YouTuber installed Windows XP on a touchscreen MacBook and it went exactly as you'd expect

DragonSlayer101 · Friday at 10:47 AM

In context: Windows XP is one of the most popular versions of Windows despite its quirks. Released in 2001, it was the definitive OS for an entire generation of kids for whom the "Bliss" wallpaper and the iconic startup chime were a part of everyday life for almost a decade.

Windows XP has been discontinued for so long that the four Windows iterations following it have also reached the end of support. Still, many DIY tech enthusiasts try to turn back the clock and recreate its magic by installing it on modern hardware, if only for nostalgia.

YouTuber Michael MJD took a slightly different route and installed Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 on a MacBook from 2011, modified by Lingraphica with a plug-in touchscreen for accessibility. The whole process went about as well as you'd expect. Apparently, cramming a decades-old Microsoft OS into an old Apple laptop proved difficult due to multiple hardware compatibility and driver issues. However, despite the teething troubles, he eventually got the OS running and even played Half-Life at a decent framerate.

Michael installed XP via Apple's Boot Camp software. Since he wanted to utilize the MacBook's touchscreen, he had to use a custom ISO that supported the tablet features of the OS. The official version sourced from the Internet Archives defaulted to the regular PC version of Windows XP every time it detected incompatible tablet hardware.

Even with the custom ISO, Michael still didn't have the correct drivers, causing the installer to crash continually. Michael installed a Hampshire Touch Windows driver from Internet Archive to fix the compatibility issues with the MacBook's touchscreen. The driver worked, and the installation wizard recognized the uncalibrated touchscreen.

The graphics driver initially had issues, as well. However, the correct version from Nvidia wasn't too hard to find, and he soon had everything up and running. Once Michael had all the drivers installed, the MacBook functioned as expected. The media buttons, audio, graphics, and everything else worked, allowing Michael to show off the Windows XP's tablet features. He also got Half-Life running on the device with a very playable framerate but had some issues when tinkering with resolutions.

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YouTuber installed Windows XP on a touchscreen MacBook and it went exactly as you'd expect

Nelson28 · Friday at 11:34 AM

Sounds like a wild ride down memory lane! This YouTuber really went for it, installing Windows XP on a touchscreen MacBook. Of course, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing, with driver issues and crashes galore. But hey, they got it working in the end, even playing Half-Life! Gotta love that dedication to nostalgia.

NumberNine · Friday at 12:07 PM

And yet we click!

stewi0001 · Friday at 1:32 PM

That brought back some memories of working on computers back in the day...

Zcolor · Friday at 2:07 PM

I don't know what it is with XP, I didn't think it was that great. This all changed for me, when Windows 7 came out. For me, that's the last best operating system Microsoft ever built! I'm using it right (Win 7 Pro) now, on my 14-year-old Acer Aspire 3 laptop...

ZedRM · Friday at 2:33 PM

Zcolor said:
I don't know what it is with XP, I didn't think it was that great.

Me neither. Windows 7 is my personal fav. But the version MJD used was the Tablet specific version of XP.

hwertz · Friday at 3:07 PM

I was already using Linux by then, so I didn't find XP all that great either.

But it was FAR better than 95/98/ME. I don't know if it was BETTER than 2000 but it looked better, and apparently you could get DirectX 9 onto 2000 but I think that took a manual install versus XP just coming with it and updating it through Windows Update.

Since XP had compatibility (for the most part) with NT4 and 2000 drivers, and I think they made effort to make porting 95/98/ME drivers a bit easier, it also had fairly wide driver support.

Not specific to XP, but to Microsoft's credit, they also decided at that point that USB device makers MUST follow the standards, or (even if they provide a Windows driver) they CANNOT say their USB-connected camera, audio device, etc. is Windows compatible. The 95/98 era, every USB camera (or almost every at least...) decided they'd save like 50 cents by running a driver-specific non-standard protocol over USB rather than the USB camera standard; some audio devices I think were like that, and so on. This wasn't for "enhanced features" or something, it wouldn't work at all without the vendor-specific driver. Linux still has like 10 or 20 USB camera drivers for old quickcams and stuff (like, even withih the Quickcam line they weren't using the same non-standard protocol throughout the line, so 3 or 4 drivers are for them alone.) Since this was only going on from ~1998-2003, it was arlready starting to get out of hand after only 5 years, I can't imagine how bad it would have been if they USB device vendors had just been left to have at it for like 25+ years. Well I can to some extent, the TV tuner drivers in Linux are well-orgranized but there's a hell of a lot of them.

Jonny5 · Friday at 5:12 PM

Nelson28 said:
Sounds like a wild ride down memory lane! This YouTuber really went for it, installing Windows XP on a touchscreen MacBook. Of course, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing, with driver issues and crashes galore. But hey, they got it working in the end, even playing Half-Life! Gotta love that dedication to nostalgia.

hehe I watched the Video thanks to your comment

p51d007 · Friday at 6:38 PM

What? No BSOD? LOL

kinetix · 2024-06-23T13:49:26-0400

The problem he would have would be with the touchscreen, since from the first Macs with Intel CPU you could install Windows. For that you had Bootcamp. That's what I did in 2007, I had the Intel iMacs made of aluminum with dual boot. For a short time the danger was the temperature, because in Windows the fans (3) of the iMac did not adjust their RPM according to the temperature, since this was controlled at the operating system level (in macOS), not the BIOS. This was like that until a small program appeared that allows you to control the fans from Windows.

YouTuber installed Windows XP on a touchscreen MacBook and it went exactly as you'd expect

DragonSlayer101

Posts: 415 +2

In context: Windows XP is one of the most popular versions of Windows despite its quirks. Released in 2001, it was the definitive OS for an entire generation of kids for whom the "Bliss" wallpaper and the iconic startup chime were a part of everyday life for almost a decade.

Nelson28

Posts: 153 +37

NumberNine

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stewi0001

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Zcolor

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ZedRM

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hwertz

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Jonny5

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p51d007

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kinetix

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