After I got the new machine, I didn't waste too much time.
The experience was not really smooth for me. I wanted to install Windows XP Professional on a FAT32 partition so that I could easily access the partition from Mac OS X. I started by allocating 32 GB for the windows partition using BootCamp and and the installation started after a reboot. I could not get the bl**dy installation alway failed after the initial setup screen.
Microsoft recommends a maximum of 32 GB for a FAT32 partition. During installation there is no way to get around this. After a bit of Googling, I decided to format the windows paritition with NTFS. But that did not work either. The initial installation would go through but after that I would get a 'bad disk' error.
I changed gears and made a backup copy of the XP install CD (before I get yelled at, I confirmed that this is legal since my original CD could be faulty). I tried the installation again with an NTFS paritition. This time I got 'could not find 'hal.dll' message.
After a bit more googling, I saw several explanations for this including a corrupted boot.ini file. So, with a renewed gusto, I tried installing again. But this time I created a 20 GB FAT32 parition and continued. Lo and behold the installation went through fine.
After the installation, I just popped in the Leopard CD that came with the Mac and in less than 10 minutes I had everything working.
The trackpad did not work well even after the driver installs. This was a known issue and a software update fixed it.
I am not really sure if I really want to use XP but it is good to know I do have an option. When I have some time, I will install VMWare Fusion and check how well I can run XP off the boot camp parition.
Instructions for boot camp install are available here.
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