Now that we all have our beta copies of Windows 7 to play with, Ars thought it was time to take Vista's successor for a spin on the Apple side of the street. After all, it isn't every day that recent switchers and established users get to (legitimately) try out a copy of Windows for free, so we burned a couple of ISOs and got to work.
We covered all the major bases for our experiment, and just to keep things interesting, we worked on a unibody MacBook with those multi-touch trackpads that don't even play well with Vista yet. We installed both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 natively in Boot Camp, then moved on to virtualization with VMware Fusion 2 and Parallels Desktop 4 just for good measure.
- Download Apple laptop and netbook drivers or install DriverPack Solution for automatic driver update. Download Download DriverPack Online. Apple laptop and netbook drivers. Install drivers automatically. (Mid 2009) MacBookPro13,1. MacBook Pro (13' Early 2011) MacBook Pro (13' Early 2013) MacBook Pro (13.
- MAC MINI BOOT CAMP SUPPORT DOWNLOADS DIRECT LINKS FROM APPLE. If you own a Mac mini and you wanted to install Windows on it to run maybe some Windows software or games, Apple makes it possible by releasing Windows drivers which will allow Windows to run on your Mac computer.
Overall, things went well, but since this is a beta OS that is supported by exactly zero parties involved, there were naturally some drawbacks and a few dead-ends. We'll run through installation procedures and best practices, and share some general tips on what to look out for. Ultimately, we found that Windows 7 is definitely doable—even usable—on a Mac under the right circumstances, but 'beta' definitely means beta for now.
Boot Camp
It goes without saying that Boot Camp provides the best experience for running Windows on a Mac, so we started there. Apple offers full hardware and video support for XP and Vista via prepackaged drivers, so we told both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 versions to drop and give us 20.
Windows audio drivers for Windows 10 on a Mac Pro 2008. Benchmark results for the Mac Pro Early 2009 with an Intel Xeon X5570 processor can be found below. The data on this chart is gathered from user-submitted Geekbench 5 results from the Geekbench Browser. Resetting a Mac's.
First up was the stable 32-bit version. Despite Apple featuring 64-bit Core 2 Duo Intel chips across its Macs, the company still recommends and only provides drivers for the 32-bit flavor of Windows, so c'est la vie. If you don't already have a Boot Camp partition set up, the Boot Camp Assistant fortunately recognizes a Windows 7 install disc (despite specifying XP SP2 or a flavor of Vista). You can use the assistant to get started and jump into rebooting from your burned Windows 7 ISO to begin the installation.
For those who are already rocking XP or Vista on a partition, like we are on our MacBook (or on a second drive for Mac Pro owners), simply booting from the Windows 7 DVD to install over that partition will work fine as well. Either way, you can proceed with installing Windows 7 like any other version of Windows. Notably, our MacBook's multi-touch trackpad that can cause trouble in Vista works surprisingly well during the Windows setup. We could even mouse with one finger, leave that finger on the pad, and use our thumb to click buttons. WiFi worked during setup, and we were able to connect to our AirPort Extreme 802.11n station running WPA2 Personal/AES encryption.
Once you are in Windows, however, a number of components, including audio and right-clicking, may not work and Windows Update will probably be powerless to help. This is where Apple's Boot Camp drivers and a little elbow grease can help turn your Device Manager's frown upside down.
Drivers
To get started, toss in the Mac OS X install disc that came with your Mac (this is the preferred option over using a retail copy of Leopard) and run the Boot Camp installer. Audio and two-finger right-clicking should work after restarting (but not control-clicking), though two components in Device Manager on our MacBook—Coprocessor and SM Bus Controller—should still be driver-less. You can run Windows Update, but as of this writing, there are just a couple of small updates for Windows Media player and other random essentials available, nothing particularly crucial. Our machine seemed to perform fine with typical tasks like installing Firefox and running WMP, but a Windows Experience Index (WEI) of 2.9 said otherwise.
To fix any driver problems and get that WEI up to snuff, dig into your MacBook's Mac OS X install disc (right-click and choose 'Open in New Window'). For our MacBook's two aforementioned components, we browsed to Boot CampDriversNVidia (hat tip to this MacRumors thread). As long as you have a RAR utility installed, like WINRar, extract the NVidiaChipset.exe to a location of your choice and run the Setup.exe in that folder. After restarting, your Device Manager should report a clean set of components and your WEI should be a bit more favorable—ours is now 4.4.
Of course, we cannot account for every Mac configuration out there with this guide, but those driver folders are probably the best place to start if you have any other driver-less components or funky behavior. Audio on MacBooks and MacBook Pros has a tendency to stutter under Vista and Windows 7, for example, so manually installing RealTekSetup.exe in that Drivers folder seemed to fix our problem. Some people recommend downloading the High Definition Audio drivers directly from Realtek's site, but that actually killed our audio, at least on this latest-generation unibody MacBook. As usual, your mileage may vary.
From there you should be set to run Windows 7 32-bit in Boot Camp. A performance review is outside the scope of this piece, though we did note a few things while doing basic, everyday stuff. On the whole, Windows 7 feels notably faster than Vista Home Premium on our MacBook, though both IE8 and Firefox got a bit crashy after installing Flash 10. Games seem to run better as well, as we installed Steam and noticed that Half Life 2 performs better at 800x600 and even 1024 resolutions. Two-finger scrolling works in most apps, but not in some areas, such as file open/save dialogs.
Unfortunately, we did not have as much luck with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 on our MacBook. The OS installs fine, but we could not fix missing driver problems for audio, Coprocessor, and SM Bus Controller components, regardless of using Boot Camp or other manual installations. The out-of-box experience was also pretty shaky, as applications were noticeably more prone to crashing, and bizarre visual artifacts like menu shadows would linger on screen.
Again, your mileage may vary on a different Mac. But considering the 64-bit-related driver and software problems of Vista, it may be better to stick with Windows 7 32-bit for now if you're going the Boot Camp route. If you have a different experience, definitely do share in the comments.
When you install Microsoft Windows on your Mac, Boot Camp Assistant automatically opens the Boot Camp installer, which installs the latest Windows support software (drivers). If that doesn't happen, or you experience any of the following issues while using Windows on your Mac, follow the steps in this article.
- Your Apple mouse, trackpad, or keyboard isn't working in Windows.
Force Touch isn't designed to work in Windows. - You don't hear audio from the built-in speakers of your Mac in Windows.
- The built-in microphone or camera of your Mac isn't recognized in Windows.
- One or more screen resolutions are unavailable for your display in Windows.
- You can't adjust the brightness of your built-in display in Windows.
- You have issues with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in Windows.
- You get an alert that Apple Software Update has stopped working.
- You get a message that your PC has a driver or service that isn't ready for this version of Windows.
- Your Mac starts up to a black or blue screen after you install Windows.
If your Mac has an AMD video card and is having graphics issues in Windows, you might need to update your AMD graphics drivers instead.
Install the latest macOS updates
Before proceeding, install the latest macOS updates, which can include updates to Boot Camp.
Format a USB flash drive
To install the latest Windows support software, you need a 16GB or larger USB flash drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT).
- Start your Mac from macOS.
- Plug the USB flash drive into your Mac.
- Open Disk Utility, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Choose View > Show All Devices from the menu bar.
- From the sidebar in Disk Utility, select your USB flash drive. (Select the drive name, not the volume name beneath it.)
- Click the Erase button or tab.
- Choose MS-DOS (FAT) as the format and Master Boot Record as the scheme.
- Click Erase to format the drive. When done, quit Disk Utility.
Download the Windows support software
After preparing your USB flash drive, complete these steps:
- Make sure that your Mac is connected to the Internet.
- Open Boot Camp Assistant, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- From the menu bar at the top of your screen, choose Action > Download Windows Support Software, then choose your USB flash drive as the save destination. When the download completes, quit Boot Camp Assistant.
Learn what to do if you can't download or save the Windows support software.
Install the Windows support software
After downloading the Windows support software to your flash drive, follow these steps to install the software. (If you're attempting to resolve issues with a Bluetooth mouse or keyboard, it might be easier to use a USB mouse or keyboard until these steps are complete.)
- Make sure that the USB flash drive is plugged into your Mac.
- Start up your Mac in Windows.
- From File Explorer, open the USB flash drive, then open Setup or setup.exe, which is in the WindowsSupport folder or BootCamp folder. When you're asked to allow Boot Camp to make changes to your device, click Yes.
- Click Repair to begin installation. If you get an alert that the software hasn't passed Windows Logo testing, click Continue Anyway.
- After installation completes, click Finish, then click Yes when you're asked to restart your Mac.
Learn more
If you can't download or save the Windows support software:
- If the assistant says that the Windows support software could not be saved to the selected drive, or that the USB flash drive can't be used, make sure that your USB flash drive has a storage capacity of at least 16GB and is formatted correctly.
- If the assistant doesn't see your USB flash drive, click Go Back and make sure that the drive is connected directly to the USB port on your Mac—not to a display, hub, or keyboard. Disconnect and reconnect the drive, then click Continue.
- If the assistant says that it can't download the software because of a network problem, make sure that your Mac is connected to the Internet.
- Make sure that your Mac meets the system requirements to install Windows using Boot Camp.
Mac Driver 10
Hp Drivers For Mac
If a Mac feature still doesn't work after updating the Windows support software, search for your symptom on the Apple support website or Microsoft support website. Some features of your Mac aren't designed to work in Windows.