Security Strategy, Plan, Budget

Now up and running: XP on a Mac

Two hackers have some more spending money in their pockets after figuring out how to run Microsoft's Windows XP operating system on an Intel Mac.

In a contest administered by Colin Nederkoorn, hackers named "narf2006" and "blanka" were awarded $13,854, much of which was collected from donations.

Nederkoorn warned prospective users of XP on a Mac that their new OS may not be up to the standard they're used to.

"Let's help each other succeed!" the contest's site said. "Keep in mind that this is beta software. There are going to be bugs, and you can help find them as well as find solutions."

Narf2006 and blanka both posted on the contest's message board on Wednesday morning that they had a winning solution.

"A solution has been sent to Colin and is awaiting review," blank posted. "You'll soon be booting XP on an iMac!"

The duo first sent cell phone photos to Nederkoorn before videotaping the experiment. Nederkoorn had nine Mac experts test the solution before declaring a winner.

"blanka did all the hard work," narf2006 posted. "He also took the terrible cell phone pictures."

Another poster, smartin53, predicted that other contestants would try to prove that the OS transfer was fake.

"Big thanks to blanka and narf on the great work. You all deserve a good ol' pat on the back for what you did," he said.

The OnMac site also cautioned users not to make bootleg copies of Windows installation software.

"Yes, (the download is legal), but a pre-made installation CD of Windows XP SP2 is not legal," the site said, referring to a question on whether the .zip file is legal.

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