Running Mac OSX on Windows XP / Vista

Recently I have been trying to setup Mac OS X on Vista using a Virtual Machine. Thought to share the process for those of you curious minds out there.

1. Setting up VM – PearPC

Download and extract PearPC from here.
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/downloads.html

Create a new folder (say, ‘pearpc’) in a drive that has at least 5GB free space. Extract the files from PearPC archive to the folder.

2. Download / Buy Mac OS X

Purchase a copy of genuine Mac OS X from Apple store. Alternatively, if you are experimenting for educational purposes you might check out Warez websites – however I do not recommend it.

Just to save you some search time here’s a torrent for a PearPC ready Mac OS X image. Its Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4641672/OS_X_10.2.8_Jaguar_PearPC_premade

Note: If you are trying to install this for iPhone development, this will not work as iPhone SDK requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard as minimum requirement. Leopard doesn’t work on VM (as of now). Don’t bother with this, it will not work for iPhone Devl.

3. Configure PearPC for Mac OS X

There will be an image file (.img) for Jaguar in the downloaded torrent. Extract the contents to your PearPC folder. Create a PearPC configuration file and name it ppcfg-macosx.

Here’s a sample configuration file, you can copy / paste the same config. Don’t forget to modify the “PATH” and Drive Letters.

4. Configuring Network on Mac OS X

To be able to use your LAN or Internet, you will need to create a VPN. To get PearPC on the internet or LAN you need to set up OpenVPN on your host system. To install OpenVPN check out the downloads at http://openvpn.net. Windows Vista users should better stick to the newer OpenVPN 2.1_rc15 release – install and configure using “Run as Administrator”.

Once installed, the simplest way is to bridge your VPN connection with your LAN / WiFi network.

In Mac OS X Jaguar: Simply set it to DHCP Automatic mode for it to appear on the network.

If you have custom / manually configured network, you might want to create a subnet and make your VPN connection work as a router.

5. Configuring a CD-ROM on PearPC

On windows, PearPC will not work with your CD drive. Instead you will need to create an ISO image and add the path to the image in your PearPC config file. The above config file already has an example of an ISO image being loaded and working. It will appear as a drive in your Mac OS X.

6. Run it

Open Command line. Browse to the folder and issue the command:
ppc.exe ppcfg-macosx

If you got any questions, queries or issues please feel free to drop me a note below.