14 DAY TRIAL // Macs are simply one of the greatest Windows Vista computers available on the market, according to Charlie Kindel, General Manager, Windows Home Server. Yes, Microsoft uses Macs, and Kindel makes no secret about it. Furthermore, he is right about the way Mac computers integrate with Windows Vista via Apple's BootCamp technology. Macbook Pros are pretty good Vista laptops and the new iMacs are pretty nice Vista PCs. The Cupertino based company has made everything in its power to ensure that 32-bit Windows XP and Windows Vista run smoothly on its proprietary hardware. For example, just the past week, Apple updated Boot Camp to version 1.4.
Kindel is the man that dreamed up Windows Home Server back in 1999, and had to go through four stages to get it built, therefore the Quattro product codename. On July 16 2007, Kindel & Co., meaning the Windows Home Server team, finalized the code and released the product to manufacturing. "My work laptop is a Macbook Pro. You see we bought a few of them for our test lab to ensure that Macs work great with Windows Home Server's centralized storage (they do)," Kindel stated. "Once testing was done these pretty laptops were just sitting in the lab unused. I had heard that Apple had released something called "Boot Camp" that would let you run Windows Vista on a Macbook Pro. I figure it was worth giving it a try... Turns out the Macbook Pro makes a pretty good Vista laptop (emphasis added). Apple's Windows Vista drivers appear solid and it's basically just a well engineered x86 laptop."
Windows Home Server is by no means exclusively destined to integrate with PCs. Macs running Windows Vista will work seamlessly with the device. And Kindel even described the process you need to undertake to restore an installed copy of Windows Vista on a Macbook Pro to a larger partition through Windows Home Server's computer restore capability.
'I did a "Backup Now" on the Mac to make sure I had everything backed up to my Windows Home Server at work. I rebooted the Mac into the Mac OS, and found how to delete the Vista disk partition. I re-ran the Boot Camp tool. It lets you specify how big you want the two partitions. I told it to make my Windows partition 70GB (30 for Mac OS). I inserted my Windows Home Server Computer Restore CD and rebooted, holding down the Alt (command key in Apple terms). When the Restore CD booted I told it which backup to use and I then confirmed that I wanted to restore the "30.3GB C: backup" to the "70GB C: drive"', Kindel explained.
Windows Home Server managed to restore the Windows Vista installation to the new partition on the Macbook Pro with no problems. "Moral of the story? Windows Home Server Computer Restore is a great tool for dealing with ever changing hard disk sizes. Oh, and the Mac is a pretty nice Windows Vista PC," Kindel concluded. (emphasis added)