An illustrated guide to Boot Camp and Windows 7

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for TUAW to introduce our illustrated guide to installing Windows 7 with Boot Camp. Windows? On a Mac? Blasphemy! Yes, yes... we hear you, but we could argue the pros and cons to having Windows on a Mac all day. So, let's just get to the installation process. Be warned, it's a lot of pictures and step-by-step information. It's not necessarily a "fun" read, unless you want to make fun of how I click a button...

This guide is intended to be an illustrated step-by-step tutorial from start to finish. The first step is opening the Boot Camp Assistant. It can be found in Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant.

Here you'll see the opening window of the Assistant. Feel free to print out the guide that Apple offers you here (It's 13 pages). If you're able to follow along with this guide, don't worry about it and save the paper.

In this step, you are creating the separate partitions for each OS. My Snow Leopard partition was more than half of the available space on the drive, so it didn't allow me to choose the "Divide Equally" option. Instead, I chose the "Use 32 GB" option because I don't need a whole lot of space for my Windows partition. You can also drag the divider to whatever size you would prefer.

After the drive is done partitioning, the assistant gives you the option to start the installation now or quit and install later. If you're ready to go, pop the Windows 7 DVD into your optical drive and click the "Start Installation" button. Your Mac will shut down and boot to the installation DVD.

Apologies in advance for the not-so-awesome iPhone pictures of the Windows side. Unfortunately, I don't know of a screen capture solution for the installation of Windows 7. Here the installation is obviously gathering the necessary files from the DVD and getting ready to help you cheat on your Mac.

Still loading files... I'm not gonna lie, I find the new start sequence artistically appealing. The way the logo glows makes me want to stare at it. I like shiny things.

Right before this, you're given the option to select a language - that's up to you. Here, just press the "Install now" button.

PLEASE read the license terms for the software, every single word. It will save your life. When you are done, click the check box next to "I accept the license terms." If you do not agree with them, take the DVD, throw it in the trash, restart the computer, hold down the option key, and select Macintosh HD at startup.

Theoretically, you're doing a fresh installation of Windows 7. In that case, select the "Custom (advanced)" installation. Considering you don't have any files on your Boot Camp partition at the moment, this is the best option. You could however start the upgrade process from here if you already have Vista installed on your machine.

Select the Boot Camp partition and choose "Drive options (advanced)."

Since there isn't any information on the Boot Camp partition at the moment, you can feel safe pressing "OK" here. It's not a bad idea to double check that you have the Boot Camp partition selected before doing so. We don't want anyone overwriting the Mac partition by mistake.

After you format the drive, you'll click next... The installer copies the necessary files into place and then unpacks the actual files from DVD to the Boot Camp partition.

During the installation process, the computer will restart several times. Unfortunately, you'll need to hold down the option key each time it restarts so that you make sure it boots into Windows and not the Mac OS. In my attempts, the boot manager would always default to the Mac OS instead of Windows.

When you're holding the option key, you'll see the boot manager appear. At the left, you should see your hard drive (I have a custom icon on mine) in the center is the Boot Camp or "Windows" partition and on the right, you'll see the installation DVD. We don't need to boot to the installation DVD at this point... just the "Windows" partition so it can finish the installation.

After it finishes the last few steps in the installation process, Windows 7 restarts your computer again. Don't forget to hold down the option key as it's starting. Select "Windows" again and it'll bring you to the next step.

On first boot, Windows 7 does a few things to test your computer... It's obviously looking for the necessary drivers to allow your computer to run. It's also checking your video card to see what resolution it can use for the OS. You would obviously want to use the Snow Leopard DVD to install the drivers after we're done here... but it still needs to know what to do for the first boot.

Once it's done with tests, Windows 7 kicks you into the User account setup shown here. You have to create a user name and computer name so that you can take advantage of all the features of the Windows 7 Operating System. Click "Next."

You'd be silly not to have a password on your computer in general... so type one in. You can leave it blank if you really want to.

Now for the fun part! Yes, that 25-digit alphanumeric Product Key needs to entered here. As it states, the dashes are added automatically. I took the picture before I typed my Product Key for obvious reasons.

In this step, you choose how Windows 7 protects your computer. If you use recommended settings, it automatically turns on Windows Firewall, Windows Defender, Automatic Updates, and a few other things. I'd recommend using the default settings and then digging into them more from the Control Panel later. Deciding now will not permanently determine these settings, you can always change them.

Select your time zone and make sure that the date and time is set properly. Again, you can always change this later.

If you are within range of a wireless network, it will show it here. If you're wired, it will also give you an option to set up your network. At the bottom left, you can enter the details of your network if you have chosen to hide your SSID.

After you connect to your network, it will ask you what type of network you have connected. The choices are fairly obvious. If you are at home, choose "Home network." Each level of unfamiliarity will add more security to your network settings. As it suggests, don't choose "Home Network" if you're sitting in a coffee shop.

My house is both Mac and PC so I can work on varying projects. Windows 7 setup automatically detected other Windows 7 machines on my network that were part of a homegroup. Homegroups exist to easily share content between computers on a home network. I use Windows 7 Media Center as a DVR for all of my TV. I can then stream that recorded TV show to any other Windows box in the house.

I could do this in previous versions of Windows by messing with a lot of sharing settings and having access to the TV show files... but Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction here. By entering my homegroup password, I can have it do all of the grunt work and it shows up under "Shared TV" on all of my Windows boxes in the house. (No, I'm not in love with Windows 7... both platforms do some things very nicely, and this is really the only aspect of Windows I like.)

That's it! It is finalizing all of the settings that you just inserted in the last few steps.

Welcome to Windows 7! Now it's time to insert your Snow Leopard DVD and install the Apple Drivers for Boot Camp. There are probably more current drivers for your video card depending on the machine. Check with nVidia or ATI for that information. Other than that, run Software Update and get through all of your user account customizations. Personally, I can't stand the UAC notifications so I disable those right away.

After a few customizations of Windows 7, I feel right at home. Thanks to Object Dock, I can get essentially the same look and feel of the Mac OS dock on the Windows platform. Hope you enjoyed the walkthrough... I know it was a lot, but there's a long process to the Windows installation. Plus one for Apple and their easy installs!

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Source: http://www.apple.com/macosx/compatibility/

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Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for TUAW to introduce our illustrated guide to installing Windows 7 with Boot Camp. Windows? On a...

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nick

Trying to use BootCamp with Windows 7 Proff + new 27" iMac i5 8Gb Ram - install goes fine but screen goes black after 1st reboot of Windows following the final initial auto config of Windows. Have tried boot from Win disks and checked the repair function in safety mode - says no problem. Is there a video compatibility problem with Win 7 and the Mac card in the new iMac i5?

December 23 2009 at 4:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

nick

As much as I liked your "bonhomy" approach, as I have now tried 6 times to unsuccessfully install windows 7 on my brand new i5 Mac only to be faced with a big black 27" nothing after the initial configuration, I feel a certain bereavity would be due. The installation process was floorless but just don't seem to work.

December 22 2009 at 1:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

sean

i have XP running on my Mac Pro on a separate internal HD just for XP. my copy of XP came from a version of Virtual PC i bought a long time ago. so i don't technically have an XP disk, but i do have the disk image. i bought the $50 upgrade to Windows Home Premium but i haven't opened it. i was waiting for Boot Camp to officially support W7. but this article makes me think i can do it now anyway.

am i going to need an XP installation disk or will W7 just recognize that it's upgrading the version that is already running? TIA.

it's crummy that i can't use this on my Macbook in Parallels, too. i probably switch over to Windows about once every 2 months for some work in SPSS and then right back to the Mac. i guess the Macbook and Parallels will go without . . . it's nice for Ubuntu though.

November 05 2009 at 12:01 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Martin

Interesting guide, two questions popped up:

1. I have a new MBP 15" where you can switch between the two
graphic cards. Is that possible in boot camp with win7?

2. If you choose the partition to be 32gb, how much space will
there be left after the installation of win7?

November 04 2009 at 4:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Alain

I have followed these steps in order and found it pretty easy to do, but i ran into an issue that i seam to be asking myself if anyone else has run into, Once windows7 was up and running and i installed the bootcamp drivers from my snow leopard cd the volume only goes halfway and i've gone into every option to try to fix this and it doesn't work, any help?

November 03 2009 at 7:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mark

I have a new 27" IMac and want to install Windows on it strictly to run Quicken (the Feb. release for Quicken Mac sounds sketchy.)

1. Is it better to install Windows XP which I know works with Boot Camp and Qicken 2009 or go with Windows 7?

2. I don't have a Windows disk for XP but I can buy a "full retail box" for about $190 that will work with Parallels also. Is there a "full retail box" for Windows 7 ... all I see are upgrades.

Thanks for the help.

November 03 2009 at 5:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Mark's comment

Joseph

try crossover

November 04 2009 at 12:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

protojimmy

Anyone else notice that once you get all the drivers installed and get the ball rolling your Windows side is capable of reading and writing (oh no!) your Mac partition?
Windows 7 can now Read/Write/Execute from a HFS+ formatted disc.

This is nice in some ways, because iTunes on each partition can now have access to the same music seamlessly, however now I worry that if the protection on my Windows side should ever slip (viruses and malware, oh my!) it could find a way into my Mac OS filesystem.

Any recommendations on how to lock out 7 from writing to my HFS+ partition(s) so they remain safe?

November 02 2009 at 10:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dasher

I can't use the student Vista upgrade to do this can I?

November 02 2009 at 9:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Dasher's comment

petey

I am having a terrible time trying to get this to work. I've been at it for 12 hours so far with no luck.

January 03 2010 at 10:47 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan Mosqueda

I'm unclear if you can run VMWare Fusion and Boot Camp with one Win7 disk. Is this why some folks were discussing the "Family Pack" from NewEgg?

If I just run VMWare Fusion 3 will everything work normal? I do have a brand new MacMini with 4GB RAM and 320 GB hard drive.

November 02 2009 at 7:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

William

"Select the Boot Camp partition and choose "Drive options (advanced).""

"Since there isn't any information on the Boot Camp partition at the moment, you can feel safe pressing "OK" here. It's not a bad idea to double check that you have the Boot Camp partition selected before doing so. We don't want anyone overwriting the Mac partition by mistake."

Is there a step missing between those two? Once you click "Drive options (advanced)" does it not then give you options?

November 02 2009 at 6:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to William's comment

Josh Carr

I could be wrong... but I believe that it just told me it was going to wipe that partition. There weren't any options as to how to format it. I was a little disappointed by that.

November 02 2009 at 6:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

William

That's interesting; I haven't yet done a clean install of Windows 7 on a Mac partition, but I have done at least 20 Windows 7 clean installs on PCs, and it always gives me options once I click the "Drive options (advanced)" button. Good to know though; thanks!

November 02 2009 at 6:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply