All This Time! Possible Fix for iMac Graphics in Vista?

Wow - I can't believe the number of hours I've put into this, and I've just now stumbled upon what will probably be the solution.

Vista is very unstable when gaming under Boot Camp on my Leopard-based iMac. I've read many, many reports of similar experiences, and have tried many solutions, including using stock ATI video drivers, blah blah blah. None worked well, much less better than the ones in Boot Camp. I'd get blue screens indicating that my video driver was stuck in an infinite loop.

I've wracked my brain for months over this, literally. I only use Windows to play a game (Ultima Online), and to have that ONE experience ruined daily by frequent crashing is just infuriating.

Nobody could figure it out. Apple put out an update, and Windows said it applied the update, but it didn't help.

Last night, I noticed something. The version on my Boot Camp install was version 1.4... beta. Now, I *know* I've run an update since then! WTF??

I downloaded the latest Boot Camp Update last night, version 2.1. It wouldn't unpack, let alone install. Pulled my hair out for another hour or so looking for answers. No luck.

Today, it hit me. I needed to install version 2.0 before the 2.1 update would work. 2.0 is on my Leopard CD. While I could have sworn I'd already done that, maybe I didn't.

I just ran the Boot Camp installer from the CD (2.0). Sure enough, the 2.1 update went as planned.

I saw my video drivers get updated... twice.

I was 2 versions behind on my video drivers - which I suspected! I just couldn't nail down how to get the updates!

What a simple solution. What a numbskull I am.

I am so positive that this is going to solve my crashing problems that I'm going to proclaim victory over this problem right now!

HOORAH!!

Not Enough Disk Space to Install XP Service Pack 3 on a Mac

I've been trying to update my Windows XP installation to Service Pack 3 for 2 hours now. It keeps telling me that it needs 4MB more disk space. FOUR MEGS! I have 10 gigs free!

Here's the glitch: it's not about how much free space I have. It's about the fact that I'm running XP on a Mac with BootCamp - specifically, the MacBook Pro laptop. Apparently, this also happens on the Intel based iMac's.

The error message:

There is not enough disk space on C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$ to install Service Pack 3 Setup requires an additional 4 megabytes of free space or if you also want to archive the files for uninstallation. Setup requires 4 additional megabytes of free space. Free additional space on your hard disk and then try again.

The solution lies in the fact that Intel Mac's use the EFI format, which Windows does not support. (Feel free to Google more about EFI - all I know is, the solution I found on WindowsReference.com solved the problem for me!)

The fix:

1. Click Start - Run - Type regedit and press enter.

2. Navigate to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup]

3. In the right pane, right-click and choose New - String value

4. Name it BootDir and set its value to C:\

5. Exit regedit.

Re-try your SP3 installation, and all should be right with the world.