64-bit Boot Camp support on Mac Pros; Vista Home virtualization allowed

Two important Boot Camp-related announcements were made this week, one by Microsoft and one by Apple. Firstly, it was reported Monday that Apple was including 64 Bit Vista support in it’s Mac Pro editions of Mac OS X. It quietly introduced this, with no mention of it other than this snippet from the installation instructions:

Important: You must use a single full-install Windows installation disc (Service Pack 2 is required for Windows XP installations). Do not use an upgrade version of Windows and do not install an earlier version of Windows XP and attempt to update it later to SP2 or later. Use only 32-bit versions of Windows. If you have a Mac Pro introduced in late 2007 or later, you can use a 64-bit version of Windows Vista.

Secondly, Microsoft announced that they would be allowing Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium to run in virtualization in programs like Boot Camp. Boot Camp would need an update to take advantage of this, which may come along with 64 bit support for all, in Mac OS X 10.5.2.

These news items, especially the latter, are great news for people wanting to use an try out Boot Camp and virtualization, but who aren’t willing to shell out the exorbitant rates for the high-end editions of Vista.