Tutorial: How to Install Windows Vista using Boot Camp 1.2

Apple released Boot Camp 1.2 beta this past week that updated drivers and added support for Windows Vista. Upon hearing this, I quickly purchased an upgrade license to Windows Vista Home Premium and got started on upgrading my Windows XP partition to Windows Vista.

PREPARING FOR THE INSTALL

Before doing anything else you must download Boot Camp 1.2 and update it on OSX. After Boot Camp has updated to version 1.2 Burn the Driver CD so that you'll have it ready once Vista has finished installing.

NOTE: If you have previously installed Windows XP on your Apple Computer with the FAT file system you will not be able to upgrade to Windows Vista without reformating your Hard Drive to the NTFS file system. I learned this the hard way, and had to completely reinstall XP on a NTFS partition before I was able to install the Vista upgrade.

INSTALLING WINDOWS VISTA ON YOUR WINDOWS PARTITION

After installing Boot Camp 1.2 and burning the Driver Cd, reboot your system into XP and insert the Vista installation DVD. It will take you through a few steps and allow you to start the installation process. Follow the on screen instructions and let the installer do its work.

It may be of some interest to note, that since I had to reinstall Windows XP on an NTFS partition that I did not activate XP before installing an upgrade to Vista. It all installed perfectly, without once prompting me to activate my copy of XP before continuing my upgrade installation to Vista.

The system will reboot a number of times, but this all seems to be part of the installation process. The system froze once for me, but simply restarting the computer let it move a long past the part that was holding it up.

After Vista finishes installing, you should insert the Driver CD and install the windows vista drivers for your apple hardware.

Everything, including the remote seems to be working great. The only thing I've noticed is that if you have any external Hardware that requires a driver Vista doesn't like, you may get a Blue Screen of Death followed by a system reboot until you are able to uninstall those drivers.

Vista rates my iMac Core 2 Duo with 1gig ram and ATI x1600 a 4.2 on its hardware performance scale. It runs smoothly but I had to turn off Vista's UAC (User Access Control) in about the first 5 minutes of using the operating system.