So my best friend bought me Command and Conquer 3 for PC. My newest working PC is a laptop that I bought three years ago, you can't disrespect a decent game like that! So I did what any good (Mac) geek would do - I went to Boot Camp - Apple's Beta tool for installing Windows XP or Windows Vista on any Intel-based Apple computer (yes, even the Mini!) and dual-booting between OS X and XP (or Vista). However, this is a Mephistophilean bargain - you'll need to generously donate some hard drive space for a Windows partition, you'll also need Vista (R) or Windows XP (R) Service Pack 2 full install version. I also feel somewhat guilty for sullying my beautiful Macbook Pro with something so banal as XP Home.
You CAN use an earlier XP full installation CD (I've read that the upgrade can work too, but I haven't played with it) - If (that's a big if) you have an XP CD, a CD Burner, a running Windows XP Machine that can use the burner, - and some time on your hands, check out http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/how-to-the-curmudgeons-guide-to-boot-camp/, which has links to sites that tell you how to "slipstream" your SP2 and create an XP install CD with SP2.
So how well does it work? Well, ALMOST as well as Windows XP on any PC I've used - I don't know if its a portender of things to come, or just my rotten luck, but I already had a scare where the system wouldn't boot to XP this morning, and I just installed it yesterday! Luckily, after turning it off (it wouldn't respond to key presses), then letting a Scandisk run (it happened automatically because of the "bad shutdown") and fix a single problem (don't remember what it was), it booted fine, and Stan and I had a fight to the death on CnC3, he on his PC, and me on my newly Windows Mac.
