Filed under: Features, How-tos, Tips and tricks
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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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Eminemdrdre00 said 1:11PM on 11-02-2009
I did this with the beta weeks ago and it worked fine...but wouldn't it make sense to release this article after Apple releases the update that will "officially" support Windows 7?
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Eminemdrdre00 said 1:14PM on 11-02-2009
And why are you knocking Windows 7 for its install? My Snow Leopard upgrade took about an hour. Windows 7 took literally 20 minutes. Both OS's do a great job of walking you through easy setup wizards to get you up and running fast (once the OS is actually installed).
Patrick said 1:24PM on 11-02-2009
What do i do if don't have my snow leopard disk? It's at my dad and I can't get it for quite some time... Can I get the drivers any other way?
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fishbert said 8:23PM on 11-07-2009
I have been really liking Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro. Even to the extent that I signed up for the 14-day trial Zune Pass subscription... and I'm thinking of keeping it. I have no Zune, and have no intention of getting one, but the Zune 4.0 desktop software is really really good. I wish they'd release a version for Mac (fingers crossed), and I really wish Apple would let me throw Zune Pass music on my iPhone (not holding my breath).
That said, does anyone know if Boot Camp will let you resize your Windows partition without destroying data? I wasn't expecting to use it as much as I have been, so it's a little small at the moment.
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Brian Allen said 1:31PM on 11-02-2009
It can be resize, but the Windows' side is destroyed in the process.
codeman38 said 2:31PM on 11-02-2009
You can use a freeware app called Winclone to back up your Windows partition, either to your Mac partition or to an external drive. This backup can then be restored after resizing. I did this a while back, and it works quite well.
http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/
Brian Allen said 1:33PM on 11-02-2009
I believe the drivers are already on the hard drive and you don't need your Snow Leopard disk.
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Dave said 1:45PM on 11-02-2009
How do you change the icons on the boot screen? I would like to change mine.
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MikeWard1701 said 4:39PM on 11-02-2009
I second that question :)
ProtoJimmy said 10:22PM on 11-02-2009
You can change the icon for your Macintosh HD fairly easily;
it's done the same as always: [Right Click] > [Get Info] on your HDD, then copy and paste an icon or PNG image into it's icon, and viola! If you change your mind you can click on the icon in the [Get Info] screen and click [delete].
But, there's a somewhat annoying catch, you cannot change the icon for your Windows partition in the bootloader. It's always the default.
Even if you change the way the icon will appear in Mac OS X (there are ways to do this, there are guides, google it :-) ) it'll be the default in the bootloader.
Howie Isaacks said 1:50PM on 11-02-2009
Very nice. I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate this.
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asif said 1:51PM on 11-02-2009
I installed Win7 on my iMac 27" yesterday, there's one well-known issue to do with display drivers and a BSOD during install. This link has the solution: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10501569
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Pete R said 1:51PM on 11-02-2009
If you have probs installing the Apple drivers, make sure you install them as Administrator. You'd think that if you're the only user that you would be granted Admin privileges - that's what I thought. But after going two days w/out sound, I stumbled on this hint - find the setup.exe app on the SL disk (either default or the 64-bit version) . RIGHT-CLICK on it and select Install as Administrator. Drivers installed properly after that.
btw, I was installing Win7 64-bit on a 2008 Macbook running SL. Other than the sound glitch and occasional reboots to activate the anti-virus software, Win 7 runs fine
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sim72 said 1:56PM on 11-02-2009
Two questions --
1. How much will it cost to buy Windows 7? I can't buy an upgrade, correct? I'll need a new version?
2. If I buy Windows 7, can I put it on my machine and my husband's machine? Or do I need to buy two copies?
I don't really want to use Windows, but the Mac version of Excel doesn't support VBA, and its Solver isn't very robust. I think we need to use the Windows version of Excel -- and the only way to get that is to install Windows on our machines.
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Mr Lizard said 1:59PM on 11-02-2009
1. Google is your friend.
2. The EULA (for what it's worth) lets you use it on one computer. It'll need to be activated within 30 days which makes sure you can't use it on two.
chip said 3:18PM on 11-02-2009
Also, non 3D applications take fairly well to virtualization. Perhaps you could try Parallels, VMWare or Crossover.
Brian Allen said 3:16PM on 11-02-2009
The Windows 7 family pack will cover you for up to 3 users.
Alan said 3:52PM on 11-02-2009
A vote for Virtual Box here and any Windows version. Very reliable with 7 and XP, provided you have the RAM to support it (3 GB or more)
Swimatm said 3:52PM on 11-02-2009
1. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754
2. The Family Pack takes care of that. It's a fabulous deal by the way, and it's only available for a limited time.
Joseph said 1:56PM on 11-02-2009
Doesn't this feel a little sacrilegious?
I went to Microsoft's Apple Store this past weekend. I hesitated for like 10 minutes before entering and exposing my son to it.
I run the IT at my work and love Win 7 for PC users, and even am running it on a VM, but have no desire to run it as a boot camp partition. I think i would feel like my machine was tainted. Actually, I just don't like the idea of committing precious disk space since I am also the art director and need that space for my design files and photos.
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