Bootcamp... XP 64 bit on Macbook?

[JCyrus]

So I have a macbook that I purchased in April of 2008. I recently needed to install Windows XP to run ESRI's ArcGIS software for school/work, so I asked a buddy who is a computer science major if he could get me a copy of XP from his MSDN account.

He did, and it almost works wonderfully. Except when deciding between 32 bit and 64 bit, it seemed like the only difference was memory, and while I only have a macbook, I upgraded the memory to 4gb, and so I thought 64 bit was the best option.

Of course, when I went to install the drivers however, it said something to the extent of "64 bit is not supported on this device."

Is there any way to work around this? Or do I just need to swallow my pride and go back to my friend and ask for a copy of the 32 bit XP.

 

[grnvlmike]

yes, there is a workaround. you need to navigate to the actual drivers64.msi (or something close to it) on your Mac OS disk under bootcamp drivers and run it from there... Not sure why, but same thing happened to me.

 

[JCyrus]

Sounds easy enough... How exactly do I go about doing that though?

 

[grnvlmike]

if you look on the Mac OS disk, you will see a folder that has bootcamp then a couple of folders in that one. Sorry, but I do not have my Mac OS disk on me. There are only two files tucked in there that are .msi files (microsoft installer files) one is the 32bit and one is the 64 bit... You should be able to find them pretty easy. Just run the 64 one

 

[Mac Masta]

In my opinion, XP 64 bit is a Driver nightmare. It is very hard to find devices and sometimes even software that is compatible with XP 64 bit.