This walkthrough will take you through every step of installing Microsoft Windows Vista on your Intel Mac (running 10.5 or later), using Boot Camp. It will cover a number of possible errors that you may encounter, and how to get around them. Each time I bring up an error I will explain in detail what you’ll need to do to resolve the issue and continue installing Vista. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the time and effort (for example, you may need to completely wipe your hard drive clean and restore from a Time Machine backup). It’s also possible that everything will go perfectly smoothly and you’ll wonder why you even needed a guide.
To install Vista on your Mac you will need the following:
- All firmware updates installed on your Mac (use Apple Button -> Software Update… to check)
- A Vista installation DVD (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business or Ultimate)
- Your OS X Leopard installation DVD
- At least 10GB of empty hard drive space on your Mac (you can probably get away with less but you’ll have almost no room to install anything other than the OS)
- An hour and a half if all goes well, up to 5 hours if not
- Though not absolutely required, it’s a VERY good idea to have a complete and up to date Time Machine backup of OS X - it really came in handy for me
- Patience, possibly a great deal of it. Having a book handy will also help kill time during the partitioning, installing etc).
Installing Vista via Boot Camp
- Here goes. First thing - close absolutely every open program you can. That includes those things running in the Apple Menu that you always forget about. Don’t worry about killing the Dock or Dashboard - having those running is fine.
- Now open a Finder and navigate to Applications -> Utilities and double-click Boot Camp Assistant.
- It’s not a bad idea to have the Setup Guide handy, just in case you need it. Click the Print Installation & Setup Guide button.
- Click OK
- If you have another computer around, and would like to save half a tree (printing the guide will use 20-something pages) - select the PDF button and choose Save as PDF…. Alternately, you can download it here.
- If you don’t want to download my copy, enter the appropriate info (most importantly, the download location so you can find it) and click Save. Transfer the PDF to your other PC/Mac so you can access it while actually installing Vista.
- Back at the Introduction page of the Boot Camp Assistant, click Continue. Now you have to decide how much space you want to allocate to Windows Vista. You might be able to get away with going as low as 6GB, but I would highly advise against it. You’ll have almost no space left over to install software, and your page file in Windows might cause frequent crashes. I opted for 20GB, which left me with just a bit over 15GB to use after installing Windows Vista Ultimate and upgrading to SP1.
To change the amount of space to dedicate to Vista, click the small divider between Mac OS X and Windows, and drag it to the left.
- When you’re happy with the amount of space that Vista will have, click Partition.
- Watch the little status indicator..
- and hold your breath that no errors occur. If you’re presented with a Start Windows Installation screen, proceed with step #11 below (and consider yourself very lucky). If you get an error, keep reading.
The most common error is that OS X couldn’t move a file and the partition could not be created. There are a couple of things that could be wrong, and I’ll outline how to fix them from the fastest method to the longest method. Cross your fingers that the fastest one will resolve your problem.
Close out of the Boot Camp Assistant and launch the Disk Utility by selecting Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
Select your Mac drive, or the partition you were trying to install Boot Camp on (if you have more than one). Click the Verify Disk Permissions button, then the Repair Disk Permissions button. Once that’s done, click the Verify Disk button, then the Repair Disk button if it’s available.
Now go back to step #1 and try it all over again (except you don’t need to print out the PDF twice). If you were able to create the partition, excellent, continue with step #11. If you got the same “can’t move file” error, download and install OnyX. Once installed, launch it (you’ll probably be prompted for your password) and select the Maintenance tab. Click the Execute button and wait.
Once again, go back to step #1 and start all over again. If it worked this time, excellent, proceed to step #11. If it didn’t, you have another couple of choices. Neither is much fun. First, you can purchase defragging software (I’m not aware of any that are free/open source) such as iDefrag and hope that it resolves your problem (it might not). Second - and this is what I opted to do - re-install OS X by formatting the entire drive (all data will be lost), run software update to get all the firmware updates, install Vista via Boot Camp, and then restore OS X from a Time Machine backup. Like I said, not great choices. If you do decide to go the format and re-install route, I’ll outline it with a few more details -
- Know that you might lose all of your data. Time Machine could fail, your roommate might decide now would be a good time to smash your backup drive - any number of problems could occur. This is my way of saying that I will NOT be held responsible if this method causes you all kinds of nightmares. With all of that said, it worked perfectly fine for me.
- Make sure you have a 100% up to date Time Machine backup. Open Time Machine and select Back Up Now. If you opted not to back up certain folders, make sure you have the contents of those folders backed up - or remove them from the “don’t back these folders up” section of Time Machine.
- Put your OS X Leopard DVD in your DVD drive, and restart your Mac.
- Hold down the c key as your Mac restarts - this will force your Mac to boot from the DVD rather than the hard drive.
- Follow the walk-through to install OS X. Make sure you select the “format this drive then install OS X” option
- Once you’ve re-installed OS X, start your Mac and run the Software Update to make sure everything is up to date. Once completed, you’ll be prompted to reboot. Do so.
- Once again, run the Boot Camp Assistant. This time you should have no problems at all
- Carry on with step #11 below, and once you’ve completely finished installing Vista, perform a Time Machine restore. To do so, boot from the OS X DVD (hold down c as your Mac starts up) and from the Utilities menu, select Restore from Time Machine (or something like that, I forget right now). Let Time Machine do its thing (boring, takes forever) and once it’s done, reboot yet again. You’ll finally have a dual boot Mac w/ Vista and OS X.
- Alright, time to install Vista. Put your Vista DVD in your DVD drive and click Start Installation.
- A bunch of things will happen on their own. Don’t interfere with them. You’ll eventually land at a screen asking where you want to install Windows. Make sure, and I mean make sure you select the BOOTCAMP partition. Selecting anything else is going to force you to re-install OS X, and unless you have a recent Time Machine backup, you’ll lose all of your data.
Now click the Drive options (advanced) link/button. Click Format and once it’s done, click OK. Now you can click Next.
- Now Vista will install. It takes a while and it’s not particularly entertaining. Vista will restart itself at least once during the installation. If by some chance - and this shouldn’t happen - when Vista restarts itself, and you end out back in OS X instead of Vista, restart again and this time hold down the Option key as your Mac starts. You’ll be presented with a number of drive icons to choose from. Double-click the Windows icon.
And now Vista has finished installing, you’ve setup your “account” in Vista, and you think you’re done. You’re not. Eject you Vista DVD from your DVD drive (if you have problems ejecting it go to the Computer view in Vista, click once on your DVD drive, and then select the Eject link that will show up in the menu. Now pop in your OS X Leopard DVD. You’ll be prompted “Install or run program” - click the Run setup.exe button.
- You might be told that a system restart is pending and you can’t install anything yet. I never said this was a short process. Restart your Mac and make sure to boot into Vista.
- This time when you Run setup.exe you’ll get the “Welcome to the Boot Camp installer” screen. Click Next.
- Place a check in the “I agree” part, and click Next.
- Make sure Apple Software Update for Windows is selected, and click Install.
- Sit back and watch. Don’t interfere. Your screen may flicker, ignore it.
- Also ignore any pop-ups that might appear in your System tray.
- Almost done..
- And now you’re done. Click Finish.
- Restart yet again.
- Note: when Vista boots, you might encounter a couple screens full of error messages (Unrecognized partition table for for drive 80, can’t boot from NTLDR from drive=0×80 etc). Ignore them, and let Vista continue to boot. I have a (bad) camera phone picture of some of the errors below.
- This time when Vista starts, you’ll notice a new icon in the System tray - it’s the Boot Camp software. Click it once and a pop-up menu will appear. Select Boot Camp Control Panel….
- On the first tab, Startup Disk you can select which Operating System you want to boot into by default. Just high-light the one you want - but remember - you can also choose to boot to the other OS by holding down the Option key while your Mac starts. Note: you can also define which OS you want to boot into by default in your Mac. Just select the Startup Disk option in your System Preferences.
- Click the Brightness tab to adjust - you got it - the screen brightness.
- Click the Remote tab. From here you can disable or enable the use of a remote infrared receiver. Your choice.
- Select the Keyboard tab to make some keyboard changes. Boring.
- And finally, select the Power tab. Do you want to automatically restart after a power failure? Here’s where you decide. When you’re done reviewing all of the Boot Camp Control Panel options, click OK.
- And one last thing. Remember - no matter which Operating System, Vista or OS X, you decide to have as the one you automatically boot into when your Mac is turned on, you can select the other one by holding down the Option key as your Mac starts.
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thanks so much
Great walkthrough on installing Vista w/ Boot Camp. Would of freaked a couple of times w/o the guidance.
That was so incredibly helpful — thank you so much.
Very helpful! Thanks
Everything works great, but when I try to install the drivers with the Leopard DVD, when i insert the disc, nothing happens and it CONTINUOSLY ejects it automatically after a few seconds of trying to read it. I also tried putting in the Tiger 10.4 DVD. Vista reads that perfectly but i dont get any .exe file. and I cant install any drivers…i.e sound, isight, graphics. PLease help…
Very nice job, Ross. Your instructions worked flawlessly for me. Thanks for taking the time to put this together and for doing such a thorough job.
Great instructions. You should be writing a “how to” book. My problem on a MacPro 8 -core Leopard machine is that I lose all mouse control in the Vista installer and so cannot finish the steps. Any ideas??????
Great write up. Would have taken me a huge lot of time longer without this. Worked exactly as you described.
I have a small problem. My disk partition with Mac OS X on doesn´t show in the “computer” folder in Vista. Anybody know why? This gives me very little disk space when I´m running windows..
This is the best ever “how to” I just love it.
thank you much for all your hard work. I deeply appreciate what you did for us.
Here’s a good one for you!
I am upgrading the Hard Disk of a macbook pro with dual Leopard/Vista.
I did a complete PC backup (of the windows partition only, of course) using Vista’s utilities.
I put the larger disk in, Installed Leopard and fully recovered my OSx partition using Time Machine
The Vista recovery need you to boot from the original installation DVD and do a repair instead of sn install. The repair asks for the backup DVD, but there is no way, apparently, to eject the installation DVD to insert the backup DVD and proceed. Any ideas?
Great guide. Cheers.
Little problem with my install though - it seems I get the same error screens and the space taken up by expanding files during install (up to 15G) is still taken up when I finish - ie I have just under 5G left on a 20G hard drive when I finish?!!
Any ideas?
Cheers
C
You saved me. I just got a mac and have a final in just under a week and the exam software only works in Windows. Everything worked great. And I am officially computer retarded.
Amazing. Fully-illustrated walkthrough. Thank you very much.
Brilliant guide !
Encountered no probs at all.
thx, i didn’t know u have to press format button when chosing drives, i had to restart computer 4 times b4 i figured out by checkin out ur website. once again THX UR SITE HELPED ME OUT ALOOOOOOTTT!!!
One word: MegaAwesome!
i cant find boot camp!! i looked in applications, and then all over utilities! i feel like i failed- didnt even get past step 1
I LOVE YOU!!!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!
WORKED PERFECTLY!!!
Thanks!!
Awesome!! Works perfectly… internet, airtunes, itunes, bluetooth, software and external hard drive which was formatted to be read on both systems. Everything I use on a mac really. But nothing beats Mac OS
This was great all went great apart from one thing. i cannot print in vista business. Please can anyone help on this?????
Thanks
Thank you for this wonderful guide!
Cheers!
Any chance you could tell me is it possible to install vista in bootcamp when I have downloaded vista into the bootcamp partition
Thank You, you’re really helped me .. =)
This by far is one of the best walk throughs I have ever come across
This was very nice to have along side the Apple Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide during my first Boot Camp install (new aluminum macbook pro, Leopard 10.5.5, with latest Boot Camp). Everything worked! No problems except for my temporary panic on how to eject the Vista DVD until I read the fine print. One improvement you and Apple both could make though: there is a lot of upset web ramblings about Vista sp1 breaking Boot Camp/Parallels installations…so I am reluctant to apply any Vista hotfixes and security updates at all, and especially sp1. A list of the KBxxxxxx’s that are safe to install after a Boot Camp installation would be absolutely wonderful to have.
What versions of Boot Camp &c that _are_ safe with sp1 would help, too.
Alright, I followed your instructions and I am using Windows Vista SP1. It’s the full version and is activated. I have 3 problems though.
1) I really want to get rid of the start up error, the one you get when booting up the laptop, there is a way and I really want to know how.
2) This is a major problem for me, when I install the Vista, I cannot find any networks, nothing is listed in the networks place, and I am sure that I’ve got internet because it works on the Leopard side (which I am using right now). I’ve been trying to find a solution and I just can’t. I’ve used a Leopard CD and I have installed the drivers given, but for some reason, still no internet. Maybe I am missing drivers that might have been excluded from the disk? I don’t know, please help!
3) Relates to problem 2, I installed the drivers on an Leopard CD and not the one given to me with the MacBook. Reason is because when I pop in the one given from the MacBook, it doesn’t give me a Boot Camp option thing. So yeah.
Remember: I have the new Aluminum MacBook Pro’s and I don’t know if there might be a problem there, so can you please help me out?
Nice how to though, it helped me a lot.
Is it really true that theres no sulution for the boot errors you mention in step 23.?
(Unrecognized partition table for for drive 80, can’t boot from NTLDR from drive=0×80 etc)
They’re driving me mad!
Thanks.
I can get as far as actually being able to run Vista, but when I try to run the OS X disc, the only thing it does is try to connect my MacBook Air to the internet… I don’t have a MacBook Air.
Nothing about Boot Camp appears, though. Any thoughts? I obviously have no clue what I’m doing with computers, so I ‘ve got no idea what to do about it.
Lauren,
I don’t know exactly what you mean, but when you insert the Leopard-DVD, you have to go to ‘Computer’ in Vista, then right-click the DVD, and then choose Explore. Then go to the folder called Boot Camp and run setup.exe.
Here is how to fix the vista boot warning message.
http://www.lancelhoff.com/2008/09/29/unrecognized-partition-table-for-drive-80/
I LOVE YOU!!!!
THANKS!!!
thanks for the guide, i had it down i thought but had no idea bout the bootcamp on windows. thanks for the tutorial.
when you restart after installing the bootcamp drivers… take note to hold teh option key and reboot to win.. i just allowed a restart and then my mac got stuck in a loop of reading the disk, trying to load mac os and flashing a question mark.
Hello there
This walk trough is amazing, Thanks a lot.
But i was wondering if there is a way to get rid of all those error messages? The once that show up when you start up Vista, i dont want them. Is there a way to get rid of it?
Any Ideas.
Thank you!
Amazing
Thank you SOO much
The walk through was easy and extremely well done.
I encountered only one problem which was related to ejecting the dvd under the Vista installation. I just shut down and restarted and it restarted under Vista which let me eject the DVD then.
The rest was perfect.
Thank you again for making this excellent tutorial.
I own a vacation rental agency for Paris apartments. My computer died and had to buy a new one and so making it run immediately was of prime importance. You really help!
Katia
Paris Hideaways
So I get the same error at partition, and tried disk utility and onyx. Still no joy. I am nervous to defrag or reinstall the OS. Is it possible to Partition the HD by booting from the OSX DVD, format the new partionion with FAT then run Boot Camp?
This is an awesome walk through. Hate to say I still have a problem.
None of the installed Bootcamp drivers have installed.
I had two error messages during the install:
Service Key Agent failed to start
Service MacHal failed to start
I clicked ignore (as some suggest) and continued the install. Even tried repair as well as removing and reinstalling…
Upon rebooting, Vista can’t find our wireless system, nor do any of the keyboard comands, like sound, work.
The MacBook Pro OS 10.5 disks are about the newest available (have a source in a Mac sales.repair facility)
So what did I miss?
Your talking to a brain old enough to collect social security so go easy on me.
Will see to it that my next grandchild is named afer you if you can solve this problem.
Bob Ipcar
Brooklyn, NY
bipcar@gmail.com
This is great. However i am only getting so far. after i insert the vista home basic disk in the drive of my imac the computer restarts and goes to a black screen with a small white bar flashing in the top right corner of the screen and it stays there forever. Your tutorial said a bunch of things would happen not to interfere so i left it for hours.
Please help!!!’
What am i doing wrong?
Any ideas?
Thanks for your walkthrough it worked fine, but ive just tried to load a game on vista and realised i havent got enough space , how can i reallaocate the amount of space i have given to vista.
hi,i have just gotten a normal macbook recently and i found some difficulty in installing vista.an erroe stating”windows is unable to configure one or more components please click ok to restart and reinstall ” after clicking ok and waiting for a moment, after it restarts another error pops out,stating that the computer has restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error please restart and reinstall.when i click ok this same error keep popping out no matter how many times i restart.i need help asap as i m using the comp for studies and school term is starting real real soon.my computer is an aluminium macbook,has an 2.0hz processor,160gigs harddisk space and 4g ram.the partionalising part for vista i did divided equally. need help real fast please!
sorry for adding another comment,but for a folow up for the previous comment i made,the vista disk is perfectly fine and i have tested it on my other friend’s computer.the steps i took are also correct,the same as what are posted here or the print out of the installation drive and i have tried for 6 times with the same problem regardless if i use another disk or reinstall the mac osx operating system
Awesome! Thank you Thank you! This worked perfectly for my Vista install when I got stuck… Really, thank you!
A very helpful, step-by-step guide - thanks! It is great to have the screen shots as you go through.
My partition hung for about 2 hours the first time I tried (I had repaired disk permissions prior to this). I closed my computer and went to bed. The next morning I repaired disk permissions again, using first Disk Utility and then Onyx, and then tried again: the partition took about 5 minutes.
One thing I would add is that if you cancel the partition process, it will look like the hard drive space you’ve allocated for Windows has “disappeared”. Use Boot Camp itself to reformat and recover this “lost” space (the option will present itself when you open boot camp after the cancelled partition), and then start over again.
I LOVE YOU! THANKS SO MUCH!! I had windows for about a month before I figured out how to install it, thanks to you…I can finally do work!
You are my hero, thank you!
EXCELLENT WALKTHROUGH!!!!!!
Worked first time absolutely flawless
Well Done & Thankyou
help!?!?!
i got stuck on #13, after formatting an error saying at least 6000 something MB had to be available and there were at least 5GB available. I tried to format again and still the same error so I quit the install. Now… I can’t get back to the mac part and it shows a screen saying something about no bootable drive, please install disk.
what do i do to get back to the mac area OR do i try to re-install the vista disc and hope that i have not lost all of my mac data…
please please please help!!!! thank you!!!!
Hey thanks for the tutorial!
I was wondering if you could help me out though. After I partition and it restarts to install Vista it just sits there with a black screen and a small white line flashing in the upper left hand corner.
Any ideas?
Thanks again!
Thanks so much for that guide!
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