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Mac OS X 10.4.4 Intel Patch for PCs

Maxxuss has released a patch for Mac OS X 10.4.4 8G1165 (Intel) to allow it to be installed on a generic PC.

This is a preliminary release of my Patch Solution for the official Mac OS X on the Intel platform. Ultimately, it would allow you to run this Mac OS X release on a generic x86 computer (SSE2 required).

There's still a lot of work and documentation to do, like support for SSE2-only CPUs, a proper installation procedure and a PPF patch. However, if you like to play around, this will get you started.

The first version, however, requires installation onto a PCU with SSE3 and NX/XD support. The patch includes: A modified mach_kernel system file (can boot under SSE2; required for VMWare), A AppleSMBIOS kernel extension replacement (only required for VMWare), most importantly, the decrypted system files along with an installation shell script. While the previous Mac OS X for Intel developer releases have been similarly hacked, this represents the first hack for the publicly shipping Intel Mac OS X.

These hacks/patches, of course, are targeted at a limited audience. Certainly, future versions of Mac OS X will break these workarounds, but the potential for widespread Mac OS X on Generic PC installs is one of the foreseeable side effects of Apple's transition to the Intel architecture.

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