Running OS X Tiger in Virtual PC 2007 for XP on a Mac Pro
21 May 2007 9:41:54
That’s my goal.
My primary system at work is a Mac Pro with all the bells and whistles. I’m running Windows XP Pro with SP2 as the primary OS because that’s what I need for work. We’re a Microsoft shop. There’s no way around it. I’m not going to switch to OSX as the primary OS for any reason. It just won’t happen. I like XP. Deal with it.
Not too long ago, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2007 as a free download. It’s a decent VM platform and I have a second copy of XP running with IE6 for website testing and development. I also have Ubuntu Linux running in another virtual machine for the same reason. Now I want to install OS X 10.4 (Tiger) into another VM; again, for the same reason.
I have the OS X install discs that came with the computer when I bought it. I would only be running one instance of the OS at any given time and I would only be installing OS X on the same machine, so I can’t see how that would break any licensing of the software I own. The problem is, I can’t figure it out. No matter how hard I try I cannot get Virtual PC (VPC) to recognize and boot the OS X install disc (or an ISO of the disc) even after I use some of the conversion tools for the HFS+ (Mac) format. The VPC boot routine just won’t take the disc. I even tried installing Ubuntu and then installing OS X over that inside a running VM, but still no luck.
I’ve searched many times over for someone who has accomplished this, but to no avail. It just doesn’t seem possible at this point. I’m sure there must be a way around the issues. After all, this is Mac Pro hardware to begin with. OS X will run on it, I just need to get around the VPC boot issues. Once I get the OS to being installing, it will be fine.
Anyone have any ideas?
21 May 2007 12:52:24
I don’t think you’ll solve the problem with VPC, OSX just wasn’t designed to run on the hardware emulated by VPC. Remember, VPC could care less what hardware you’re actually using, all the guest OS (the one running in the VPC) knows about is what hardware VPC emulates.
Your best bet is to run bootcamp and dual boot between XP and OSX. If you don’t like the dual boot option, then instead I would suggest installing OSX as the primary OS on the MacPro. Then use Paralells (another virtual box, similar to VPC) to host XP.
From what I understand Paralells does a great job with XP, many people run XP or even Vista in this fashion and say it works great. Leo Laporte, formerly of tech.tv and now at http://twit.tv loves this setup and uses it all the time.
Good luck,
Arcane
6 June 2007 19:33:41
This is an intentional limitation put forth by Apple. They do a lot to ensure the OS only runs on their specific machines, despite the fact that there is no technical reason for the need (there is now no longer a fundemental difference between there machines and everyone else), among which is checks for very specific chipset features.
The VPC software exposes *almost* all of the hardware to the client OS, but that *almost* is not enough for OS X to verify it is running on official Apple software (can’t really blame the VPC guys for this; 99% of the machines VPC would be run on don’t have the necessary verification for OS X so this is a very edge case use scenario).
So you can do any of the suggestions from the previous commentor, or, if you prefer to buckle some swashes you can look for one of the hacked pirated copies of OS X that do not have this check (so they can run on regular PCs). In this case I think you are completely justified in doing so, though having no experience with those versions I don’t know if they are completely stable.
15 June 2007 22:41:40
You can run Mac on PearPC (free emulator) and on CherryOS (discontinued - I’m looking for this one.) Haven’t tested it but they say it works on OS 10.3. I have a copy of 10.5
4 October 2007 12:40:55
I think you can use pearpc which is a emulator. But does work well.
10 October 2007 13:44:57
ArcaneCode is right. VirtualPC still emulates x86 hardware - it won’t pretend to be an Apple motherboard, which is what OSX needs to see to boot.
Back in the day, VMWare Workstation used to be able to run MacOS under a Windows host. I tried it once or twice with OS9 (OSX was just about to be released). If I remember right, you needed a BIOS or BootRom image, but I don’t remember for certain. Those would probably be available out on the internet, or you could pull an image out of your Macbook. Definitely look at VMWare as an option though. It may cost a little bit, unless you find a preconfigured player, but it will let you run other architectures.
10 October 2007 14:22:12
Your post got me thinking, so I did some digging around. In that while, I found this:
http://pcwizcomputer.com/software/vmwareosx86.htm
VMWare Server is free, and you’ve already got the OSX license, so follow those steps (including getting the x86 iso, because your OSX native cd-roms probably won’t work), and hey presto, you should be set. GL.
10 October 2007 15:23:33
I’ve had a lot of really good ideas here. In the end, it appears my exact goal really isn’t possible as ArcaneCode and anonymous both mentioned. This is due to Virtual PC’s natively PC environment. And even with another emmulator (such as PearPC or VMWare), I’d have to get a copy of the hacked Mac ISO’s which I don’t really desire to do.
For now, I’m okay just using using Safari for Windows. I can live with that At least I can test all the major browsers on on machine now. And hopefully in the near future we can ALL forget about IE6.