Installation Issues

When installing Windows XP under Boot Camp, I encountered the following problems:

Error SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED during XP Installation

This was resolved by making a copy of the XP CDROM using DiskUtil. Apparently, there's a media incompatibility that causes problems for the XP installer when combined with Boot Camp's trickery. This is documented here.

I nuked everything and am starting from scratch, booting from OS X CD and using DiskUtil in the Tools Menu to nuke the entire drive to zero. I then set up two 60G partitions. One is journaled HFS, the other is NTFS, and the last will be FAT (FAT32, actually).

Don't leave USB devices plugged in

This caused my installation to bluescreen during the device installation part (after copying files had gone well). Doh. The device detection didn't seem to like my cordless laser mouse and the installation freaked out.

Settings up a 3 Partition System

This took all day for me to figure out from online sources, with past personal experience filling in the gaps. The notes are quite extensive, so I've put them in a separate page: Creating 2 Windows Partitions with Boot Camp

Workarounds

Control Key gets stuck while using Windows XP

I'm not sure what is causing this, but the way around it when I have my external keyboard plugged in is to hold down the left control key, then press and release the right control key.

The Stupid Mac OS X Mouse Acceleration

You can't turn it off, many people annoyed and share their solutions. I am looking into SteerMouse, which hopefully works. In the MacAnnoyances thread, this looked promising:

However, in the source of MouseFix I noticed how it restricted itself to positive values. Being curious, I removed the restriction and made an interesting discovery: non-negative values work like MouseZoom, but any negative value disables all scaling and acceleration so that one “mouse unit” maps directly to a pixel! Later I also found that when a negative value is written to the preference file, it is used and retained. So just run

defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling -1

Just read about ControllerMate as a better option to SteerMouse.

VMWare Fusion

I installed VMWare Fusion and promptly got hit by the need to re-activate Windows. This was OK, as I had been warned about this. However, VMWare Fusion did not like my extra D: drive, and did not make it accessible to Windows. That makes sense, since MacOS had it mounted. That makes it tough to share files between both operating systems.

One issue with this is that the disappearance of a hard disk may trigger Windows Activation. Also, on rebooting into BootCamp I was asked to do it AGAIN. So oh well...I'm not going to mess with this any more.

If you really want to run a trouble-free Windows installation on a Mac, don't use a separate D:\ drive. None of the helper software seems to be set up for it. So I'll just stick to my dual-boot system and forget about Fusion and Parallels. If you can't access the data, what's the point?

Parallels w/ BootCamp

Like VMWare Fusion, D: disappears. However, Parallels allows you to share the D:\ drive with the Windows partition. Like Fusion, the need for Windows authorization raises its sticky head. I haven't played with it any further pending the arrive of more RAM. Which I have just ordered

Using my Model M Space Saver Keyboard

Under Windows XP, I was using it with the Y-Mouse PS2-to-USB adapter, which is highly regarded on some sites on the Internet. One problem, though, was that when the MacBookPro went to sleep, the keyboard would not wake up with it. I would have unplug and replug the USB adapter. Also, I would have to press NumLock twice, slowly, to make it work properly in all powerup cases.

The PS2-to-USB adapter I got through ClickyKeyboards.com, which is much more compact, worked just fine, AND it doesn't have the irritating NumLock problem. To plug the fat little adapter into the MacBookPro's ports, I had to use a short USB cable extender, otherwise it wouldn't fit.

Right-Clicking, Scrollwheel

If you don't have a mouse, you can put TWO fingers on the trackpad before you press the button to do a right-click. Scroll wheel functionality is available by dragging two fingers on the trackpad...slick.