

And so I'm back from outer space...

Well folks, I spent more than the last year in a pretty crappy place with a pretty crappy job. So as incognito as this is, I stopped blogging in fear for my crappy job. While I did get to play with some awesome new Macs, I had the terrible displeasure of supporting Vi$ta in an enterprise environment. It sucked. It sucked worse than I could ever imagine. It had incompatibilities with Microshafts own servers. Garbage. And made for pretty pissed off users when it was forced upon them, making my crappy job even crappier. But now I seem to be at a safe sensible place again. They appreciate talent, and at least still run their PC's on XP. I think Windows 7 (actually NT 6.1 just a small "upgrade" from Vi$ta) will get skipped at least until the first service pack. Meanwhile I look forward to the new speed and smaller foot print that Snow Leopard will bring. It's good to be back. Hopefully I'll get to do this more regularly again. Oh yeah and Boot Camp and I made our peace. Though really why would you want to waste a Mac by running windoze on it?

Do I actually have to give props to Dell?

It seems I just might. First Dell took a stand last year (June 2007?) when they started selling XP again after Microshaft told them to only sell Vi$ta, now Dell has made a bolder move, saying the WILL sell XP after the June 30th M$ cut-off. Though I have no love for the trash they call hardware it is about time someone stood up to Redmond and said (in pure Network fashion), "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" If there is one thing M$ never understood, it is that the market doesn't just want the stuff you give it. The market will eventually demand what it wants. They copy other ideas poorly (Windoze, Zune, PocketPOS, etc.) and expect that people will want it because it says M$ on it. Vi$ta sucks guys, and the new service pack didn't help. It takes too much hardware to do too little, and costs corporations and institutions just too much money to upgrade incompatible equipment and software, so Dell comes to the rescue by continuing to sell XP so productivity and the bottom line can be saved. This also helps small businesses without the upgrade capital as well.
Really with SP3 and the new mini-laptop market (that just can't run Vi$ta), Redmond may likely have to extend support sales again (contrary to its own statements). But beating a dead horse has also always been another M$ trend. They continue to sell, change and repackage crap no one wants (Windoze CE, that damn paper clip). They should have given up on Vi$ta rather than continuing to throw R&D money at it hoping it would finally get done and work right. Now that they have thrown so much into it they can't give up, and want to force down the throats of a public that just doesn't want it. Give it up guys, Vi$ta is hated by many of the most loyal M$ users.
If you get a chance, check out the "Vista Failure Log": http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/177855
It also looks like NEC will offer XP after the cutoff:
http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/195462