Vista64 SP1 on My MacBook Pro

Wow, am I ever glad this is almost over. I thought with the release of Boot Camp 2.1 I wouldn’t have any problems installing Vista 64 on my 2007 MacBook. Think again. It was time to get past the 3G barrier of 32 bit Vista because I really need the VM capacity.

If it weren’t for this guy, I never would have gotten it to work. Thank you, Josh Anderson! Follow his instructions to the letter, but be prepared to shell out some money (just a few Euros) to RapidShare to download the 2.1 drivers in anything less than 24 hours. Unless you pay, you must wait 92 minutes between each download.

When you get to the video drivers, here is a little simpler explanation of how to do this.

1. Go to www.laptopvideo2go.com
2. Download the latest driver for Vista 64. The site is a little confusing to me, but the bottom line is to just pull the latest Vista 64 driver. Don’t bother searching around for anything like “MacBook” or “NVidia”. That’s not how the site works.
3. Download the Modded INF (nv_disp.inf)  file on the same page as your driver. After extracting the driver, place the INF file in the driver directory.
4. Now do the install.

OK, now to the inane answer of what software I put on my virgin system, because that’s what everyone really wants to know, right? OK, in order:

1. Vista 64 Ultimate + Service packs and drivers
2. Input Remapper (to control fan speed under Vista. The Mac runs hot otherwise.)
3. Launchy
4. MS Office 2007 Ultimate
5. Virtual PC 2007 SP1
6. Live Writer CTP
7. Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite
8. ReSharper (but I’d really like to try CodeRush, hint, hint, Mark)
9. SQL Server Developer + SSMS
10. TortoiseSVN + SvnBridge for Team Foundation Server