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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

How would they do Bootcamp? This is not an insignificant factor in the decision to purchase a Mac.

Since Windows 8, there has been no need for Bootcamp anymore. Just create a partition via Disk Utility, boot Windows installer in EFI mode and install on that partition. (The necessary drivers have to be downloaded onto a usb drive from under OS X though, from Apple's website).

Frankly, if Microsoft had embraced EFI & GPT earlier, we could be able to install WinXP without any Bootcamp many years ago. This whole Bootcamp technology is a ridiculous dinosaur that shouldn't exist.

(Important note: That "just create a partition" advise won't work if you have Fusion drive, because Windows have no knowledge of that technology. Still, with few magic tricks, it is possible to have OS X installed on CoreStorage partition, and Windows on outside-of-CoreStorage HDD partition. That's how I have my Win8 installed on my iMac right now, no Bootcamp was ever involved.)

Also, as a person who plays "Dragon Age: Inquisition", "Far Cry 4", "Wasteland 2", "Bioshock: Infinite" on my 680MX iMac, I think the proposition of the topic-starter is not going to happen. Or at least, it's not going to happen to iMac and Mac Pro, because disregarding desktop gaming would be the most dumb decision. Who would possibly own the expensive black cylinder, if it didn't have a capability to run everything cool that is currently around?

Agreed - I am using Virtual Box right now on my MB Air to run some specialized astronomy software. I always tell people that Macs make the best Windows machines. I'd really miss this capability.

Windows 10 will run on ARM so there will be no problem using bootcamp. Getting developers onboard with compiling ARM executables though is another story.

Is it? What proportion of mac laptops are used to run windows?

Almost everyone I know that owns a Mac dual boots Windows, uses it in a VM, or doesn't use OSX at all. Macs would not have anywhere near the success they have had without Windows compatibility.

As a counterpoint, I don't know a single Mac owner who dual-boots Windows, and only a handful who use a VM for anything (using something like VirtualBox seems to be limited almost exclusively to devs, not normal users). The Mac users I know (and those I see in coffee shops) seem to mainly run Photoshop, Illustrator, a web browser, Powerpoint or Keynote, and Word or Pages, all on OS X. I'm similar except that I also run iTerm2 and ssh to a Linux box in the cloud for my non-Mac needs. But some kind of data on the broader population of mac owners would be interesting.

With respect: I expect you probably do know a lot of folks who dual-boot Macs, they just don't talk about it. Everybody assumes I'm all Mac, all the time, because of my day job. And I do rarely dual-boot--because I have VMware Fusion and just virtualize my Boot Camp partition.

Most people who want to play games on a Mac will dual boot.

I have no idea, but I do know that at most Windows or .Net developer meetups I've been to half the people there are running windows on Apple laptops.

I'm sure we are not alone in the "Must Run Some Windows Software" requirement. ARM might make that tough.

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