Time to Hope Again? Contest to Dual-Boot XP and Mac Begins

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

As we said in our earlier article, word was that Windows XP would not boot on an Intel Mac, due to the use of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) instead of BIOS. That information hasn’t changed yet, but an enterprising person, who apparently fibbed a little and told his boss that a MacBook Pro “would replace my IBM desktop and I could boot Windows XP on it”, has started a contest, with $100 of his own money as a seed stake, hoping to get some hacker types to fix the problem for him.

Before going too far, let’s remember that although 64-bit versions of Windows support EFI, 32-bit versions do not (currently), and the Intel Macs use 32-bit CPUs.

We Say: There’s a clear list of rules at the contest site, as well as an updated “pot total” and a list of contributors. At the time of this writing it’s up to $2450. EFI is, of course, going to be the big problem, but what better way than a little money to give some hackers incentive to at least try to figure this out.

My only question is: if he fibbed to his boss, since the registered owner of the site, Colin Nederkoorn has his picture is linked there, er, isn’t there some slight chance his boss might catch on? Hopefully he is either good-natured, or else is a figment of some Snopes-based imagination.