Apropos a Hackintosh and Other Assorted Geekery

A few days ago I posted about my decision to turn a Hewlett-Packard dv7 laptop into a Hackintosh – i.e., a standard PC that is running a flavor of Mac OS X. This isn’t all that easy to do, nor is it something Apple wants people to be doing.

It’s understandable why Apple would be so reticent about such a practice. After all, Apple can’t do anything to control the hardware, and without that control, it’s perfectly possible that various components in the computer won’t work properly. That could give Apple a black eye, even if Apple isn’t responsible per se for the problem.

In fact, my HP Hacktintosh is demonstrating some of those symptoms. The computer itself is running OS X adequately and could be used to get some real work done. However, it is missing a few critical items, such as sound, wireless, the camera, and the trackpad. An external mouse and a wired Internet connection are required, and of course the machine remains silent.

Some of this can be fixed in all likelihood, and at some point I’ll see what I can do about it. For now, however, I’ve done what I wanted to do.

On a different front, I have Windows 7 completely installed on my Dell XPS Studio and I must say that it does run quite nicely. I checked around and discovered that the problems with Windows 7 networking to a Mac are quickly and easily solved if you have a version of Windows 7 that includes the Local Group Policy Editor – a feature not available in Home Premium. So I decided to use the Windows Anytime Update to ratchet myself up one step, to Professional.

The Windows Anytime Upgrade is infinitely easier to use nowadays than it was under Vista. The process is quick, since apparently the Windows 7 installer has actually installed everything onto your computer; the Upgrade just unlocks the features in the more expensive edition. Once it had run (taking only 10 minutes or so) I had Windows 7 Professional and could access the Local Group Policy Editor, in order to set one network security policy that allows Windows 7 to speak to the Mac.

With that fixed, suddenly networking between this laptop and my Mac has become just as effortless on Windows as it is on the Mac. Both computers see each other easily, and my logon credentials for Windows also work for the Mac.

However, I really do wish that Microsoft didn’t make this so tricky at first. After all, Home Premium is one of the most commonly-encountered version of Windows out there, so a lot of people get it with a new computer. It would be nice if changing security policy settings was possible in Home Premium; it’s just the presence or absence of one lousy little program, after all – gpedit.msc.

Finally, I wish Apple would start selling the new Magic Mouse in stores. I know they’re going to be doing so fairly soon, but I’m really looking forward to dropping into the Apple Store and walking out with two new Magic Mice, one for the home desktop and one for my SFCM office.

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