Apple have gone to great lengths to make installing Microsoft Windows XP or Vista onto their hardware as easy as possible, and really it’s a win-win situation (except perhaps for “designer” PC hardware manufacturers).

Simply load up the Boot Camp assistant and follow the instructions here, it’s that easy.

The only little hiccoughs I have encountered are:

You need to select “ACPI” during the text-phase of XP installation or Windows will be unable to reboot the system by itself.

When the graphical install starts, hit Shift+F10 or you risk loosing your USB keyboard input.

In order to optimise and streamline the Windows installation I created a custom install CD using the fantastic nLite utility, (found via LifeHacker). nLite is a fantastic tool in the TechGeek’s arsenal for trimming the fat from a standard installtion, creating unattended installations without the hassle of writing the text files, or slipsteaming recent SP and patch updates into the install for better security.

If you are using a “cut-down” version of Windows for the install and you come across any hinkey errors, it could well be that you’ve dropped a component that is required. Unless you’re really familiar with the components your Boot Camp drivers will require, I’d recommend keeping the original Windows system intact, at least to begin with.