volvox Posted March 27, 2007 Share Posted March 27, 2007 Since AppleTV is using "pc" hardware and EFI, is it going to be possible to run WinXP using XOM? And dual boot it with AppleTV OS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Oughton Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 I'd also like to know about this. Even with 256 meg of RAM, this thing would be a higher spec machine than the one I'm running Windows Server 2003 on right now, and having my server so small would be great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwhsh8r Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 well.... it doesnt have a cd or dvd drive..... that and it doesnt have drivers, well there would be some from cross platfom usage from mb/mbp/other apple but some stuffs new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user2 Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 I would also like to see If this is possible. Media center edition would be even better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glassJAw Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 It does have a USB connection so you could possibly get a hub and hook up a mouse, keyboard and usb dvd drive. Why not just install OSX, then use bootcamp and install windows XP? or use parallels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user2 Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 It does have a USB connection so you could possibly get a hub and hook up a mouse, keyboard and usb dvd drive. and TV tuner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grabberslasher Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 Well since people are installing OS X on it by sticking the drive in another mac, couldnt you do the same thing and do a full boot camp XP/Vista install while you're at it? Then you should be able to boot Windows using the startup disk control panel. Windows wouldn't need to be hacked either to boot. (All theoretical, I have not tried this) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volvox Posted April 2, 2007 Author Share Posted April 2, 2007 I'd also like to know about this. Even with 256 meg of RAM, this thing would be a higher spec machine than the one I'm running Windows Server 2003 on right now, and having my server so small would be great! Yep, AppleTV is a nice, small, quiet and +/- cheap set of hardware. It would be great to use it not just for TV related stuff. Media center edition would be even better. That's what I had in mind! I added this topic on OnMac.net Forum so that everyone can brainstorm about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Oughton Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 Why not just install OSX, then use bootcamp and install windows XP? or use parallels? Boot Camp would not be possible. The part of Boot Camp which does all of the work is actually a BIOS compatibility support module in the firmware. This is undoubtedly absent in the Apple TV (as it was in the original firmware for iMac/MBP/Mac Mini). Parallels is an interesting question though. "I don't know" is the answer. It depends on if the CPU supports the minimum required instruction sets for parallels. Not sure either way if it does.. Well since people are installing OS X on it by sticking the drive in another mac, couldnt you do the same thing and do a full boot camp XP/Vista install while you're at it? Then you should be able to boot Windows using the startup disk control panel. Windows wouldn't need to be hacked either to boot. (All theoretical, I have not tried this) Again, impossible. Lack of required firmware components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volvox Posted April 2, 2007 Author Share Posted April 2, 2007 Boot Camp would not be possible. The part of Boot Camp which does all of the work is actually a BIOS compatibility support module in the firmware. This is undoubtedly absent in the Apple TV (as it was in the original firmware for iMac/MBP/Mac Mini). (...) Lack of required firmware components. Exactly. Boot Camp is out of question. XOM is the likely answer. In my humble point of view, the problems with installing Windows on AppleTV are: - Lack of optical drive to load the installer (the only solution to this would be to force a boot using an USB ODD) - Windows "doesn't like" when you install it on one computer, grab the HDD and plug it on another computer (it gets unstable). But maybe if you install it on a laptop with the same chipset that AppleTV has and then plug that hdd on AppleTV, we may be able to fool Windows. I'm listing the problems above assuming that the EFI issue is possible to solve with XOM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grabberslasher Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 So has it been confirmed that the AppleTV has a clean EFI without a CSM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prawker Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 parallels would run slow as {censored} with only 256 MB of ram, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Bond Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 Indeed....Parallels would not be fun. Although, from the playing around people were doing with EFI months ago, could it not be possible to add that compaitibility layer in as an extra module? Also, just a bit of brainstorming here, but why not, like someone else suggested, have a standard bootcamp setup done on the harddrive in another mac, and then stick that into the AppleTV? The catch, would be setting up the OS X partition, much like people have done with their Intel Macs, with setting up a hackish aTV install. It wouldn't be ideal, but it might be you're best shot at having the best of the aTV, OS X, and Windows/linux world in one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user2 Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 Indeed....Parallels would not be fun. Although, from the playing around people were doing with EFI months ago, could it not be possible to add that compaitibility layer in as an extra module? Also, just a bit of brainstorming here, but why not, like someone else suggested, have a standard bootcamp setup done on the harddrive in another mac, and then stick that into the AppleTV? The catch, would be setting up the OS X partition, much like people have done with their Intel Macs, with setting up a hackish aTV install. It wouldn't be ideal, but it might be you're best shot at having the best of the aTV, OS X, and Windows/linux world in one. Would it be possible to "restore" the disk image of an XP cd onto a small partition, boot that partition and use it to install XP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeSuKuN Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 aTV won't ever run XP unless someone writes a bios emulation module for it's EFI, forget just cloning the drive will work. XP needs BIOS, aTV doesn't have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DsurioN Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 yes.. but can't XOM accomplish that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
user2 Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 aTV won't ever run XP unless someone writes a bios emulation module for it's EFI, forget just cloning the drive will work. XP needs BIOS, aTV doesn't have it. Yes we realize this. That is exactly why we are talking about using XOM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWN_Hellzone Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Loading off a usb or firewire drive ? usb dvd drive ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Oughton Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 Yes we realize this. That is exactly why we are talking about using XOM Not everyone does seem to realise it, as the idea of just "cloning" or "drive swapping" or "plugging a drive into the usb" keeps inexplicably returning to the thread. People, accept it. No XOM (or similar) or CSM, no Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igul222 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Ok, so exactly what needs to be done to get this working? From the looks of this thread, nobody has tried this yet, posted instructions (however vague they may be), or presented any major problems. I plan on trying, as soon as my ATV ships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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