boot camp????
 

OK, I am officially mad at Apple. They took down the boot camp beta download and are only including it in Leopard now. I have to deploy 60 iMacs with windows on them because the softwares we use and the system the use for attendance and what not is a windows based applicaiton. We went with iMacs because they are all-in-ones and we got a good deal on them, and we wanted an all-in-one system because they only require one power plug and they take up space. In this deployment space is an issue. So, naturally I just used my previous images and scripts to netboot and image the iMacs. I find out that Apple has pulled all support for boot camp in Tiger completely and it is now part of Leopard. My script downloaded boot camp from the interwebs and then partitioned a 50/50 NTFS/HFS+ schema and loaded two images on the needed partitions.

My boot camp script errors out, and all I get is blank FAT32 volume when the image completes that is labeled "windows XP" .

Serioiusly? I know everything works because I have deployed about 60 or so iMacs with this exact same script, exact same image, and the exact same iMac about 6 months ago.

Now it is broken because of Apple and their retarded policy on boot camp. Way to go Apple, that was a total microsoft move!

/rant off

PS - I found a mirror site that actually still has the boot camp download and I am downloading it and will see if I can tweak the system to make it work. I scoured apple's download page today but when I click on the download link I get a 404 page with a picture of Leopard OS X.

I mean we have upgrade protection with our site license, so I could load leopard on the iMac image, but then I would have to retest everything since Leopard is a different OS and I am not 100% sure how it will operate. These machines though, will not run OS X, they will run Windows.

Um.....

You have been using beta software in a production environment?!? And now you're upset because Apple has quit supporting this beta software, just as they've already publicly said they would?

Tsk, tsk,...I don't really think Apple is the one you should be irritated with.

;)

Also, if you aren't going to be running OS X on the machines at all, why bother using Bootcamp at all? All you really want to do is format the drive and install Windows. Is OS X required at all?

There are many reasons why I have to use boot camp, mainly because of my OS X netboot imaging server set up. Yes I am upset that they discontinued support for it for Tiger because I don't want to have to upgrade all the iMacs.

Oh well, I found a solution that does work called winclone off of version tracker. I just hate how I set this stuff up about 7 or 8 months ago and deployed about 60 of these dual booting imacs, and now we are deploying about 60 more (which are the exact same model and spec iMac) and my working imaging solution is now broken, unless I upgrade.

I am not mad about them finalizing boot camp, and I am mad about them dropping support for Tiger where it was working and now it is not. It is a forced upgrade, and reminds me of Vista and DX10.

Oh well though, my problem is solved, and next year when I update the images they will most likely have Leopard on them, so that will solve that. My main issue is winclone I have to boot off a DVD and run it, where as my previous solution I could ASR multicast the image out to multiple netboot clients, and I could easily image 60 iMacs in half a days work.

i totally agree with you, such a microsoft move,

Yes. Macs are EFI based, while Windows needs BIOS. BootCamp is a BIOS emulator.

Well, there was plenty of warning:

Sorry, but how is this a Microsoft move?

Ever since the BootCamp beta was released, it was clearly communicated that this was:

a) a beta

b) a feature for 10.5

and c) that it would expire.

Nothing misleading or sneaky about any of this. Sure, making the beta available for Tiger users was a great sneak-peak and taste of what leopard would have to offer, but it would hardly seem to classify as Microsoft-ian.

OK, well I was under the impression they would never pull the beta from OS X Tiger. I guess that is my bad. Either way, I think I fixed it. I altered the script to not use anything from the internet. I am making a test run now.

I guess I jumped the gun on bitching about this, but it does tick me off when things like this break what I have created in the past to work. Then again, they keep telling me that is why they pay me the big bucks:rolleyes:

Hopefully my new scripts will work.

Ah yes, a bit of a classic Apple move, really it should be possible just to set up the computer with 10.4/XP without the need fro the "latest" version of software/OS. For sure i will be testing workarounds as I have a similar issue to you in one of the environments i support.

At the end of the day as a support admin trying hard to get apple hardware into non graphics/video business's the ability to boot windows if need be is VERY useful....and a selling point to MD's/buyers.

However we have been using Parallels/VM ware with much success as well.

Anyway it is a bit of an arse for apple to do this regardless if they tell us or not.....what is their problem ???.....they dont want us to be running windows.....can you imagine "Jobsey worth" booting his Mac's into windows......would love to get a pic of that eh !

good luck with your issue and maybe report back if you get it sorted....as for sure quite a few will have issues.

Well, I thought I would be smart and tell netrestore to just use my windows.ntfs image (created with bombich's stuff + ntfs.progs) and well netrestore said, hey you can't do that. The scripts were designed to pull all this stuff off the interwebs so there was no need to initially boot the machine out of the box and download and install stuff, then image it.

Since all of these Macs will be running Windows only, I may just bit the bullet and use Leopard, but that means back to the drawing board. I tried telling my script to use ntfs.progs off the OS X server but it is not playing nice.

I was also told all of bombich's stuff will be disappearing as well because Apple is absorbing it into OS X Leopard server. So, I may have to start all over from scratch and may be forced to upgrade......Way to go steve gates!

no dice
 

since my solutions beforehand used nfts.progs, netrestore, OS X server netboot service, and boot camp my solution is now busted. It no longer works.

Winclone for the win, the only down side is I have to do it from a disc on each machine.

I know there is a way to work around all of this with out having to upgrade, but for now I will just try and get the job done.

Any tips for creating dual boot images will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone.

No - Apple merely doesn't want to be supporting beta software. This is not unusual in the industry. Some companies have had the bad habit of releasing "beta" software that stays beta for years and so people have gotten used to using beta software for production. But that is not supposed to be the case - beta software is supposed to be (and Apple has always made this clear with their betas) a temporary version for use in testing only.

It is not unlikely that the version of Boot Camp that is in Leopard is significantly different from that previously supplied as a beta for use with Tiger.
And so Apple does not want to be supporting the older, beta version. Doing so would likely incur a real cost for Apple.

I don't want support, and I would never ask for their support. I want my solution to work, and it worked flawlessly on the last 60 intel iMacs that I deployed.

The fact that their boot camp beta download link is now a 404 page not found, and the custom image is a picture of Leopard kind of makes me mad. Who cares if it is not officially support in Tiger, but at least let us keep the beta version. Don't pull the plug, that forces upgrades.

Apple has let you "keep the beta version" but (if I recall correctly it will no longer function after the end of the month or something like that).
What you seem to be complaining about is that Apple is no longer supplying the beta version.
It would seem strange if Apple were to continue to supply a piece of software which is about to become useless (since it will expire).

It is quite common (and is a recommended practice) for betas and other test versions to be time-limited (i.e. to have them expire after a certain date).

Once again, you seem to have missed the fact that this particular "beta software" was only intended for testing. The "real" version of this software only comes with Leopard.

@hayne-- Your point on beta software is well taken, but the mistake Apple is making has little to do with their policy's on beta software. If they have released a solution that can be used in a business environment, and has been used with great success, then they ought to move it gold and be done with it.

While it can be argued that they did that with Leopard, it seems like a cheap trick to get people to upgrade (hence the Vista/DX10 reference). This is especially disadventagous to a system admin who might not want to upgrade operating systems (and deal with a bunch of new quarks across 50 machines), when all they need is one piece of software.

Do I disagree with Apples Beta policy? No, not at all. But the frank truth is that they screwed tlarkin over, and hurt anyone else in a similar situation. Is it legal? Sure. Is it standard practice? Yes. Does that make it the intelligent decision? Obviously not. They need to either release BootCamp as unsupported software, or make a product called "Tiger BootCamp", sell it for 10 bucks, and keep their customers happy.

While we agree that it would seem to be in Apple's interest to provide a version of Boot Camp that works with Tiger (and they still might do that - just like they sold a version of iChat AV for use with Panther after Tiger came out), I fail to see how anyone got "screwed over". Apple has always made it clear what was going to happen with Boot Camp, so no-one should have been surprised or dismayed.

An analogy:
If I let you camp on my land for free during the summer and I warn you at the beginning that this is a temporary arrangement only and that I will likely be charging rent starting in the fall, I fail to see why you would be upset when I lock the gate on October 26.

You chose not to believe them, not to plan for this, not to cover yourself in the eventuality that they carried through with what they said they would do. Now you're pissed off, whining, and calling them wrong when it was your failure that put you in this position. The fact that the download is now a 404 should make you mad. Mad at yourself.

I know many on this forum see Steve Jobs as a deity but I didn't realise Leopard contained new quarks. :D

First off, thanks to everyone that replied to my rant. Yes, I was ranting, yes I was kind of mad. I got it fixed though and I have a work around. I got a copy of the boot camp dmg that was sitting around on a file server and created a new image, and then installed the ntfs.progs on my netboot installer on my OS X server. This information was not documented anywhere at all on bombich's forums or here. I changed my script to no longer download boot camp directly, I now have it embedded into the image itself.

Hayne and Zalister-

I agree that Apple should not support any technical issues with boot camp beta, or boot camp in general. They can't be expected to support other OSes on their hardware. I am in 100% agreeance with that. I was not aware that it they would fully pull the product, I was under the impression they would just never fully support it under Tiger. I was wrong, that was my bad and I am OK with admitting it. I was just irked that I had a working solution that has worked flawlessly for about 8 or 9 months now. In my work experience things don't work flawlessly out of the box. I was very surprised and very shocked that myself and my co-worker were able to come up with this solution and put very little actual work into it, and have it work right away. That is a milestone for Apple. As a system administrator it would be very irresponsible for me to upgrade to Leopard on a whim with out fully testing it. Not to mention nearly impossible to reimage all the machines with Leopard and upgrade all the servers with Leopard Server at this point in time. The camping analogy in my opinion does not carry over to technology. If you perhaps offered a service to attract a certain customer base into your product, and said hey it is free and we aren't fully supporting it, but here it is. Then that customer base uses your product and it works. Then once you have attracted that customer base you are saying, well now you have to buy our newest product. It is kind of like the old fashioned bait and switch. I agree that they should not have to support it, but pulling the plug on boot camp completely for Tiger really hurts my situation. I think they should leave the beta version out for tiger but not officially support it at all is what I am saying.

If you compare the iMac to every other all-in-one machine out there it is really the best. We looked at the low profile HPs, but could not use them because they are consumer level machines so they can't be bought and sold in quantities like business class machines can. We looked and have some of the low profile gateway desktop all-in-ones that retail for about $1400, and then we have the iMac, which is on par for the most part spec for spec compared to other all-in-ones. Now, normally I don't prefer all-in-one machines for business. However, in our situation both space and the amount of power outlets are limited. These are older buidlings that we can't really wire more power outlets to the rooms they are in. All-in-ones take one power plug. The iMac is also right around $1000 so we save money. So, we bought a ton of them to run windows and are not using the low profile sony, gateways or HPs for this deployment. The client machines must run windows. Boot camp let us accomplish this, now we are being forced to upgrade to just run windows??? I mean come on!

However, winclone is a nice little utility off of version tracker that I found to help image dual boot machines.

I can see both sides of this situation. I think tlarkin, through no fault of his own, got stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I find it highly unlikely that the Apple rep that sold the iMacs to the school didn't use the existence of Boot Camp to help make the sale. (I am assuming that Apple did have a sales rep to help persuade the school system to purchase Macs.)

For their part, the school system should have done their research better, and held off on the purchase until after Leopard was released, or at least announced, in order to get a free (or very low cost) OS upgrade. Of course this would have been easier said than done, since there were no guarantees about how Apple would handle upgrades on purchases made near Leopard's release date, nor any guarantees that Apple would release Leopard in October. After all, it was originally to be released in late 2006 or early 2007, then in spring of 2007, etc.

Apple, in my opinion, made a poor decision to (essentially) eliminate Boot Camp availability for Tiger machines before Leopard is even released. They certainly have not been shy about proclaiming (in the present tense) the benefit of running Windows with Boot Camp in their pre-Leopard advertising, which I think mitigates the "because it's beta software argument to some extent. I can understand why they would want to eliminate the Boot Camp beta availability to encourage upgrades to Leopard, but they could have planned it better, for example, waiting 45 days after Leopard's release, or until 10.5.2 is released, or even until December 31, 2007, which would allow large IT departments sufficient time to deploy Leopard in a responsible manner. Apple may not aggressively pursue enterprise markets, but they do go after education markets, which often have large networks with more complex deployment and support needs.

I'm glad to read that you found a workable solution for your situation, tlarkin.

A solution...
 

There is actually a simple work around for this problem - set your computer's clock to before the bootcamp expiry date, install bootcamp, and then set your clock back.

While Apple has removed the ability to install bootcamp without this little trick, they have not removed the ability for an already installed version to keep running.

Does it really work?
I think that upgrading to Leopard is inevitable, anyway. Someday this must happen - even I'm going to upgrade (in fact, I want to get a new Mac with Leopard pre-installed) though I extensively use Parallels desktop and play few games in Boot Camp. I play even less on Mac since there is a Vaio in my home:(