Apple Bootcamp to support Windows 7

[Aquafire]

Apple is quick off the mark.

For those who want to try windows 7 via Bootcamp.

"Apple confirmed yesterday that it will support Windows 7 with "Boot Camp" in its Mac OS X Snow Leopard platform within the next few months, for those fanboys with a strange inclination to mix and match their operating systems."

Windows 7 with Boot Camp

The official notice from Apple can be found below.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3920

Aqua
_________________
Of the four X systems in the world.

Which would you choose?

OS X : LinuX : UniX or MS-BolloX.

[MacMini87]

Great stuff, thanks Aqua

Just curious, why arn't Apple officially supporting some of the older iMacs and MacBook Pro's?

Mind, I don't think Apple's saying so will stop some people, many people were using the Beta and RC of Windows 7 ages ago.

I had the 7 RC running nice on my Mini (Downloaded it from Microsoft) but for some reason, after an update it wouldn't boot.

Good news though for the people who want to run DLL hell on Mac's

Dan

[MacDSmith2]

I just thought of something. Apple will allow you to turn your Mac into a PC with boot camp by installing Microsoft's Operating System, but will not let you "boot camp" Apple's OS/X onto an Atom PC computer...

Such are the differences between a company that lives by software (Microsoft) and one that lives by hardware (Apple). Not making a judgement either way, just noting the disparity!
_________________
Retired: Altair 8800, PET, TI 99/4A, Apple II
Mac Plus, Mac II, Mac SE/30, Quadra,
20th Anniversary Mac, iMac Purple, G4 Blue & White, iBook Clamshell
Active: Mac Mini (OCT 09) 4 GB RAM, 2.66 GHz, 500 GB HDD

[DonCarlos]

Anyone heard anything new on the update? getting Windows 7 soon and was hoping of using bootcamp again to install?
_________________
'08 MacMini C2D/2.0/RAM4GB
HD:Hitachi 7200/16MB/500GB
OS:LION 10.7/WIN-7
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Magic mouse .
EXT. HD:Lacie D2Quadra-1TB. Firewire.
Monitors: SONY Bravia 32" and
Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP (Dell makes something right).

[MacDSmith2]

It hasn't been mentioned in any of the 10.6.2 news items and no posts about it so I assume it has not yet "officially" made it into the build for 10.6.2. I imagine they have a lot of cleanup to do for drivers and such. Some posts indicate missing video and printer drivers or worse, the wrong NIVIDIA drivers being installed by Boot Camp.
_________________
Retired: Altair 8800, PET, TI 99/4A, Apple II
Mac Plus, Mac II, Mac SE/30, Quadra,
20th Anniversary Mac, iMac Purple, G4 Blue & White, iBook Clamshell
Active: Mac Mini (OCT 09) 4 GB RAM, 2.66 GHz, 500 GB HDD

[Aquafire]

[DonCarlos]

Well you would think Apple would have the update done for Bootcamp-W7. They said by the end of the year, so I guess they have about 6 weeks left.
_________________
'08 MacMini C2D/2.0/RAM4GB
HD:Hitachi 7200/16MB/500GB
OS:LION 10.7/WIN-7
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Magic mouse .
EXT. HD:Lacie D2Quadra-1TB. Firewire.
Monitors: SONY Bravia 32" and
Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP (Dell makes something right).

[DonCarlos]

Well Windows 7 has arrived but the mac update for bootcamp has not. I guess I will wait Apple. Patience. Patients. Payshunce.
_________________
'08 MacMini C2D/2.0/RAM4GB
HD:Hitachi 7200/16MB/500GB
OS:LION 10.7/WIN-7
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Magic mouse .
EXT. HD:Lacie D2Quadra-1TB. Firewire.
Monitors: SONY Bravia 32" and
Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP (Dell makes something right).

[DonCarlos]

Even though I have sucessfully installed W7 using Bootcamp 3.0, I wonder if Apple will make it's self imposed deadline of official bootcamp support for W7 before year's end.

Any bets? I could check the odds board down at Harrah's.
_________________
'08 MacMini C2D/2.0/RAM4GB
HD:Hitachi 7200/16MB/500GB
OS:LION 10.7/WIN-7
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Magic mouse .
EXT. HD:Lacie D2Quadra-1TB. Firewire.
Monitors: SONY Bravia 32" and
Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP (Dell makes something right).

[digitalbow]

^ DonCarlos, any tips for the successful install of W7 via BootCamp?

I just bought W7 Pro but haven't tried installing it on the mini yet.
_________________
Mac Mini 1.83 C2D; 500GB/4GB, OS 10.6 + Win7 x64
iPhone 3GS 16GB: Jailbroken
--
Former Macs:
Performa 630CD
PowerMac 6200/75
PowerMac 6500/300 TV w/ AppleVision 1710AV
PowerMac G4/733
PowerBook Ti G4/500
iPhone 2G 16GB

[DonCarlos]

Hi.

Well it was relatively uneventful install, same as XP when I had that in there. I completely erased my previous XP partition, before my install of W7.

If you do not want to wait for the Bootcamp/W7 update, then I found that the current Bootcamp 3.0 will work. I read a few things about people not getting it working, but I never had a problem.

I don't know if you are running wireless keyboard and mouse, but if so, it's a good idea to have a usb mouse and keyboard available, if you run into problems doing the commands. And doesn't hurt to have another computer to look at the instructions, while you doing all this.

Here is one of many guides
http://gizmodo.com/5387353/how-to-survive-boot-camp-and-run-win-7-on-a-mac

Okay here goes.......my uneducated tutorial, and after reading it over it really really long. But, to show you it is easy I am explaining it by memory, so it can't be that difficult. *I just am a verbose writer.

-It's pretty simple.... Just have your W7 CD ready and your Snow Leopard disc. Do not load either until you are prompted to.

-In MAC go to Utilities>find Bootcamp folder. Start Bootcamp. You will make your partition for W7 from in there. You need to decide how big you want your partition to be. After you decide that, just follow the Bootcamp prompts.

(Also, so you know......you will be formatting the new partition later, during the installation of W7 so don't worry about it here)

-Basically, when Bootcamp tells you to...... insert your W7 cd....... then hit the Start Installation button.

Your Mac should boot from W7, and then after that it's all Windows control. But like I said before, you may want to have a USB keyboard and mouse available (if you find that your wireless is not working, just plug in your wired USB's).

-Just remember that while installing it will ask you if you want to format the partition, say yes and format it NTSF in the partition named BOOTCAMP. *The partition should be the same size that you decided on earlier, as a way to help you further identify it.

-After Windows completes it's installation, it will restart in W7 (pretty cool actually). The W7 CD may automatically eject (if not you can get it out while in Windows).

-After Windows fully loads, you will need to insert you SL disc, and it will automatically start downloading the drivers and things to make it compatible with MAC. Nothing in Windows will prompt you to put the SL disc in, so you just do it when you are ready to load the drivers and things.

Once that's done, eject SL, and you are done.

You have some basic things to make sure that are now running such as your internet. Windows will prompt you as it usually does on setting that up if it even needs setup. Seems my wireless router hooked up (except entering the PW) and was working fine.

Make certain that you do all the Windows Updates while in Windows. There are not really that many since the OS is so new.

Get a Virus Protect program on there. You are no longer a spoiled MAC person and need protection. I used the free virus protector AVG. Always have, even before Mac. http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage. Use the free version, you do not need the pay version.

Here's some things I learned that bugged me until I figured them out:
1) Wireless keyboard/mouse is a problem in W7 with the present SL drivers but it is a very easy fix. See the bottom of this page to a fix I posted.

2) You may think your wireless pointer is froze. But actually it just sticks for one time whenever you start windows, just move it, it will not freeze again while you are running windows. Don't know why that "quirk" is there.

3) Check the booting from both Windows and Mac side(s) (In Windows, a small grey diamond shaped icon was placed on your task bar after your SL loaded its drivers. Just click on it)
That is how to use the option of which OS you want to restart.

Unfortunately when in MAC there is no icon on your desktop. You have to go to your system preference windows and find START UP and you choose which OS from there when you want to restart. You'll see it as a folder icon that says Start Up. Click on it and you have a choice to reboot into WINDOWS, on your next startup.

4) Remember whenever you fire up your MAC you can choose the OS by pressing and holding down "Options". You'll see two rather dull looking hard drive case. Choose your poison.

5) I chose not to "Activate" my Windows 7 OS at this time. You got thirty days.
I am waiting for the Official Apple Release of Bootcamp, and in case for some reason I have a problem and have to do a fresh reinstall of W7 (I read.....Just to clarify.....I only read this, that after activating W7, you may have problems activating it again on a fresh reinstall. By Phone. That should not really the case, but I am just being cautious).

-But do read the install link above so you are familiar with what you are looking at. Still it is really just a matter of going to Bootcamp and following the prompts there and in Windows.

Oh here is the fix for any problems you have with the wireless key/mouse.

http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25676


Hope it runs well for you. Let us all know.
_________________
'08 MacMini C2D/2.0/RAM4GB
HD:Hitachi 7200/16MB/500GB
OS:LION 10.7/WIN-7
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Magic mouse .
EXT. HD:Lacie D2Quadra-1TB. Firewire.
Monitors: SONY Bravia 32" and
Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP (Dell makes something right).

[digitalbow]

Thanks, DonCarlos.

I did have some issues, though.
I already partitioned my drive when I did a fresh install of Snow Leopard; one HFS+, and the other FAT32, so I decided to forego the first step in Boot Camp. I went ahead and selected the option to reboot from the W7 install DVD.

I'm installing the 64-bit version, and had the "Select CD ROM Boot Type" message upon restart from Boot Camp. I couldn't select anything, so I thought the problem was that I had a wireless HP keyboard. There was no luck rebooting with a wired keyboard. Even worse, the wired keyboard I used did not have an eject button so I had to zap the PRAM to get it to boot back up from the HD.

In the meanwhile, I came upon this helpful bit of information: http://www.gopulls.com/blog/2009.08.26/install-windows-7-x64-on-a-mac-beat-the-select-cd-rom-boot-type-error/
and burned the install DVD accordingly.

W7 installed from this new DVD without issue and booted, but when I put in the Snow Leopard DVD, the installer failed to run and gave me an error that "Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model", so I installed some of the drivers manually and then ran the Boot Camp MSI in compatibility mode, and it worked.

So far, things appear to be working decently, though I got a blue screen when trying to install Office 2007 from a HFS+ drive. It also took a bit of fiddling to get my Hawking HW8UDDA USB wireless adapter to work. No major issues so far.

Thanks again.
_________________
Mac Mini 1.83 C2D; 500GB/4GB, OS 10.6 + Win7 x64
iPhone 3GS 16GB: Jailbroken
--
Former Macs:
Performa 630CD
PowerMac 6200/75
PowerMac 6500/300 TV w/ AppleVision 1710AV
PowerMac G4/733
PowerBook Ti G4/500
iPhone 2G 16GB

[MacDSmith2]

Attempted to install Parallels 5 on my Mac Mini using the Switch To Mac transporter. I got the PC moved to the Mac on both my machine and my wife's Mac Mini, but the final configuration during the install failed on both. On my machine I got to the point where it asks you to log into your windows OS, but there was no mouse or keyboard support so I couldn't hit return to log in to Windows. On my wife's machine, the return key worked, but then it said I needed Windows Authentication and promptly did nothing. So both installs are stuck at those points. Royal pain in the butt! Anyone have any suggestions?
_________________
Retired: Altair 8800, PET, TI 99/4A, Apple II
Mac Plus, Mac II, Mac SE/30, Quadra,
20th Anniversary Mac, iMac Purple, G4 Blue & White, iBook Clamshell
Active: Mac Mini (OCT 09) 4 GB RAM, 2.66 GHz, 500 GB HDD

[DonCarlos]

[b]digitalbow. Sounds like you had to do some innovative things to get your system up and running. That's great you figured it out and I am glad you posted the procedures on your particular fix (Others benefit from the mistakes we make and the problems that get resolved).

Hope you like W7. I do. But I still spend 90 percent of my time on the mac side.

MacDSmith [/b] Wish I could help, but I am very unfamiliar with virtualization programs.

On the authenticate stuff with windows......it took me four attempts to "activate" my W7. Weird...... but the errors were with the Microsoft server (each had a different error and all referred to problems with the Microsoft server). Not sure if that's relevant to you or the situation though, in any event.

Hey All....someone out knows the answer to this stuff, so post your thoughts or solution(s).
_________________
'08 MacMini C2D/2.0/RAM4GB
HD:Hitachi 7200/16MB/500GB
OS:LION 10.7/WIN-7
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Magic mouse .
EXT. HD:Lacie D2Quadra-1TB. Firewire.
Monitors: SONY Bravia 32" and
Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP (Dell makes something right).