Potential new Macbook Pro User with questions

Hello,

I don't know much about this forum, in fact I just discovered it today. I've been wandering the net looking for a place I could ask some basic questions regarding the Macbook Pro. I'm a PC user, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Prior to Mac OS X I felt that the Mac OS was too confining for me. I'm not trying to insult anyone so please don't take offense. With the advent of Mac OS X I got curious, after I got an iPod I got interested, and now with Steve Jobs' announcement about the Intel Core Duo being the Proc for the Mac I am almost ready to buy one. One of the key things that interestes me is the possibility of being able to dual boot between OS X and Windows Vista. The other reasons vary from for the simple elegance of the Mac OS to the compelling design of Apples' hardware. My questions are simple but I fear that the answers may not be so I 'll just list them here.

1. I understand that XP is a pipe dream on the Macbook Pro but What about Vista? I keep reading conflicting opinions intermingled with questionable "Facts". Do anybody know if dual booting Vista is a fantasy?

2. Question 1 is important to me because of Question 2. I'm a Gamer, a 33 year old gamer an I'm not gonna quit. I've never owned a laptop and while the Macbook Pro is SWEET, I'm concerned about the lack of Top Tier Games available. I've seen some older PC games that have been ported by the Manufacturer such as Diablo 2, but what about Diablo 1? Is it compatible with the Macbook Pro? I also Like 4X Games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploite, and eXterminate. Think Master of Orion, or Space Empires 4), are there any out there?

If I think of any more I'll update this post but thats it for now, Thanks your input.

Wintermute

1. Vista being cracked to work on MacBook Pros is a very good possibility, in fact almost an inevitability. It will be EFI-compatible, so it will most likely happen. Apple has even announced that they will not attempt to stop any efforts to put Windows on the new Intel Macs.

2. Diablo 1, along with every Blizzard game, is on Mac. However, Diablo 1 is an OS9 game, and Classic is not available on the new Intel Macs. There are plenty of Mac games available like Halo, Doom 3, UT 2K4, Blizzard games (which I think qualify as 4X for the most part), Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Knght 2, Civilization III (and an OS X version of IV will likely be released soon as well), and many others. I'm not a huge PC gamer, but honestly the only line of PC games I wish were on Mac is the Half Life series. Bear in mind most of these will require Rosetta to run, but patches are being worked on and in some cases (WoW) released already, and the video crad is ultimately what matters most with these games anyway.

It is extremely likely that Vista will be able to install on the new Macbook Pros, but until Vista comes out we won't know for certain. Not being much on computer games anymore I will leave that to others.

(Wintermute... the same as was on Portent?)

Although, when Vista finally ships (granted you may have a new laptop by 2020) and is cracked, you should be able to run Windows games anyway.