I’m pleased to say the RTM release of Vista installs and runs without any problem on the Mac Mini. Glass was enabled on first boot, my network connection was up and running immediately, and the system itself seems to be very snappy. I can’t comment on sound or Media Center performance yet – I only finished installing at about 1am – but I’ll try that later.
For the curious, here’s the Windows Experience Index stats:
- Processor: 4.6 (Dual Core 1.66)
- Ram: 4.5 (1gb)
- Graphics: 3.4 (Intel integrated)
- Gaming: 3
- HDD: 4.4 (stock hard drive)
So a WEI of 3 thanks to the gaming performance, but very reasonable scores for everything else.
Interestingly, in order to fix a Bootcamp problem I had to reinstall OS X. Performing back to back installations of OS X, followed by Vista was an interesting experience. Vista certainly seems to install in a shorter amount of time than OS X.
There’s more to come on both Vista on the Mac Mini, and the future of my little Apple machine.
Hi
I’d really like to know what your experience is with the Mac Mini’s video playback performance using Vista’s Media Center. In particular can you playback high-def content (720p at least) without any performance hiccups?
Cheers
I’d be interested to know if there are any performance issues playing back high-def (720p at least) video via Vista’s Media Center when you get a chance.
Cheers
Sorry Sean, I don’t actually have the Mini any longer. I’ll be posting something about that soon. I tried one or two 720p videos while I had Vista installed, and didn’t experience any problems. That said, I couldn’t find any working sound drivers…
It’s worth keeping in mind that Shuttle’s recently released mini PCs – the Mini X 200 series – use the same integrated Intel graphics as the Mac Mini (GMA950). If Shuttle have created a machine specfically designed for Media Center, and built around this chipset, it should be fine.
If anyone knows of working audio drivers for the Intel-based Mac Minis that work with Vista RTM, please let me know via my website (www.kinyonsoftware.com) Thank you.