v0.5

Changes:

• Second XP machine for installation no longer needed! We are now using CriticalDeviceDatabase to automatically load the framebuffer driver.
• pciide.sys no longer required, intelide all the way

No updates to FreeLoader or drivers, existing installs will remain unchanged.

Special thanks to currentq for simplifying the installation process!

0.5b1

This is a BETA release of NTATV, and is NOT extensively tested or documented!!

I will have a full release in the coming days with documentation.

Changes:

• Installation process massively simplified. Just install GenFB, run DiskAndVideoFix.reg, and write the drive!
• pciide.sys no longer required, intelide all the way

Nothing to do for updates, this is purely a change in the installation method. The full release will come with a new FreeLoader but it needs more testing.

v0.3 - Unified FreeLoader & Various Fixes

This is mostly a bug fix and codebase improvement release.

• Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 now use the same bootloader and video driver, removing the need to download a seperate ISO
• Updated FreeLoader codebase again, fixing the line of corrupted characters on the boot screen
• Reverted memory mapping code due to compatibility issues
• Removed IDE ISA compatibility mode hack, the IDE controller is now running in PCI mode at all times
• Minimal GUI is now the default appearance of FreeLoader, resulting in a more NTLDR-looking boot process
• Executable name is now freeldr.sys instead of mach_kernel for consistency with other FreeLoader ports

To upgrade from previous releases:

• Copy Boot/freeldr.sys and Boot/com.apple.Boot.plist from the ISO to the boot partition (Bootloader improvements)
• Copy freeldr.ini to the root of the C: drive (To enable Minimal GUI in FreeLoader)

The full v3 image can be found at https://archive.org/details/apple-tv-windows-xp-full.img.

v0.2.1.1 - Windows 2000 Support

v0.2.1.1 - Windows 2000 Support

• Added Windows 2000 support! There are some caveats:

  • Likely limited driver support
  • Reboot doesn't work (no ACPI 2.0 support in Windows 2000)
  • More complicated installation process

  Use the "win2000" ISO for Windows 2000 installs.

No changes to the Windows XP/2003 ISO or installation process.

v0.2.1 - The Reboot

v0.2.1 - The Reboot

To update from a previous release, copy mach_kernel from the Boot directory on the ISO to the BOOT (D:) partition on the Apple TV. No other files have changed, so it's unnecessary to make any other changes.

New features:

• Reboot now works! Shutdown still hangs, but the same thing happens on Linux and Mac OS X since the Apple TV has no ACPI shutdown at all.
• Memory mapping code rewritten and simplified

Known issues:

• FreeLoader's NTFS driver still doesn't correctly handle non-English languages (see #9)
• There is a line of corrupted characters at the bottom of the screen at certain resolutions in FreeLoader. This goes away after the Windows kernel begins loading and doesn't affect the desktop.

Please ignore the fact that the tag name is 0.3, this is a mistake.

v0.2 - Major update

v0.2 - Major Update!

New features:

• NTATV's FreeLoader is now up-to-date with ReactOS' FreeLoader (version 3.2)!
• IDE driver issues are resolved (theoretically) and the Apple TV should now boot from any IDE drive, including IDE to SATA adapters and SSDs, without issue (closing #5)
• New prebuilt image adds NVIDIA driver support out of the box

Known issues:

• FreeLoader's NTFS driver still doesn't correctly handle non-English languages (see #9)
• Reboot/shutdown still doesn't work
• There is a line of corrupted characters at the bottom of the screen at certain resolutions in FreeLoader. This goes away after the Windows kernel begins loading and doesn't affect the desktop.

v0.1.1 - Bootvid fix

This release fixes an issue where the boot screen shows a corrupted image at certain resolutions. See this commit

v0.1 - Initial Release

Well, we did it. Windows XP is finally functional on the Apple TV, and it's documented too! If you want to install Windows XP onto your Apple TV, check out my guide here.