Somewhat similar to the Using Boot Camp to install Vista on your Mac walkthrough, this tutorial will take you every step of the way through installing Microsoft Windows 7 on your Intel Mac (running 10.5 or later), using Boot Camp.
Note: if you’d rather not dual boot OS X and Windows 7, you can always install Windows 7 in a virtual environment using Parallels Desktop 6.0 for Mac.
To install Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp you will need the following:
- All firmware updates installed on your Mac (use Apple Button -> Software Update… to check)
- A Windows 7 installation DVD
- Your OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard installation DVD
- Around 30GB of empty hard drive space on your Mac. You can probably get away allocating less than 30GB to Windows 7, but it will leave very little room to install anything in Windows.
- An hour 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. Because part of the process involves partitioning your drive, there’s always the distinct chance something will go wrong and everything will be wiped out.
- Patience, possibly a great deal of it. Having a book handy will also help kill time during the partitioning, installing etc).
Installing Windows 7 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.
- Click Continue on the initial Introduction screen. Ignore the fact that it doesn’t mention Windows 7 as a possible OS to install.
- Now you have to decide how much space you want to allocate to Windows 7. You might be able to get away with going as low as 10GB, 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 16GB to use after installing Windows 7.
To change the amount of space to dedicate to Windows 7, click the small divider between Mac OS X and Windows, and drag it to the left.
- Once you’ve determined how much space you want to allocate to Windows 7, click the Partition button.
- The partitioning itself doesn’t take particularly long. If you receive an error, proceed to step 10 of the “How to install Vista with Boot Camp” tutorial. It provides all the troubleshooting info you need to resolve partitioning issues. Once you’ve cleared up any problems, or if everything just goes smoothly, proceed with the next step in this tutorial.
- Once completed you’ll notice a new BOOTCAMP drive on your desktop.
- Now insert your Windows 7 DVD and click the Start Installation button.
- Your Mac will restart, and Windows 7 will boot. You’ll be prompted with a window asking you which partition you want to install Windows on. Select the one with BOOTCAMP in the Name column. Selecting anything else may wipe out OS X or cause serious problems. Then select the Drive options (advanced) link.
- With the BOOTCAMP volume still selected, click the Format link.
- Click OK.
- And Windows 7 will begin to install. It’s a fairly boring process, so you may want to grab yourself a cup of coffee or your beverage of choice. But don’t go too far away, because when your system reboots, you’ll need to remove the Windows 7 DVD.
- With the Windows 7 DVD removed, your Mac will automatically boot back into Windows 7, and the installation will complete. You’ll be prompted to select your language, keyboard layout etc. The rest of the Windows 7 installation process is very straight forward.
- Once the installation has completed and your Mac has restarted again, you’ll be able to use Windows 7. WiFi will work immediately (no drivers to install) so connect to the Internet. Windows 7 will then begin to download updates, including the proper video card driver. Let it do its thing.
- Once completed, you’ll be prompted to reboot yet again. Do so.
- Once Windows 7 boots back up again, you’ll notice the resolution is much better, and you can enable the advanced graphics features.
- But if you check for sound, you’ll notice there are no sound drivers installed.
- Insert your OS X Leopard (or Snow Leopard) DVD. When prompted, select Run setup.exe. Note: If you’re using Snow Leopard and a message pops up saying “Remote Install Mac OS X”, close that window and eject the CD. Put the CD in again and this time select “Open folder to view files”, navigate to the Bootcamp folder, and run setup.exe.
- The Boot Camp installer will launch. Click Next to begin.
- Select I accept the terms in the license agreement and then click Next again.
- Make sure that Apple Software Update for Windows is checked, and click Install.
- The Boot Camp installer will do its thing, and install all the required drivers.
- Notifications will pop up with each driver that gets installed.
- Once completed, click Finish.
- And yet again you’ll be prompted to reboot. Remove your OS X Leopard DVD from the drive, and click Yes to restart.
- At this point most of the hardware on your Mac should be working in Windows. However, some iMacs and MacBook Pro’s will have to update to the 3.1 version of Boot Camp for Windows. To do so, just follow the few steps in this tutorial.
- Note: If you still have problems with sound not working, you’ll need to install the Realtek drivers. This tutorial will explain what to do.
- That’s it, you’re done! When your Mac boots, hold down the Option key to select which Operating System you want to boot into.
Wifi won’t work, so I can’t download the drivers I need. Where can I find the network drivers?
thanks so much, really helped me.
I already done this but after I activated the Windows,I cant boot anymore to it. What must be the problem?
How do I re-adjust the size of the partition for Windows??
thanks a lot, it perfectly works…
I have followed all the steps successfully until I click on the install button and when the win 7 disk boots I get a black screen with a dos prompt. Apple will not help as well a microsoft. Does anyone have a fix for this issue.
IMac 20-inch, Mid 2007
2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
2 GB 677 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Os Lion 10.7.1
Ok. I have successful done this without any error, but boot option at the beginning isn’t appears.. I have try to hold down the option key and command key but nothing I get a white screen and after 2-3 seconds it’s boots on windows 7… Any ideas??
thank u very very much
Awesome guide, worked great for me except i had the ‘wifi’ problem too.
*+*+*+* LION USER’S *+*+*+*
Once Windows 7 re-boots itself and logs you back in (when the screen still has bad resolution) you need to manually eject the Installation CD if you haven’t already. (eject button doesn’t work as the Apple keyboard has yet to be configured).
Then insert your ‘Hard Disk Partition Windows Setting Software” that you burned to a CD/DVD/USB device and it will auto-run. Click OK and let it do its thing…
Once complete, do another re-boot and as outlined above the resolution will change and the ‘wifi’ & ‘ethernet’ will work and any updates needed will start.
This step (for users who brought the mac with Lion already installed) will automatically do all the sound drivers etc that required the SL disc in the steps mentioned above.
Problem solved and Windows 7 will be properly installed.
This was a great help. Thank-you!
Please let me know how to instal wireless drivers?
the sreen goes blank after the istallation?
this is probably a dumb question but where can i get a
Hard Disk Partition Windows Setting Software
Thanks Sam Hardy! That helped a lot, as my WiFi didn’t work when I installed. Having said that, I’m not using Lion, so I presume it effects a lot more than just Lion users. I just used my Mac OSX install disc to install the windows drivers. Loaded the DVD, ran the setup.exe and it installed EVERYTHING for me. Very easy.
Also, as a note. The Tutorial seems to be based on installing Win7 home or something. I partitioned my drive for 25GB and when I installed Win7 (ultimate) it took up 24GB!! So I only had a gig left. So ultimate takes up a lot more space. I had to delete the partition and start again. Time consuming, but atleast once you do it you realize how easy it is.
Thank you so much!! This helped me through the (long and tedious) process. Much appreciated!!!!
To get wireless drivers and update widows, you may need to use an ethernet cable to connect to the internet.
This is the PERFECT guide!! Thank you so much!! x
thank you for the advice, I’m downloading bootcamp 3.3
Grate thanks very much
Simply superb guidance. More than perfect. Thank you. Works perfectly.