What if you formated your pc and installed mac operating system what wold you have?
2006-10-31 13:57:41 · 5 answers · asked by Bruce (Bill) B 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
As many readers know, I have been a Macintosh user since late 1984. Since that time, I have seen a number of hardware and software solutions come and go, all purporting to do the same thing - allow you to run DOS or Windows software on your Mac. Early on, there were hardware solutions that were ridiculously expensive and basically consisted of a X86 based PC that connected up to the Mac's monitor. While these worked rather well, it was often less expensive just to go out and buy a PC to sit next to your Mac. By the time the first PowerPC based Macs hit the scene in the early 1990's, even Apple was in on the game. They offered a DOS Compatibility Card that worked with the original PowerMac series. I had one of these cards installed inside my PowerMac 6100 and it only had two problems - it was expensive and it didn't work all that well.
About the time that the PowerMacs made their debut, a small company came out with SoftPC. This was the first emulator that was totally software based. You could run DOS "inside" your Mac. Once again, it was deadly slow. As Macs speeded up and DOS gave way to Windows, they renamed the product to SoftWindows. The name change did nothing to speed up the emulated PC.
Then along came Microsoft. They purchased the company that made SoftWindows, renamed the product to VirtualPC, and they've been selling it for the last 3 - 4 years. Virtual PC is now in its version 7, but it still has performance problems. I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't so expensive! When I took delivery of my iMac G5 last fall, I was excited about the possibility of being able to run Virtual PC 7 on it and actually see decent response times. That was not to be... I loaded up my Virtual PC with Windows XP, threw Office XP on it, and it reminded me of trying to use Timbuktu over a DSL connection to control a computer a thousand miles away. Everything just lagged horribly. And considering the cost of VPC7, I decided that it was NOT the answer I was seeking. Instead, I returned the software to the vendor and ended up spending a lot more money on a Dell laptop PC.
2006-10-31 14:35:55 · answer #1 · answered by deadman 3 · 0⤊ 3⤋
No, you can't. Maybe one day someone will hack it so that you can, but the mac operating system is built to work with the mac hardware, thats one of the reasons why it's so solid, reliable and hassle free.
Windows has to be able to run on a million different hardware combinations, thats why pc's are generally a pain in the ***. As soon as you put the osx software on some diy combination of components it will start to suffer all the same problems as windows - less stability, having to install drivers for everything etc.
So it pretty much defeats the purpose. You're much better just buying a mac, it can run windows and osx. In the uk Macbooks are actually a lot cheaper than similar dell laptops.
2006-11-01 10:18:44 · answer #2 · answered by Rokko 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Since the Mac costs less than a comparable Dell, why not buy the Mac and install Windows in a partition on it? That way you can run either OS and save money.
It's illegal to modify OS X to run on non-Apple hardware.
2006-11-04 13:55:52 · answer #3 · answered by nospamcwt 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Essentially. Mac OS X is a variation of BSD Linux and you can get FreeBSD for x86.
2006-10-31 14:09:14 · answer #4 · answered by Chris H 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It would not be compatiable
Dell and Mac have diffrent operating systems for a reason
You would just screw up your computer.
The mouse, keyboard, etc wouldn't even work
2006-10-31 14:10:19 · answer #5 · answered by nickkk 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋