Installing XP on new iMac(2011)?

XP system requirements are below your iMac's i5 quad-core. You may be better off with Parallels or Fusion or the like.

Seems from the support article that perhaps having to engineer drivers for new motherboards and what is old EOL legacy OS didn't make sense.

And you should use your OEM DVD with its latest support drivers for Windows.

http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp

You might also consider using the free VirtualBox VM software. I installed it and have subsequently installed Win7 Home and Ubuntu 11.04 virtual machines. Win7 Home runs quite well on my iMac 24" system.

I had been running XP Pro SP2 as a VM with Fusion 2 but the performance was always slow. Resuming the Win7 VM is much faster than XP with Fusion 2.

I even have used my old HP 4670 scanner via USB into the Win7 VM.

I've successfully installed Windows XP on on a 2011 iMac with an Intel i3 dual core processor. I ignored the the notice that it only worked with Windows 7.

It is important that you have an install disc with Windows XP SP2 or SP3. My original disc had only Windows XP but I was able to slipstream SP2 onto the disc. Boot Camp would not completely install until I had upgraded to SP3. That caused problems as well, as it wouldn't install until I added a registry entry. If you search for XP and SP3 in the forum you should find an explanation on how to do this.

I also had to install Bonjour to get my HP printer working though I still can't get it to scan.

I wanted Windows so I could run QuickBooks 2009 and it seems to work fine except it will not work with Thunderbird to email invoices. I'll be trying another email client.

Here's a link regarding the registry entry, http://www.windowsreference.com/general/error-there-is-not-enough-disk-space-whe n-installing-sp3/

On my new iMac May 2011 (Intel Core i7) after installing WinXP, bootcamp want only Win7!!!

I've tried to install bootcamp from other Snow Leopard DVD, but I miss LAN, WiFi, GPU, SOUND and other....

I'm trying to download and install them singularly (Broadcom, Atheros, ATI)...

You must install from a disc with XP SP2 or SP3 included as part of the install. If you don't have one It can be done by slipstreaming SP2 onto a disc with the original Windows XP installation. I can't remember where right now but I found information by searching the web for how to do this. Your will need a program that can create a Windows disc image. I had partial functionality when I first installed XP but when I upgraded to SP3 I was able to do a complete Boot Camp install which then gave me the boot camp utility for switching systems on start up.

I also had a problem with the first Windows XP SP2 installation disc I burned, but when I burned one at a lower speed it worked.

I did it directly with Win XP SP3 integrated! and doesn't work!

The reason is that your iMac is the old one, Intel i3 dual core processor (without Thunderbolt! and the new one are all quad core), probably full compatible with bootcamp supporting Win XP.

is this a sandybridge iMac 12,1 ? If so can you detail the install procedure and OS X version

No, it's an iMac 11,2 with OS 10.6.7. It could be that the new processor is the problem.

I can't remember all the details of the install, but I believe that when I was running Boot Camp it did say it worked only with Windows 7. I ignored this and proceed with the installation as instructed. It did install after partitioning and after several Windows updates I was able to gain almost full functionality. The Boot Camp drivers and application would not all install until after I had updated XP to SP3. The only issue I now have is scanning with my HP 6310 which prints but doesn't scan from XP. My wireless mouse even works now.

This one's to our OP (original poster):

Apple isn't going to let Boot Camp support XP on the Thunderbolt iMacs anytime soon. XP, for all its good, is just that old, A decade old, to be precise, as of late October this year.

Vista might have worked, but Apple rightly cut that one off, too.

I've a pending tip re: a quick Boot Camp setup, but it isn't open yet. So, we'll go with the following:

If you really want to run XP, you'll need to set it up inside a virtual machine host. Be prepared to dedicate enough RAM and hard disk space for the task, because the virtual machine (VM) we'll soon set up will take all of what we set up.

First things first: Grab a copy of VirtualBox at http://www.virtualbox.org/ and install it.

Make your VM template with at least these settings:

• Hard disk: 40 GB or larger
• RAM: 1 GB or more
• VT: Enabled
• Physical Address Extension (PAE): On (improves performance some)
• 3D Acceleration: On (needed for most games)

I'll leave it to you whether you want to use multiple CPUs or provide ports to connect your gear to the VM, but at the very least you will need access to the host (Mac OS) DVD drive to get the XP CD running anyway, as well as the host network adapter for updates, etc.

Now that you've set it up, start the VM and install your XP as if it were on a real PC.

As for drivers, have VBox install its Guest Additions software. This should install the emulated hardware drivers as well as software to "connect" host to guest (Windows is the guest here).

Now, install other software as you like. I'll leave this one in your hands.

Good luck,

Nate

Hi,

I have an imac 27" (core i5) with a radeon 6770m and i succeded in installing XP on it with all peripherals installed. I have made an archive with drivers suitable for imac based on Sandy Bridge under Windows XP

http://egaille.free.fr/imac27

Hope it can help. Some drivers may be missing as i couldn't test it with other imacs with Core i5 - i7

my archive supports these peripherals for the imac 2011 core i5 27" under XP :

- chipset sandy bridge

- Radeon 6770M

- wifi

- audio

- hdmi audio

- facetime Camera HD

- firewire 800 (1394B)

- ethernet

everything else was automatically installed using bootcamp 3.0 along with 3.1 and 3.2 updates

-

Thanks for the drivers! I was able to get everything working on my i7 iMac, except the Radeon card. Device Manager doesn't seem to recognize the card and the ATI software does not install.

Did you have any problems installing the video driver? Any ideas?

Thanks,

-dan

What is exactly your Radeon Graphics adapter?

Mine is a Radeon 6770M.

In hardware control pannel, i have forced the install and it worked on the reboot (resolution 2560x1440 and hardware acceleration OK).

But maybe your motherboard is different and the embedded graphics is slightly different...

Please tell me.

On http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html, I have a 27" iMac, i7 processor, AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1G

I didn't realize you could force the drivers, I'll poke with that tonight!

<Edited by Host>

-dan